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Summary: An authentic jouney of heart and soul
Review: Sarah Saffian speaks to us from her heart about her feelings after her birth parents found her. She is thoroughly honest and reveals her innermost thoughts as she moves from first contact to the point where her birth parents become a part of her adult life. This book is a gift to anyone who has faced the dilemna of how to reconcile any long term satisfying relationship (here Sara's relationship with her adoptive family) with new kindred souls who manifest in our lives (here her birth family). Ithaka reads like a novel, and has lasting value for any person commited to explore what it means to be a loving person in a complicated world. You don't have to be a member of the adoption triad to find peace and happiness in Ithaka.
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Summary: An excellent, insightful read!!
Review: I am an adoptee who's birthmother wants no contact and also a birthmother who is reunited with my b/son. This book lets the reader deep into Sarah Saffian's heart and looks at the fears and eventual joy she experiences in her journey to reunion. I would recommend this book for birth parents and adoptees alike as it lets each know some of the fears the other is feeling.
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Summary: With it's intelligent grace and honesty, Ithaka impresses.
Review: I felt loss after finishing Ithaka. For me the book was a pleasure, a retreat, an inspiration, a comfort, an achievement, and a counterpoint. Sarah poignantly gave voice to many of my feelings-- though in fact our experiences were quite different. I am a motherless daughter who was orphaned after my father's death 6 years ago. To witness the careful poise, honesty and sense Sarah maintained in piecing together her story was/is extremely helpful to me in my efforts to define my sense of family and self. Thank you Sarah.
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Summary: A moving true story; a quick page-turner.
Review: Read Ithaka! Whether you are a parent or a child it is a moving story about the complex feelings that Sarah underwent when contacted by her birth mother at the age of 23. Thoughtful, interesting, I didn't want to put it down.
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Summary: An interesting and thought-provoking book.
Review: As a birthmother who was recently reunited with her daughter, I found this book to be very interesting. Even though, in my situation, my daughter found me, this book gives me an insight into what some of my daughter's feelings must be.This book allows me to see a different side of the adoption reunion.
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Summary: Fantastic book
Review: Touching and beutiful stor
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Summary: A fresh voice explores familiar territory
Review: As an adoptee active in adoption politics, I don't like to spend my free time reading adoption books. Especially since so many of them focus on what I find to be nonsensical and ultimately destructive notions of primal wounds, adopted child syndrome, or whining about not feeling whole. This book didn't do that, and I found the story compelling, the writing polished, and the voice refreshing. Unlike another reviewer, I thought the author clearly articulated her belief that adoptees have a constitutional right to their records, and I appreciate and agree with this view. I think this is must reading for an adoptee or birthparent, either going through a search and find, or about to embark on one. My own caveat is that the book seemed to end unsatisfactorily for me. I felt like something was missing. I didn't need anything neat and tidy, but a little more retrospection would have been nice.
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Summary: Brilliant account of a most unique situation.
Review: I nearly didn't buy the book because I thought I would find it too difficult to get through. However, it is so rare to hear from our point of view that I couldn't resist. Being an adoptee, I read Ms. Saffian's story with tremendous interest as it carried me through the emotional gammut of anger, fear, acceptance, alienation, hope and, finally, peace of mind. I found myself initially horrified as her story unfolded because I've wondered myself what it would be like if I were "found". She accurately accounts the emotional rollercoaster she lived through over the course of those three years - a shorter duration might have seemed "rushed". I am most grateful for her sharing her experience because of what I've learned about myself as a result, I'm reading it again. Thanks Sarah!
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Summary: Saffian's book is well-written but somewhat disturbing.
Review: Sarah Saffian's book is certainly well-written, but she is often cold in her description of the reunion experience. It is almost as if she never considered the fact that she was adopted, as if she only realized that she had a birth mother, and in her case an entire birth family, when she received the phone call from Hannah. As a birth mother recently reunited with a son in his late twenties, I was quite disturbed by her negative reactions. Having read most of the literature on the subject,and based on my own experience, I find it hard to believe that her feelings were so negative for so much of the time. Her reaction to her birth father's letters made me cringe. She does not seem to develop much of an interest in her background, insisting on being a Saffian. Anyone who is a member of the adoption triangle knows that in an experience such as this the pieces come together, and when both the adoptive and birth families are "healthy," as is the case here, the experience is a rich one for all those involved. The birth family never takes the place of the adoptive family, and the adoptive family is strengthened by its acceptance of the birth family. And the one who gains the most from this interaction, and from being loved by so many people is the adoptee. Although Saffian ends her book with the word "whole," she does not do much throughout it to convince us of the changes she undergoes as a result of her being found. I had hoped to get a better understanding of the adoptee by reading the book, and was instead quite saddened by the author's attitude.
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Summary: THE MOST CAPTIVATING AND REAL BOOK I HAVE READ IN YEARS
Review: When I first picked up Sarah Saffian's book, I was unsure about what to expect or what kind of writing I would find. What I sooned learned was that ITHAKA would prove to be one of the most captivating and truthful books I had read in years. Unable to put ITHAKA down, I anticipated each page, each event, with more excitement than the last. Saffian slowly unravelled her story like an old blanket: gentle, familiar, calming. She described her facinating ordeal with a poise and intelligence rarely seen in young authors today. After learning so much about Saffian's life, I felt a kind of sisterhood to her, as her words floated off the page and filled my mind with thoughts and ideas about myself that I had never before considered. A good book will make the reader not only think about the story at hand, but also the story of his or her own life; ITHAKA did just this, with a charm and finesse that made the book nothing less than irrisistable.
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