Somebody's Daughter

"Somebody's Daughter" is tremendous in its unflinching portrayal of Korea, adoption, the relationships between mothers and daughters, and the relationship to one's self. Lee's prose is gorgeous, poetic, precise, and compelling. I finished this book in one sitting and was left breathless at the end. Lee's talent as a writer is evident in all aspects of this book. Well-researched and well-rendered, "Somebody's Daughter" should be on every reader's bookshelf.

Once I began reading Somebody's Daughter, I could not put it down. How could the author, who is not herself an adoptee, capture the feelings of one so well? Lee writes in the first person as Sarah Thorson, a Korean adoptee, and in the third person as Kyung-Sook, Sarah's birthmother. I immediately identified with Sarah. Kyung-Sook is more distant, more difficult to understand, though, as a reader, you sympathize with her reasons for abandoning her child. Sarah's adoptive family also appears occasionally, as people who have given love, but have also shown incredible cruelty. Sarah cannot see herself as Asian. She describes herself as the "fabulous Sarah Thorson," a blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter. As a child, when she caught glimpses of herself in mirrors, "that girl's Asian face was recognizable yet strange, like seeing your name writ large in an unfamiliar hand." When Sarah meets nonadopted Koreans in a language program, her pain comes through loud and clear. "They all carried with them the solid stones of their past in one hand, and bright, shiny futures in the other," she observes. "For me, everything was vapor. I had to take it on faith that my past even existed." On discovering the truth about her abandonment, Sarah directs her anger at her birthmother, who did not even bother to clean her child before leaving her, and at her adoptive parents, who created a fantastically tragic story to cover up the truth. Sarah's grief at the betrayals is overwhelming. The encounter between the two women is heartbreaking. Since I like endings to wrap up neatly, I found myself talking aloud: "Go to the TV station, Omma. Tell them you are her mother!" But that was not to be. Yet, each woman finds a sad peace in the end, as befits her situation. Buy this book for your teen, and read it yourself, as well. Be prepared to put yourself in the adoptee's frame of mind. It is written from our viewpoint, and it's a keeper. Eun Mi Young is an adult adoptee and a graduate student who lives with her husband in San Antonio, Texas. ©2005 Adoptive Families.

Somebody's Daughter is the first book I've read on Korean adoptees where the voice and perspective of the birthmother is so clear and comprehensible. Often in a predominantly patriarchical, conservative, Confucian value rooted society like Korea, it is hard grasp what it must have been like for a birthmother to have to make difficult choices about her baby. Somebody's Daughter tells a beautiful story of two women who struggle through this society at different time periods, one seeking answers, the other seeking a life. Marie Lee does a superb job painting the backdrop of Seoul in all time periods as well as developing her characters to the point you think they are real people.

I really loved both the mother and the daughter in the book. Sarah and Kyung-Sook are so very real and so easy to identify with. I have never been to Korea but reading this book I could smell the aromas and feel what Korea must feel like to an American visiting for the first time. I had to read passages out loud to my youngest Korean born daughter. At some we laughed together and other ones made us cry. My daughters both are anxious to read it next. I didn't want the story to end yet I was so anxious to finish it. The descriptions are so rich and the characters so alive. I am giving this book as presents to everyone I know who has connections to Korea or to adoption. This is a book I will read many times in the future and each time I have no doubt I will find something new to think about.