Laura S. (BookHappy) reviewed on 6/13/2012 + 32 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

Somebody Else's Daughter tells what happens after the adoption-gone-wrong
This Elizabeth Brundage novel is a gripping story of how two hippies give up their daughter for adoption and what happens when the supposedly perfect family has lots of secrets to hide.
The mother dies just after passing the baby to the new family, and the father goes off to mourn and clean up his act.
Fifteen years later he returns to the town where his daughter lives as a writing instructor at the prep school. I cannot identify with the la-di-da wealth of the kind of people this story is about, but the plot and the level of writing are several notches above the usual mass-market best-seller.
Nobody is quite what they pretend to be; everyone has secrets. Like where Willa's adoptive parents got their wealth, or why the school director keeps moving around from one school to another, or even the fact that the writing instructor used to be a drug addict and a father before he straightened out his life.
Unraveling those secrets keeps the book interesting through 300-plus pages.
Disturbing currents spoil the beauty of the Berkshires in Massachusetts. Small towns aren't big enough to hide secrets this big.

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