Rating: 
Summary: an insightful view into an adoptees thoughts and feelings.
Review: I just finished this book. I was overwhelmed with the words that the author wrote - very powerful words. I would ( and have) recommended this book to everyone in the adoption triad. This is a very easy book to read - you won't put it down.
Rating: 
Summary: Read it!
Review: A well-written and compelling memoir
Rating:
Summary: Painful but necessary reading for birthparents
Review: I finally read Ithaka, after having it sitting on my shelf for months. The subject is difficult for me, as a birthmother who searched for her son and was rejected. Now, I wish I had read it before making any contact, and would advise any birthparents in search to do likewise. Sarah Saffian is a fine and elegant writer, who as many previous reviewers have noted, grew up with money and comfort, and was found by the "perfect" birthparents. It is indeed hard to understand her reluctance to meet them--but the pain she suffered because of the contact is real, and I often cringed as I read what she felt, thinking that my son may have felt similar pain and disorientation at my contact. Search and reunion is not a soap-opera nor a talk show--although much of what passes for wisdom in adoption reform groups and literature would make one think it was! Not all adoptees, nor all birthparents, are eager to be found--and those that are still must make huge adjustments to integrate the lost ones into their lives. I hope that my son will find this book, and read it, and know that he is not alone in his fear and confusion at having "the dead" rise again as I did. I hope that all searching birthparents will read this book, not to be discouraged, but to stretch their minds and hearts with empathy for the adoptee, and the stresses that reunion can bring to some. I have seen many birthparents go into reunion expecting that the adoptee's life has somehow been on hold since the surrender, just waiting for the birthmother to return and pick up emotionally where they left off, as if a whole lifetime of family relationships were irrelevant. Some support groups encourage this kind of thinking, by pandering to what the members want to believe, rather than what is, and taking a very one-sided and one-dimensional view of the whole complex issue of reunion. "Ithaka" makes us look at other possibilites--and that is ultimately better and more healing than unrealistic expectations and cartoon scenarios of reunion bliss. Sarah Saffian had performed a useful service for birthparents by writing her story, even though reading it sometimes hurt, and sometimes frustrated and annoyed.
Rating:
Summary: A true real-life story of the endless bounds of family
Review: I read this book after hearing Sarah Saffian tell her story on television. (The Leeza Show) I have no direct way to relate to what she has gone through. I am not adopted, yet the way she writes this book, anyone can posess the capacity to understand and read with a vaguely familiar sense of our own reality, simply because we all have our own version family. Whatever "family" means to the reader comes to the focus of contemplation and the realization that those who are most dear to us are always there for us. As Sarah endures her own self-discovery through the process of being found by her "other" family, she reveals such insight in the telling of her journey, that any reader, adopted or not, can truly understand.
Rating:
Summary: surprisingly candid and true-to-life
Review: While each and every person has a different story, the circumstances are eerily similar when talking to adoptees. Saffian's "Ithaka" is something I turned to when I was contacted by my biomom. From my reaction to the first time I was contacted by my her, to my anticipation of seeing her face for the first time; from hearing friends' stories about their adoptions and reunions, to struggling with the fear that my parents would feel abandoned and betrayed if I sought out my bioparents - this book helps us realize that we are no more alone in our thoughts and fears than we are walking down a crowded avenue. How many others, I wonder, have turned to this book for answers, much as I did? And how unfair it would be to say my reaction is wrong, or the author's reaction is wrong, because the two are not consistent? While some of my reactions have been different from hers, I am amazed by what I read... and how nicely she can relate publicly such an intimate and personal story. I turned every page with anxiety and felt her actual reunion with her bioparents seemed anticlimatic. Upon reflection, her sparse description and the small number of pages she dedicated to the actual reunion, I wonder if it was too personal to commit to print, or if she went through the reunion in a fog, or if she just realized that her adoption was not a colossal event, but a mere fact of life. At any rate, I think it's a must read for anyone trying to find themselves in the process of being found. Likewise, I feel it is a great read for anyone outside the adoption community.
Rating: 
Summary: my high hopes were dashed
Review: I was so excited about this book I left work early the day I bought it just so I could start to read it. I thought it would be a more 90's version of reunion & how it felt at her age to be found. It resembled (sometimes eerily) how I was found. I am sorry to say how disappointed I was. Her writing is amazing, but I couldn't quite get over all the people she was mad at. Where did she develop all her hangups? Her father was a supportive figure all her life, she was close with her step mom (whom she called mom), she was approached cautiously yet carefully by her birthparents, yet she just couldn't stop whining. There are worse fateful situations than hers, how spoiled and selfish she is. Towards the end of the book, I was rooting for the birth parents to pat themselves on their backs, that they found their birthdaughter and were glad she was ok. If I was Hannah or Adam, I would not have wanted to meet her.
Rating:
Summary: boring little rich girl
Review: i had really high hopes for this when i started it, but was soon disappointed by the author's tiresome self-absorption. the writing is usually decent, except for the cringeworthy "inside the womb" section. sarah saffian is not a likable woman, sorry to say. i wish she was.
Rating: 
Summary: Here comes the judge
Review: Boo-hoo, a very rich girl by birth is adopted by a very rich family. This is a melodramatic book about a very real subject that could have been handled with great depth and sensitivity if the author hadn't been so self-absorbed and sophmoric that she couldn't understand her privelege. This is not to say, of course, that people of money can't be in turmoil or crisis, but to put forth a tone that makes this struggle the equal of people who are adopted into poverty-struck, drug-addled families (and yes I'm talking about white on white adoption here) is both disgusting and shallow. She has skills but veers into self-pity and martyrism much too easily. I hope she is young enough that she can learn to be a better person.
Rating:
Summary: insight into meeting people who are your parents
Review: Saffian identifies some themes that seem to be pervasive in adoptees being reunited, and gave me insight into issues surrounding my own adoption and meeting of my birth parents during my senior year of college. During the reading, I found myself becoming annoyed with her character at times. She seems to be inordinately hard on her birth parents, and stingy in sharing herself with them at times. However, unlike most other things in life, finding a model for how to behave in being reunited with your birth parents is tricky. As you grow up, you see people die, you see people get married, you see people get divorced, etc. Rarely do you personally see the experience that Saffian and other adoptees have had. Reuniting with people who you do not know that share your genetic similarities is disorienting in many ways. Saffian portrays the disorientation very well, and from many different angles. Having spent ten years building a relationship with my biological parents and siblings, and spending an excessive amount of brainpower thinking about it, I was surprised that Saffian opened up new insights for me.
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable
Review: I am at a loss for words on how this book affected me. As an adoptee who is still in search of my own elusive birth parents, I have to wonder if I wouldn't react the same way as Sarah. To have my birth mother just call me out of the blue like that would be, for a lack of a better word, shocking. The emotional tidal wave it sent her on was understandable. TO say this wouldn't happen to me would be total denial on my part. I wept, I laughed. I had to put the book down on numerous occations just to regroup. My emotions overcame me at times where I just went outside and screamed in frustration. If I could just be so lucky. Great Book! A must read for any adoptee in search for the truth.
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