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Summary: This book is REAL...
Review: As a reunited adoptee, though under slightly different circumstances, I could relate wholeheartedly to Ms. Saffian's story. She captures the real parts of what one goes through upon being reconnected to their birthfamily, regardless of the outcome, without uneccessary melodrama. I would recommend this book highly to those both inside and outside of the "triad" (birthparents, adoptive parents, adoptees). It can shed much light on the emotionally tumultuous process of reunion for those who struggle to understand what they, themselves, are going through, or for those around them who are confused by the power and origin of their emotions. Real. Raw. Right on, Sarah...
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Summary: Beautiful, heart warming and so inciteful
Review: Absolutely the most profound reading I have done in years. This book has helped me so much to understand the view point of an adoptee. It is not just for Adoptees and Adopters to read but is a must for Birthparents as well, as I am one.
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Summary: Not Just A Girl Book
Review: Like "Joy Luck Club," this book takes a special kind of family experience and presents it in a way that is compelling and readable. I'm not adopted, but this isn't just a book for adoptees and birth parents. One other thing seems worth noting. I'm not a devotee of memoirs, and I'm not usually a big fan of "Girl Books." But this book had me up late every night until it was finished. Ms. Saffian tells her tale in a very compelling way that makes it simply a great read.
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Summary: This is the book I'm buying for the holidays.
Review: I picked up this book because I have family members who are adopted...and didn't put it down until I'd finished. The story was enormously compelling, and though I initially thought there would be little in it with which I personally could identify, I was wrong. As a result of Ms. Saffian's tale, I've done a lot of thinking about the concept of 'family' and found the book very honest and thought-provoking.
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Summary: Riveting, captivating, heartwarming
Review: Saffian's book is so honest and so moving... everyone who reads this book (and everyone should) will find it absolutely captivating. Her writing draws you in as if you are a part of her story. Even if you're not an adoptee, you will be able to identify in one way or another with Saffian in reading this book as it explores not only adoption and the questions and issues it raises, but also questions and issues that are raised in one's own pursuit of personal identity.
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Summary: A must-read for adoptive parents and adoptees
Review: As the mother of an adopted child, I was deeply moved by Sarah Saffian's beautifully written book, ITHAKA. Her sensitive and thoughtfully told story opens the reader to the many complicated issues every adopted child faces when confronting the fact that he or she has two families -- whether or not that child ever comes into contact with the birth family, the issue is still there and needs to be addressed. The manner in which the emergence of her birth family in Sarah's life was handled by Sarah, her adoptive parents, and her birth parents is a marvelous example to anyone else who may be in her situation. I highly recommend this book -- not only to adoptive parents and adoptees -- but to anyone who has an interest in understanding what it means to be adopted.
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Summary: Eloquent. Moving. Must-Read.
Review: Saffian is an eloquent spokesperson for adopted children (and those who question the nature of family, whether adopted or not!) everywhere. Moving, insightful, lovely.
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Summary: A personal overview
Review: During the first conversation that begins ITHAKA, my memoir of being an adoptee who was found by my birth parents, Hannah explained that after surrendering me, she and my birth father had ended up marrying and having three other children. An entire group to whom I was fully biologically related was thrust upon me. My adoptive mother had died when I was six and my father and his second wife, whom I considered Mom, had had two children together. So in a sense, I was all at once placed in limbo between two "normal," nuclear families. Hannah's out-of-the-blue phone call threw me into a tailspin. Such abrupt contact from people who were strangers and yet profoundly intimate stirred up emotions in me, some latent, some never before expressed. I decided to come to know them gradually, solely through letters. What I didn't anticipate was that three years would pass before I was ready to meet face-to-face. The book spans from Hannah's phone call, through our correspondence, to our eventual reunion. I incorporate some of the letters, weaving excerpts chronologically through an examination of my turbulent inner life during this three-year period, flashbacks to childhood memories, and discussions of related issues such as adoption laws, search techniques, support networks, abortion, news stories and twins. The title ITHAKA, the name of Odysseus' homeland, illustrates that this memoir is about my grappling with the multi-dimensional definitions of "home" along my own odyssey, and my discovery that the journey itself may be more important than the arrival at the destination. While this book is a telling of my specific story, its concepts family, identity, privacy, abandonment, connection, motherhood, nature and nurture are universal.
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Summary: Story is technically well-written, but left this reader cold
Review: As an adoptee who found my birthmother in college, I was surprised how little I related to Saffian's experience. "The lady doth protest too much" kept running through my mind as I read the memoir. I found it hard to believe that at age 23, she was as secure as she claims she was before the fateful phone call from her birthmother. While I understand firsthand why finding one's birthparents is disorienting, I can't understand or empathize with the author's bizarrely hostile reaction to her birthparents, especially her father. Her writing is certainly impressive technically, but it didn't impress me as honest. She spent too much time brandishing her credentials and critiquing others, but not enough time asking herself serious questions. I wanted to know why she was so disgusted by her birthfather's emotional nature; was her hostility a means of cloaking a secret wish that her adoptive father had been more emotionally available? Or perhaps that she could be more emotionally open herself? Saffian's aloof, superior voice became progressively off-putting. Although I dove into the book in the beginning, my interest in the narrator--crucial in a memoir--lagged and I started skimming. While her story was at times intriguing, mainly because her reactions were so extreme, ultimately it didn't enlighten or move me. Saffian's book seemed less a memoir about her experience of being found by her birthparents than it did a case study of a self-involved, controlling personality.
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Summary: Absorbing memoir
Review: Sarah Saffian's "Ithaka" starts with a typical day in the life of the author: she has been to the gym and had breakfast and is collecting her things to leave for work when a phone call breaks apart her world. "Sarah" the woman on the phone says, "I think I am your birth mother."This call begins a four year journey for the author, a Manhattan journalist. The woman who called, Hannah, is indeed Sarah's birth mother and soon Sarah is corresponding with both Hannah and Adam, Sarah's biological father. Sarah's life is an unusual case: her bio parents stayed together after giving her up and are now married artisans living in New England, raising three children of their own. Sarah is happy with the life she was adopted into and is at first disarmed at Hannah and Adam's urgent and emotional letters. Much of the book details the correspondence over a four year period between Sarah and her birth parents. The author offers moving and valuable insights into the cycle of emotions she goes through. Adam and Hannah emerge as wonderful people: self-aware, honest and passionate. But the author is frank in her waryiness as some of what Adam and Hannah disclose to her. Accepting them, and being willing to meet them, is a long process for her. "Ithaka" is the best book I have read about adoption. It is an honest account of the thoughtful, messy process one must go through to accept a reunion with one's birth parent. However, the book is not limited to its subject. It is an honest examination of the path to identity, and how our family plays a part in it.
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