Name: Inconvenient Daughter
ISBN: 9781617757099

Lauren J. Sharkey

A vibrant and provocative debut novel that dispels myths surrounding transracial adoption.

Inconvenient Daughter

dija

Trigger warnings :abuse/rape/drug use.

Well this was disappointing, it started out promising but it kept going downhill with each page, i know the book was supposed to make me sympathise with our main character Rowan but i think she's just fucking stupid. 

She's anything but inconvenient daughter, it is mentioned over and over again how loving and caring her parents are especially her mother and all she does is doubt her love for her and hurt her, intentionally, now i would understand this, mother-daughter relationships can be extremely complex and i think the other had more than enough build up to explore their dynamic but she didn't and that's a pity.

“Illuminates with cutting truth the layers of longing and grief which underlie a transracial adoption . . . sharply written, intense, and page-turning.” —Randy Susan Meyers, bestselling author of Waisted Rowan Kelly knows she’s lucky. After all, if she hadn’t been adopted, she could have spent her days in a rice paddy, or a windowless warehouse assembling iPhones—they make iPhones in Korea, right? Either way, slowly dying of boredom on Long Island is surely better than the alternative. But as she matures, she realizes that she’ll never know if she has her mother’s eyes, or if she’d be in America at all had her adoptive parents been able to conceive. Rowan sets out to prove that she can be someone’s first choice. After running away from home—and her parents’ rules—and ending up beaten, barefoot, and topless on a Pennsylvania street courtesy of Bad Boy Number One, Rowan attaches herself to Never-Going-to-Commit. When that doesn’t work out, she fully abandons self-respect and begins browsing Craigslist personals. But as Rowan dives deeper into the world of casual encounters with strangers, she discovers what she’s really looking for. With a fresh voice and a quick wit, Lauren J. Sharkey dispels the myths surrounding transracial adoption, the ties that bind, and what it means to belong. A Finalist for Foreword Review’s 2020 INDIES Book of the Year Award in Adult Fiction—Multicultural “Stirring . . . a moving account of Rowan’s difficult reckoning with her identity. This is an adept portrayal of the long shadow of abuse and the difficulty of being an adoptee.” —Publishers Weekly

A Novel

Montgomery Pierce

Inconvenient Daughter was an interesting book, insightful in unexpected ways. While arguably frenetic in its structure (the transitions between past and present could be unclear at times) Lauren Sharkey's writing draws a compelling connection between the feeling of not belonging and the ways in which someone might desperately seek it out--even in negative places. 

Rowan is the quintessential young girl trying to find that belonging, first in white parents who are in general loving but lacking in the ability to give her what she needs in terms of identity and (in the case of her mother) true no-strings-attached validation, then in the partners who simply solidify the idea that there's something she's missing--something she's constantly trying to find. Who she is, who she could have been, and who others expect her to be for their convenience are constantly at odds with each other well into her adulthood, and there is a certain appreciation in the authenticity of how messy, nonlinear, and chaotic a lot of Rowan's journey is. 

As a look into transracial adoption, it's complex without being convoluted and showcases the realities of the fact that there are things that even the most well-meaning adoptive parents can't account for when they adopt, particularly when they adopt a child outside of their race. The feeling of not belonging and the overt ways in which Rowan attempts to seek validation often trace back to the fact that she's not only adopted, but she's adopted by people completely outside of her race and culture. Her mother and father don't connect with her heritage, and her mother's own baggage regarding her infertility make Rowan's desire to know about her birth mother (or BioMom as Rowan calls her) a point of tension and eventually resentment for Rowan. 

I think where this book ended up dipping was more in the overall construction and the tying up of certain relationships and Rowan's character development by the end. The back and forth of the timelines, while giving insight into how the present Rowan got to where she was, was often not quite as smooth as it should have been and got confusing. It was also hard to overlook how a lot of the emotional burden on making amends fell onto Rowan when it came to her relationship with her mother without much of a critique on the ways in which Rowan's mother contributed to her daughter's self-esteem and the way she thought about herself. It didn't feel like the realization that her mother loved her unconditionally was deserved, because it never seemed like Rowan's mother *did* love her unconditionally, and never seems to be aware of the negative impact a lot of her actions had on her daughter, no matter how much she perceived to love her. The balance between accountability for Rowan and accountability for her mother felt disproportionate, and I think it would have been really interesting to have her mother actively deconstruct and understand her part in Rowan's path as much as Rowan understood her own choices and the fact she needed to change, too. 

Overall though, this was a good book. I'm interested in seeing what Lauren Sharkey has coming next. 

Big thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Dee B. 

CW: Physical and Emotional Abuse (on page); rape (assumed/implied); racism directed at the main character; sexual acts; parental trauma; mentions of blood and other bodily fluids
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Did I think that this book would cover some difficult topics? Certainly. Did I expect it to be quite so dark and intense? Not in the least. I hadn't expected to walk into an examination room, sitting through an uncomfortable discussion with a nurse, discussing the procedure for administering a rape kit. Then, just as quickly as you're pushed into this intense situation, you are transported back in time to the first day of Kindergarten where Rowan truly realizes that she and her mother don't 'match'. It's jarring, but that perfectly sets the tone for the rest of the book.

Rowan's relationship with her mother is tumultuous for the majority of the book, after a tight bond during her early childhood years. I was often left frustrated by the insensitive things she would say to her mother, finding it unforgivable to be as gruff as she was. I was also a bit aghast at where her focus lay: finding a boyfriend. Until she started college and entered an abusive relationship. It all clicked for me. This was a girl who felt unloved and discarded, reacting in the only way she understood how: by lashing out. Unfortunately, she lashed out at the one person who fully loved and accepted her and instead kept latching onto the worst possible options.

Rowan is a character that is hurting and reading her pain is far from easy, but it's somehow captivating, even as you grit your teeth through each moment.

I would recommend this book to anyone who doesn't mind reading books that cover dark themes, but with the caveat that Sharkey doesn't shy away from anything. We see it all.

Stephanie Midolo

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced readers copy. 

This book was a little scattered for me. It jumped around in time in a way that didn't really make sense. In the first half, the adoption was a huge part of the storyline, but closer to the end, it seemed like a plot device to explain the narrator’s bad decisions. SPOILERS The hospital storyline really upset me and I feel like it's dangerous to put this in print. Letting hospital staff assume you've been raped is not acceptable. Ever. Under any circumstance. She had consensual sex and regretted it. That's the exact thing victim-blamers throw at survivors of actual sexual assault. That's a real dealbreaker for me and the reason for my 1-star rating. I think it would irresponsible to recommend this book because of the false rape accusation (she doesn't file a report, but she does name a man who rejected her during her rape kit exam).

ETA: I've learned that this is semi-autobiographical. While I truly hope the author did not make a false claim of rape, I understand that everyone makes mistakes. Nowhere in the novel did she say that was the wrong move. At the beginning, she thinks, "Maybe this is a sign that the lie has gone on too long and this has gone too far." However, she not only continues with the process, she goes to another facility to have the exam done. That would have been a perfect opportunity to change her mind. At the very least, there should have been some type of reflection on it, maybe remorse. I don't know, but this left a really bad taste in my mouth.

Inconvenient Daughter

Reviews

Highlights