Books Butterfly Editorial Reviews

Hole in my Heart – Editorial Review

Hole In My Heart by Lorraine Dusky is an authentic, timely, and heart-rending memoir about adoption, motherhood, and love

It’s an excellent Memoir and we recommend it very strongly. It is, as other reviewers point out, perhaps the most important book on adoption you will read

Lorraine Dusky is an award-winning journalist, editor and author. In her Memoirs, Hole In My Heart, Ms. Dusky uses her skills as a journalist to report on the social history and long term consequences of adoption and family separation

Hole In My Heart is basically two separate books almost perfectly combined into a single Memoir –

1. The first is a raw and passionate Memoir of a young mother who is forced by circumstances to give up her child for adoption
2. The second is a comprehensive overview of the history of Adoption in America

As other reviewers have pointed out, Hole In My Heart is a very well written and beautifully crafted book

Books Butterfly Editorial Review of Hole In My Heart by Lorraine Dusky

Introduction & Context

Adoption has been a contentious issue since time immemorial. There are so many aspects of people’s lives that adoptions affect. Depending on who you ask you will get a variety of different viewpoints on adoption

How, where and why does adoption happen in a society where parents are both expected and supposed to love their children so much, that the idea of relinquishing them is almost taboo

The truth of the matter is, adoptions are happening and will continue happening. Perhaps our focus should be on how to make adoptions work well

What are the upsides and downsides? What pushes a parent into giving up their child for adoption? What are the effects on the birth mother, adoptive mother and father? What are the effects on the child?

Main Review

Ms. Lorraine Dusky takes us through adoption answering questions such as – What happens ? What motivates adoption? What are the negatives surrounding adoption? – using her own life story from a tender age

Having been born in an era where women were considered nothing more than housewives, she guides us through what women went through and what adoption meant during those days. By that time, society had not understood terms like birth mother, adoptive mother and natural mother because adoption itself was not clearly understood. Girls were born, went halfway through school, then got married and had children

Throughout the book, the author explains, sometimes with humor, how she went from being the student that was barely noticed in class to becoming the student breaking all the barriers society had installed to cap girls’ position in society. Even though her father was against her idea of going to college, she still went through with college – ruining her relationship with her father.

The author clearly and deeply unpacks the pains that come with adoption. She lays bare what the parties involved in the process go through. Hole In My Heart makes it clear that Adoption is not, by any means, a simple process. Adoption is nothing like what many people would like to think of it as. This book will give you a new perspective on adoption and a deep empathy and compassion for the birth mother and the adoptive mother and adoptive family

The book also touches on the injustices that come with sealing birth records of adoptees. The author very much supports unsealing of original birth certificates

Strengths

This book’s main strength is the author’s ability to explain herself deeply and candidly. It allows readers to almost put themselves in her exact situation. This makes the book so addictive you don’t want to put it down once you start on it

The author also uses a well structured appendix to make readers understand the Memoir better, and to get a better grip of what is written.  This combined with the references take the reader through Lorraine Dusky’s world smoothly while still getting every detail the author intended to share

Lastly, the book is about real-life events. Events that are very pertinent to current society. Events which should not be taken lightly as they affect millions of people

Weaknesses

The book’s first main weakness is that the writer writes about her life which is very unique and spans multiple decades and very different decades. Readers may tend to think their lives are not likely to follow a similar trajectory to the author’s

The book’s second main weakness is that it is an immense amount of subject matter and raw authenticity and emotion distilled into a single book. It can be overwhelming at times. Readers might feel overcome by emotions and feelings, at various points during the book. Of course, with such a powerful story, this is inevitable

Conclusion

Whether you are interested in

1. A very powerful Memoir that is raw and authentic
2. A well researched (well lived) and well crafted history of Adoption in America

Lorraine Dusky’s Hole In My Heart will deliver a magnificent read

We would give it a 100/100 for anyone interested in Adoption, especially anyone who is an Adoptee or Adopter

We would also give it a 100/100 for anyone interested in Biographies & Memoirs. The level of authenticity elevates Hole In My Heart to more than just a great read about Adoption – it’s a superbly well written Memoir

Adoption is a complex, nuanced topic and it has a massive and life-long impact on the people involved in the Adoption. Ms. Dusky’s Hole In My Heart is an absolute must read for anyone interested in Adoption and for anyone who has been part of an Adoption

Overall Recommendation

We recommend Hole In My Heart by Lorraine Dusky very strongly. It is perhaps one of the best Non Fiction/Biographies & Memoirs titles we have run across in the last 10 years (we have curated hundreds of thousands of Non Fiction books during that time span, including over 10,000 Biographies & Memoirs)

We would strongly recommend this book for mothers who have given up their children for adoption

We would also strongly recommend this to any mothers and fathers who are considering Adoption as it gives first hand information on what the whole process entails

Strongly Recommended for people who have gone through adoption (or if it has happened in the family) as it gives enlightenment and comfort – 100/100

For Biographies & Memoirs readers – 100/100

For General Non Fiction readers interested in Adoption – 100/100

For General Non Fiction readers looking for a well crafted book – 80 to 90/100

Curator’s Thoughts (not the reviewer, the curator)

Lorraine Dusky has done a great service for people who have adopted, for people who have been adopted, and for anyone interested in adoption

By

1. Leveraging her research and journalistic experience to create a well-researched book about Adoption which covers the history of adoption in America
2. Sharing her own experience of giving up her child for Adoption

She has created a truly useful book and a book which is an Absolute Must Read for anyone involved in Adoption

Lorraine Dusky managed to write a beautiful Memoir which will allow you to actually live her story and will create that raw and authentic life experience/connection which Memoir and Biography readers crave above all else

Where to get Hole In My Heart by Lorraine Dusky

Lorraine Dusky’s Book is available at Amazon –

1. Hole In My Heart Paperback
2. Hole In My Heart eBook

You can find Ms. Dusky’s other books at her Amazon Author Page. These include the controversial memoir ‘Birthmark’ which was the first Memoir from a mother writing about the grief of giving up a child to adoption