This book is written with so much emotion. So much beauty and sadness. This is a debut book for this author and that is so hard for me to believe. She has written a book that touches the heart. It's about a few things all at once. Not just abortion but also adoption and loss and looking for your child. Being forced to have a child. Being forced to give up a child. So many emotions. It's written with such depth and passion you would think it was about her. It's not. It's a historical fiction but loosely based on actual events.
The emotion is raw. Real. Heartbreaking.
This book is written in four parts. In several eras. It is set in Canada. From three voices, Angela, Evelyn, and Nancy. How their lives come to play out was great. A circle that is closed. Yes there is a twist but it's a good one and one that I figured out. I thought it was perfect.
The author took a subject and made a wonderful book. It's about adoption. Taking girls and women who are unmarried and pregnant and sticking them in a place where there is not love. No emotion in their favor. Not one hug or acknowledgment that they are even human. They are not even suppose to get to know each other. Of course they do and friendships are formed. Between Evelyn and Maggie. They are just a few weeks apart. Both give birth to little girls. They leave notes for their babies hoping one day they can be reunited.
In 2017 we meet Angela. She's running her aunt's antique shop where she finds a letter. This letter is seven years old and was written to Nancy by her adoptive mother. It tells her about being adopted and who her biological mother is. Also is a short note from her biological mother. Angela decides to try and reunite these two but is having a very hard time finding either.
Evelyn was engaged and her soon to be husband died of a heart attack. She was pregnant and didn't know it until after his death. Her parents would not have it. She had to go. They would not be ruined by her failure. Her shame was not going to ruin their lives. This was in 1960. Women had no rights. No say in what happened to them. She named her baby girl Jane and left the note in a pair of yellow booties she had made hoping that one day they could find each other.
Many years later Evelyn is a doctor and gets involved with helping young women who do not want to be pregnant. She helps then get abortions that are safe. In a safe and sterile place where they won't die. She later becomes a part of what is called The Jane Network. A group that provides these illegal services to women. They are also fighting for women to have the right to their own bodies. For them to be able to decide whether they want to be mothers or not. In all cases. Whether they are raped or just an unwanted pregnancy. It should be their choice.
This book really touches on a very important topic. One that we all need to uphold and stop being so sanctimonious about. Stop judging anyone for what they do to their own body. It should be their choice. Abortion is between a woman, her doctor, and her conscience. She has to live it no one else. Ok I got off track there.
This is told from the early 1960s to sometime in 2017. Three women. Three lives. Three stories. How they are interchanged and brought together is nothing short of beautiful. Like I said, this author did such an amazing job with this book. She takes you into the heart of everything. The emotion you will feel reading this book will have you weeping and also rooting for things to happen. For someone to find their other. For a mother and daughter to possibly find each other. For a couple to have the baby they want. For one young girl to survive a back alley abortion that an uncaring man performed.
A very emotional story.
This paragraph hit me:
"When you're young, you get to look at time through the reduction end of the telescope. The wrong end, the generous end that makes everything appear so far away, that gives the impression that there are light-years of space between you and those magically distant objects. And then, without warning, time turns it around on you, and suddenly you're looking through the correct end, the end you were always suppose to be looking through, if you were paying attention. The end where everything is magnified and perilously close. The end that zooms in without mercy and forces you to see the detail you should have been focusing on all along." I loved this....
From the author's notes:
"Looking for Jane is about motherhood. About wanting to be a mother and not wanting to be a mother, and all the gray areas in between. It's about the lengths to which women will go to end a pregnancy, and to become pregnant. And, as Nancy says, that razor-thin edge where many people find themselves hovering at some point in their lives, right between the terror of getting pregnant by accident and the terror of not getting pregnant when you want too. But most importantly, it's about women supporting one another through their individual choices and the outcomes of those choices."
Thank you #NetGalley, #HeatherMarshall, #Atria for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this story.
Five huge tearjerker stars from me. I say read it. Learn something. Enjoy.
SYNOPSIS:
#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
“Clever and satisfying...has the potential to remain pertinent for generations.” —Associated Press
This “powerful debut” (Hello! Canada) for fans of Kristin Hannah and Jennifer Chiaverini about three women whose lives are bound together by a long-lost letter, a mother’s love, and a secret network of women fighting for the right to choose—inspired by true stories.
2017: When Angela Creighton discovers a mysterious letter containing a life-shattering confession, she is determined to find the intended recipient. Her search takes her back to the 1970s when a group of daring women operated an illegal underground abortion network in Toronto known only by its whispered code name: Jane.
1971: As a teenager, Dr. Evelyn Taylor was sent to a home for “fallen” women where she was forced to give up her baby for adoption—a trauma she has never recovered from. Despite harrowing police raids and the constant threat of arrest, she joins the Jane Network as an abortion provider, determined to give other women the choice she never had.
1980: After discovering a shocking secret about her family, twenty-year-old Nancy Mitchell begins to question everything she has ever known. When she unexpectedly becomes pregnant, she feels like she has no one to turn to for help. Grappling with her decision, she locates “Jane” and finds a place of her own alongside Dr. Taylor within the network’s ranks, but she can never escape the lies that haunt her.
Looking for Jane is “a searing, important, beautifully written novel about the choices we all make and where they lead us—as well as a wise and timely reminder of the difficult road women had to walk not so long ago” (Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author).
“Clever and satisfying...has the potential to remain pertinent for generations.” —Associated Press
This “powerful debut” (Hello! Canada) for fans of Kristin Hannah and Jennifer Chiaverini about three women whose lives are bound together by a long-lost letter, a mother’s love, and a secret network of women fighting for the right to choose—inspired by true stories.
2017: When Angela Creighton discovers a mysterious letter containing a life-shattering confession, she is determined to find the intended recipient. Her search takes her back to the 1970s when a group of daring women operated an illegal underground abortion network in Toronto known only by its whispered code name: Jane.
1971: As a teenager, Dr. Evelyn Taylor was sent to a home for “fallen” women where she was forced to give up her baby for adoption—a trauma she has never recovered from. Despite harrowing police raids and the constant threat of arrest, she joins the Jane Network as an abortion provider, determined to give other women the choice she never had.
1980: After discovering a shocking secret about her family, twenty-year-old Nancy Mitchell begins to question everything she has ever known. When she unexpectedly becomes pregnant, she feels like she has no one to turn to for help. Grappling with her decision, she locates “Jane” and finds a place of her own alongside Dr. Taylor within the network’s ranks, but she can never escape the lies that haunt her.
Looking for Jane is “a searing, important, beautifully written novel about the choices we all make and where they lead us—as well as a wise and timely reminder of the difficult road women had to walk not so long ago” (Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author).
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