3.5

This was okay. It often came across as "trauma porn" to me, which could be because I am a survivor of adoption.

If the author had included a note, interview, or other bonus content explaining what motivated her to write this story (as the author did with [b:Before We Were Yours|32148570|Before We Were Yours|Lisa Wingate|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1498910914l/32148570._SY75_.jpg|52786185]) it might have helped diminish the trauma porn vibes.

What I can say is this book is a bright light reminder that the Catholic church still has many sins it needs to pay for and too, adoption hurts everyone. We must stop selling the bullshit fantasy "the child will have a better life" and "find a nice rich family who can better provide." Adoption does not give anyone a better life, just a different one and one that is, most often, full of pain and trauma.

Let me be very clear here: any parent who wants to keep their baby should and we, as a society, should give them the resources they need to make that happen. Likewise, if a mother does not want to be a mother, then we should not force her to be. Nor should we put that baby into the adoption system.

This was a truly excellent book that I could hardly put down. (It made long evenings with a six week old baby who didn't want to go to sleep slightly more tolerable!) I loved the Quebec setting and the exploration of the struggle between Maggie's French- and English-ness. I could hear my husband's family's voices whenever there was any French in the story - "Calice!" and "Y fait fraite!" :)

Elodie's story was heartbreaking, and absolutely maddening, especially after Maggie and Gabriel tried to track her down and were told she had died. The transformation of the orphanages into mental hospitals under Duplessis was a history I knew absolutely nothing about, and I could scarcely believe it. I can hardly fathom that nuns, who were charged with doing the work of God, could do what they did in those hospitals. Sister Camille was truly a light in the darkness. It's hard to imagine how Elodie could ever forgive her mother for everything that had happened to her.

Overall, the book was very well written, and the structure, going back and forth between Maggie's and Elodie's stories, kept me hooked.

3.5 stars
I enjoyed the story but didn't love it. What sticks with me is learning about orphanages in this time period and the corruption that occurred at the expense of the children.
It is heartbreaking and hard to believe that orphanages in Canada were converted to asylums and the children were labeled mentally deficient so that the Church could get more government funding in the 1950s. The children no longer received education and were abused and put to work helping to care for the actual mentally impaired patients that were then absorbed into these facilities.