Catherine's review
Without a Map: A Memoir
by Meredith Hall
Catherine's review
Without a Map: A Memoir by Meredith Hall
Catherine's review
rating:
recommended for: People who have an interest in American culture in the late 1960s. Adoption.
Although I enjoyed this book, I felt it was one of the saddest in tone that I have ever read. This memoir focuses on the author's extreme shift from a fairly happy, albeit dysfunctional, childhood and early adolescence, and then her pregnancy at age sixteen and the emotional and physical abandonment of, first, her mother, and then after the baby (her son) was born, her father. This happened in the mid-1960s. I thought her parents' reactions to the situation were extreme. The author longs for her son, who she never even lays eyes on until he finds her when he's 21 years old. The author's parents never apologize for their actions and I think Ms. Hall finally comes to terms with that. The author also writes a bit about the events of the late '60s in America, which I found very interesting.
