No Names to be Given
The widely anticipated debut novel by Julia Brewer Daily is a glimpse into the lives of women forced by society to gift their newborns to strangers. Although this novel is a fictional account, it mirrors many of the adoption stories of its era.
When three young unwed women meet at a maternity home hospital in New Orleans in 1965, they are expected to relinquish their babies and return home as if nothing transpired. Twenty-five years later, they are brought back together by blackmail and their secrets threatened with exposure—all the way to the White House.
Told from the three women’s perspectives in alternating chapters, we are mesmerized by the societal pressures on women in the 1960s who found themselves pregnant without marriage.
How that inconceivable act changed them forever is the story of No Names To Be Given, a novel with southern voices, love exploited, heartbreak and blackmail.
My Review
Instantly, I connected with Sandy, Becca, and Faith. Each women had a story that could be anyone's story and situation. Sadly, it has been for a lot of women. Author, Julia did a wonderful job of penning this story and infusing such life into the story.
This is the type of book where the characters are so vital to the story that if the readers can not connect with the characters, it is just another story. Therefore, I am very happy to report that readers will connect to the three ladies as I did.
The layout for this book is broken out into three sections. The first section focuses on the girls and the situations that forced them to have to give up their babies. The second section time jumps a bit to the girls trying to move forward with their new lives and the third section is the present where the girls are all grown up with new families of their own but never forgetting about the babies they gave up.
As someone who is adopted, I have had those thoughts in the past about why my parents gave me up. Yet, I credit and love my adopted parents so much. I could not stop reading this book. I look forward to seeing what the author comes out with next.
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