Book Review and GIVEAWAY: The Girl with Three Birthdays: An Adopted Daughter’s Memoir of Tiaras, Tough Truths, and Tall Tales, by Patti Eddington

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

“Did the fact that you were adopted have anything to do with you only having one child?” a friend asked me recently.

“Oh, gosh no,” I replied without even considering it.

Maybe it did, though. Maybe the adoption wasn’t a factor, but being adopted by my parents actually made more difference than I ever realized. Through no fault of theirs, they were so much older when they were able to bring me into their lives. Perhaps if they’d been younger, I’d still have been open to the possibility of taking on more responsibility during my own midlife years.

It’s thought-provoking. But it’s not something I mourn.

I had everything.

In the 1960s, a closed adoption was all that usually happened, so there was no question of Patti finding out about her life before she was an Eddington. After a happy childhood, she starts connecting with family members from her earlier life through the results of a DNA test on an ancestry site.

Official synopsis: 

Patti Eddington always knew she was adopted, and her beloved parents seemed amenable enough to questions—but she never wanted to hurt them by expressing curiosity, so she didn’t. The story of her mother cutting off and dying her hair when she was a toddler? She thought it was eccentric and funny, nothing more. When she discovered at fifteen that her birthday wasn’t actually her birthday? She believed it when her mother said she’d changed it to protect her from the “nosy old biddies” who might try to discover her identity.

It wasn’t until decades later, when a genealogy test led Patti to her biological family (including an aunt with a shocking story) and the discovery of yet another birthday, that she really began to integrate what she thought she knew about her origins. Determined to know the truth, she finally petitioned a court to unseal records that had been locked up for almost sixty years—and began to put the pieces of her past together, bit by painstaking bit.

Framed by a brief but poignant 1963 “Report of Investigation” based on a caseworker’s one-day visit to Patti’s childhood home, The Girl With Three Birthdays tells the story of an adoptee who always believed she was the answer to a couple’s seventeen-year journey to become parents, until a manila envelope from a rural county court arrived and caused her to question . . . everything.

The more Patti finds out about her life before her adoption, the more it leaves her with questions about the truths she accepted from the only people she ever knew as her parents. As her discoveries are all made after their deaths, Patti is left to connect the dots herself.

The story is told in an engaging manner that presents most of the character’s motivations as understandable. Since Patti learned more details of her past as an adult, she has the perspective and maturity to make sense of some choices that, in retrospect, may not have been in everyone’s best interests.

Overall, this was a quick read and an interesting memoir that tells of a life and experiences unique to this entertaining author. It earned 4 out of 5 stars and would be recommended to those who enjoy family dramas with a non-conventional spin.

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Becki Bayley is a daughter, sister, wife, and mother who enjoys reading when she isn’t busy taking care of those she loves. Check out some of their adventures on Instagram where she posts as SweetlyBSquared.

GIVEAWAY:

One of my lucky readers will win a copy of The Girl with Three Birthdays!

Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Monday, June 10th, at 11:59pm ET, and winner will be notified via email the next day, and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen.

U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!

The Girl with Three Birthdays: An Adopted Daughter’s Memoir of Tiaras, Tough Truths, and Tall Tales, by Patti Eddington