Somebody Else's Daughter

The first thing I did when I received an advance copy of Somebody Else's Daughter from the author, Elizabeth Brundage, was to check the back cover.

Wally Lamb, author of She's Come Undone (one of my favorite books) has this to say:

"Students, parents, teachers, townies: Somebody Else's Daughter is a deft balancing act of taut plot and richly drawn characters struggling to find their moral centers as they grope in the dark for the transformative power of love. I didn't so much read this novel as devour it. Brundage is a storyteller supreme."

So my expectations were high.

And they were met. Mostly.

There's something in this book for everyone. There's feminism and p.0r.n, classism and addiction, AIDS and abuse, religion and affairs, prostitution and predation, adoption loss and adoption gain (the author herself is a happily adopted person, her words).

And there are characters galore:

• Nate and Cat and the infant daughter they can't raise, Willa.
• Joe and Candace who become Willa's parents, and who carry a deep secret.
• Claire, the sculptor, and her son Teddy, who struggles in school and is dating Willa.
• Jack, the headmaster of the exclusive school in the Berkshires, and his dutiful wife, Maggie.
• Ada and Pearl, teen girls from different worlds.

The story starts as several unconnected threads. Through character development and story-weaving, Brundage brings together these threads for some interesting juxtapositions, such as the feminist and the p.0r.n producer, the girl who was adopted (and who thus has 4 parents) and the girl who has no parents, and the biological father and the adoptive father. It's like the day in science class when you experiment with magnets and watch the opposites' inevitable pull.

I found the first part of the book to be a tad slow. But once I got into the characters and could feel the threads interweaving, I was hooked. So much so that I put off finishing the book because I wasn't ready for it to end yet (but I was on deadline!).

And then the ending was just a bit too tidy for my taste. There was a lot of suspense building up to the climactic scene, but the denouement cleared up too easily and quickly, off-pace with the slower beginning.

Nevertheless, I recommend this book for its storytelling, characters and plot. A bonus for me was a peek into the mind of an adopted teenage girl.

Which chilled me to the bone. (The "teen" part, not the "adopted" part).

**disclaimer**
I received a free book for purposes of providing an honest review.

For more on this novel, check out the rest of the tour, organized by the fabulous Trish of TLC Book Tours.:

Monday, November 3rd: It's All Fun & Games
Wednesday, November 5th: S. Krishna's Books
Friday, November 7th: Mabel's House
Wednesday, November 12th: Devourer of Books
Thursday, November 13th: All Thumbs Reviews
Friday, November 14th: Welcome to My Brain
Monday, November 17th: 1 More Chapter
Wednesday, November 19th: My New Reality
Friday, November 21st: Bloggin' 'Bout Books
Tuesday, November 25th: The Friendly Book Nook
Monday, December 1st: The 3 R's: Reading, 'Riting, and Randomness
Tuesday, December 2nd: Bookroom Reviews
Thursday, December 4th: Pieces of Me

***

Want easy access to products recommended by Lori and Chicklet? Help support us by visiting the All Thumbs Store, which has no added markup. Just easy shopping, good prices, Amazon security and thumbs up ratings.