Why read The Girls Who Went Away?

Book cover of The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade

Book description

The astonishing untold history of the million and a half women who surrendered children for adoption due to enormous family and social pressure in the decades before Roe v. Wade.

“It would take a heart of stone not to be moved by the oral histories of these women and by…

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Topics

Adoption

Genres

American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Girls Who Went Away as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Julie Ryan McGue

Author

When my twin sister and I first began our closed adoption search in 2010, this was the first book we read for background knowledge. I learned what unwed mothers like my own went through in the 1960s, how their boyfriends, parents, and families treated them, and what they were told to believe after relinquishing their child.

Eye-opening and heart-breaking, Fessler’s book afforded me the gifts of compassion and empathy that I needed once my twin sister, my birth mom, and I embarked on a reunion. For every adoptee from the closed adoption era, this should be required reading.

From Julie's list on debunk age-old myths, mistruths, and misperceptions.