HOME WORK

In this memoir, a young woman gives up her daughter for adoption and learns to accept herself.

In 1996, Collins was a rising senior at a private Christian college when she experienced an unplanned pregnancy. Her boyfriend, Jack, had endured an abusive childhood and wasn’t ready to parent. The author chose to give up her daughter, Bree, for adoption, and she married Jack. Over time, she gave birth to three boys, and the couple adopted another son. To “make amends” for giving her daughter away, Collins vowed to be the perfect mother. She home-schooled the boys, and her color-coded schedule was impressive to look at, but it wasn’t reality—on the inside, she felt far from perfect. But there’s a compelling twist in this heart-tugging memoir, as college-age Bree was reunited with her birthparents. A cleareyed depiction of the joys and complexities of family ties, this life story uses beautifully descriptive language. For example, Collins recounts how she prepared her heart for the sorrow of leaving her baby: “Like some amateur potter striving to form a clay vessel that would harden in time, I felt that if I tried hard enough, if the wall I built was thick enough, and if the vessel around my heart was sturdy enough, I’d survive the moment I first gazed upon my daughter’s face.” Even though this is an honest portrayal of a troubled woman—she exploded in resentful tirades at Jack, and when her youngest baby wouldn’t stop crying, she dropped him roughly on the bed—Collins is warmly likable. The last third of the work is anticlimactic and somewhat dull (the author and her family visited Disney World; they bought the perfect house; and Collins started writing this book), but most of the story is stirring.

A tender portrait of love and loss.