Affiliate links can be found within this post. If you need additional information, please see the disclaimer.
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book which I received from the author. All views expressed are only my honest opinion.
My Review:
This is a story about a woman who has known her entire life that she was adopted and shares her life experience of being raised by wonderfully loving parents who never once made her question where she came from or have any desire to know. It’s not until much, much later on in her life that an off-hand conversation prompts her to think more deeply about finding out who her biological family is and why she was ever put up for adoption.
A poignant story that really cuts at the personal questions of “who are we?” and what factors in our experiences and biology define who we are. Patti’s life is filled with examples of how experience and environment shaped who she is, but there are also the biological factors of where we come from that color things in our experiences. Her body image issues are one example of this and a very important one. When your biology drives certain physical differences that you’re not seeing around you, it can make you feel “different” or that something’s wrong with you. Especially during those teenage years when everything seems to be going wrong with how you envision your physical development.
Her storytelling is engrossing in that it takes us through her childhood experiences in a small Michigan town and how wonderful her life was. There were trials and struggles as any kid goes through, but how much she felt loved and appreciated in her home. This is a very special experience for any child, but even more relevant for someone who later on reflects on why she was put up for adoption and the family that chose her and loved her with everything they had to offer.
I related with Patti’s childhood in so many ways as well. Not so much the small town or living on a farm, but her emotional distresses were familiar to me. In “My Favorite Lines” below, I call out one about using the bathroom. To this day, I have an irrational fear of not being able to find a bathroom – which is born from traumatic experiences of actually not being able to. I cry-laughed when I read that line because I completely understood that feeling.
My Favorite Lines:
- “One other thing I’ve learned about the truth greatly – the passage of time. Time, I’ve come to find, is very, very good at deception. It is almost as good as people.”
- “I still have an unreasonable fear of not being able to take a pee when necessary.”
- “I came to realize it wasn’t that Mom held the power in the “should-the-dog-get-a-bedtime-snack” part of their relationship, but they had a true partnership and discussed even the smallest and most trivial of matters.”
GET IT HERE:
AMAZON | GOODREADS | PUBLISHER | BOOKSHOP
Available May 7, 2024
Patti Eddington always knew she was adopted, and her beloved parents seemed amenable enough to questions—but she never wanted to hurt them by expressing curiosity, so she didn’t. The story of her mother cutting off and dying her hair when she was a toddler? She thought it was eccentric and funny, nothing more. When she discovered at fifteen that her birthday wasn’t actually her birthday? She believed it when her mother said she’d changed it to protect her from the “nosy old biddies” who might try to discover her identity.
It wasn’t until decades later, when a genealogy test led Patti to her biological family (including an aunt with a shocking story) and the discovery of yet another birthday, that she really began to integrate what she thought she knew about her origins. Determined to know the truth, she finally petitioned a court to unseal records that had been locked up for almost sixty years—and began to put the pieces of her past together, bit by painstaking bit.
Framed by a brief but poignant 1963 “Report of Investigation” based on a caseworker’s one-day visit to Patti’s childhood home, The Girl With Three Birthdays tells the story of an adoptee who always believed she was the answer to a couple’s seventeen-year journey to become parents, until a manila envelope from a rural county court arrived and caused her to question . . . everything.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patti Eddington is a newspaper and magazine journalist whose favorite job ever was interviewing the famous authors who came through town on book tours. She never dreamed of writing about her life because she was too busy helping build her husband’s veterinary practice, caring for her animal obsessed daughter—whose favorite childhood toy was an inflatable tick—and learning to tap dance. Then fate, and a DNA test, led her to a story she felt compelled to tell. Today, the mid-century modern design enthusiast and Jazzercise instructor enjoys being dragged on walks by her ridiculous three-legged dog, David, and watching the egrets and bald eagles from her deck on a beautiful bayou in Spring Lake, Michigan.
WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
Looking for book recs…
Adventures in Literature 
Leave a comment