Perfectly nice summer reading. Plot centers around a woman reunited (unexpectedly) with the daughter she gave up for adoption 18 years ago.

Mostly fluff but does deviate into some ethical issues regarding adoption, abortion and secrets vs lies. I tend to agree with the author's position so that didn't bother me much but I can see it rubbing those who are more heavily pro-choice the wrong way.

Very much like the TV show called Life Unexpected - I am very curious which was first. ( )

“Where we belong is often where we least expect to find ourselves—a place that we may have willed ourselves to forget, but that the heart remembers forever.”
― Emily Giffin, Where We Belong

Spoilers will be all over this review:

So I have loved this writer’s duel books, something borrowed and Something blue.

I also loved her book, Baby proof.

The only book I dislike by her is Love The one you’re with.

I am in the middle on this. It is a sweet story. Mother and daughter find each other. There is a bit of charm to the story and it was ok as a quick read.

But it did not wow me. I thought it was a cute read. But the characters did not reach out through the book and touch me as in some of her other books.

Then again the story did not pull me in or interest me as much as some of her others as well.

Not that Where we belong is bad. Not at all.

It is just not a favorite..like the others. ( )

This would be a good beach read ( )

I always love Emily Giffin books for their complexity. She has a way of taking a group of characters on a journey and examining an issue from multiple viewpoints... really wringing it out until there's nothing left to be taken from the experience.

And this time, that subject was adoption and the effect on everyone involved. We open from the viewpoint of Marian, the birth mother, which was a great perspective, particularly in that (very small spoiler) we get to see her reaction as she gets a surprise of someone she isn't expecting to see appearing on her doorstep at the end of an emotional evening. I think it wouldn't have packed the same emotional punch in the reverse.

Kirby has struggled to fit in with the family that has raised her. HER family. She isn't like them, even though she loves them, and in the wake of hurtful words and with the decision of what to do for college looming, she makes the decision to seek her birth mother out. I liked the twists and turns in this. ( )

I wasn't expecting an intellectual encounter but neither did I think that I would be reading adolescent tripe with a thinly veiled pro-life message. I think that even if I'd read this book as a teenager, I'd have been disappointed.
Trite, with unloveable characters, this book is dull and predictable. ( )