Rating: 
Summary: A valid but highly biased view of the adoption experience.
Review: "Journey of the Adopted Self: a Quest for Wholeness" provides the reader with an insightful view of how being adopted shapes one's perspective on life and, more importantly, one's development of "a self". I selected this book as the starting point to my own exploration of how my adoption contributed to the person I am today. I looked to this book to answer questions and bring validation for the feelings I was experiencing. However, I was greatly disappointed to find that Lifton's writing did not speak to my experience or my feelings at all. In fact, I often found myself becoming angry at the descriptions of adoptess as "hollow", "split", "traumatized", and "spirts without souls". I found these descriptions to be not only unfair but insulting as well. The reader is led to believe that these describe the feelings of all adoptees when they are really the experience of the author and the group of adoptees interviewed for the book. While Lifton does give a passionate account of how adoption shaped her, and other's lives, it surely is not representative of all adoptees. I find it sad that this book, and many others like it are being accepted as the authority on adoption experiences by those within, and outside of the adoption triad. Lifton and other "experts" in the field of adoption should recognize that the experiences of adoptees are as varied and diverse and the birth families we come from. Throughout the book, Lifton seems to blame birth parents, adoptive parents, and the closed adoption system for how adoptees grow up and the type of people they become. She, however, says nothing of individuals taking ownership of their lives and deciding to do the best with what they have. I would not agree with other reviews that recommend this book to "all people who are touched by adoption". For those people who share an experience like Lifton's it provides much needed validation. But for those like myself who view their adoption as a gift, a chance at a better life, and something to be proud of, this book does nothing but lead the reader to feelings of outrage and doubt of their own experiences.
Rating:
Summary: I found the viewpoint too narrow.
Review: As a reunited birth father attempting to gain some insight into my children's experience I was very disappointed in this book. My children were three and four when I had to let them go and older child adoptions were not considered at all. The endless rambling about some seeming mystical mother-child bond completely ignored the very real bond that existed between my children and me before we separated. The book made me feel invisible as a birthfather. While it is true that a large majority of adoptions are single mother-infant adoptions it seems irresponsible to write as though that is the only variety that exists. I am a birthfather who was very bonded to my children, initiated the adoption, suffered greatly over the years, searched for and found my children. According to Lifton, I , and thus my children's experience, do not exist. Now, having said that, I would also like to say that the book did provide insight into behaviors that I have observed in reunion and has helped me understand some of the tensions that have arisen in our reunion. In fact it would have been an excellent book if it hadn't constantly offended with it's narrow viewpoint.
Rating: 
Summary: Journey of the Adopted Self is a homecoming!
Review: As an adopted person myself, reading Betty Jean Lifton's Journey of the Adopted Self became a sudden & mesmerizing voyage of discovery. It is filled with moving life stories of adopted men & women, just like myself. It examines how separation & secrecy affect adoptees' sense of identity & our relationships to our adoptive parents. I had my arms full of books at our local library & I'd set them down to go through my choices once more before checking out when my eyes were caught by the book laying there on the counter. My hands reached out for it & all the others in my pile paled. This book changed my life, gave me names for malaises that have plagued me all my life. Wonderful stuff!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for people who have been lost their whole lives.
Review: As an adoptee I have never fit it and I have always felt like
a stranger in my family. When I read this book it was like
reading my own feelings. I have been able to understand and
express my feelings regarding adoption since reading this book because now my feelings have been validated. I highly
recommend this book for any one wanting to understand how it feels to be adopted. This applies to adoptees, birthparents
and adoptive parents alike, as well as extended family members and friends.
Rating:
Summary: Less than expected
Review: As an adoptee who was never a searcher and is past the need to hash out the essential questions of the effect of adoption on my life, I was annoyed by Lifton's need to promote, over and over throughout the book, open adoptions. It is clearly her personal issue. I was looking for more detailed and philosophical theorizing on why adoptees feel as they do. This was too basic for me, although I'm sure it would be good for someone just beginning to search for answers.
Rating:
Summary: This book was a life-saver for me.
Review: As an adoptive mother, this book was very helpful as I tried to help my daughter in her search for self. It gave words to feelings that were very difficult for all of us to understand. I feel very fortunate to have some idea, at least, of what she is dealing with and trying to work through. It feels good to be a part of the process in whatever way I can to support her, and this book has enabled us to once again talk about what is important.
Rating:
Summary: Still the best adoptee book
Review: Betty Jean Lifton has written a graceful and useful narrative of what it feels like to be an adopted adult under the sealed records system that has prevailed in the US for the past 60 or so years.This book has helped countless adoptees understand themsleves a little better, and it has also enlightened adoptive parents, and birthmothers like myself. Everything Betty Jean Lifton writes on this subject is worth reading, and discussing, and in many cases, taking to heart. She is a masterful writer of prose, and her psychological insights often ring true. This is THE basic adoption reform book--along with BJ's earlier "Lost And Found". All the rest take off from here. I would especially recomend BJ's books to birthmothers in search or in reunion seeking for insight into the mind and soul of the adoptee.
Rating:
Summary: A heart-opening roller-coaster ride
Review: Having spent 4 years deciding to finally begin MY quest for wholeness, this book brought forth many emotions and feelings - ones that helped to open my heart to finding out about myself. The stories shared with the readers are all very touching and heart-warming. I am glad I took the time to read this book, and then to find the courage to discover the "me" within
Rating: 
Summary: A moving account that should not be generalized
Review: I can imagine how many adoptees, upon reading this movingly written book, feel that their own story is being heard, their own troubles validated. I am not an adoptee and so I can only observe from the outside what it might be like. We adopted our daughter at the age of 4 days in a secret practice in 1969. She grew up with many adopted children. I can tell you that our daughter, who was not interested in searching for her birthparents, does not fit the profile described by Lifton that 'adoptees have been in exile since their separation from their mother' and 'The difference between those who search and those who don't lies in how they formed their defensive structures as children: how much they denied, repressed, and split off.' Lifton was adopted at age 2-1/2 after suffering numerous losses, and her adoptive mother was not a very nurturing soul. In Twice Born Lifton said that after finding her birthmother she had no mother at all since both mothers had disappointed her. I see that her experience in life was very different from that of our own daughter and of that of many other adoptees. Even after our birthmother found us 29 years later and we now have a wonderful relationship, our daughter claims she has not changed since meeting her birthmother, that she doesn't now feel whole whereas before she felt fragmented. Several of her adoptee friends searched and several did not, some non-searchers are happy and well-adjusted adults who do not share Lifton's view simply because they did not suffer like she did. My objection to Lifton's book(s) is that she generalizes from her particular experience so that all adoptees have identity crises, all adoptees feel fragmented and cannot be whole until they are united with their birthparent(s). It would be better if she wrote: 'This is how I feel, and this is what I have heard other adoptees say.' It is important to stay away from generalizations.
Gisela Gasper Fitzgerald, author of ADOPTION: An Open, Semi-Open or Closed Practice?
Rating:
Summary: Relief
Review: I find it hard to describe the impact that Ms. Lifton's book has had on me. I spent many nights crying and furiously scribbling in my journal because of the emotional tidal waves that would consume me as I read Journey of the Adopted Self. I read this book seven years after my reunion with my birthparents, and I only wish I had known about it back then. I would very much recommend this book to anyone who has been adopted, as it will help to fit together the jagged pieces of your heart and mind. I can only say "thank you" to Ms. Lifton for writing her insightful and compassionate books; Journey of the Adopted Self is one of the reasons that I am a functional human being today.
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