I was so pissed off by this novel that I couldn't bring myself to review it until six days after reading it. Everyone starts out their reviews on here by talking about DNA testing for ancestry testing, but that's barely what the book is about. Yeah, yeah, I took the 23andme one when it was still really expensive and was shocked at how white I was. Someone on Twitter cleverly remarked that the biggest effect of ancestral DNA testing is that it shatters the myth so many white people put forth that they have some Native American ancestral history. I appreciated that tweet a lot. One thing a LOT of people seem to miss is just how often DNA testing sites warn users, on the front page every other sentence and often in big, bold font, just how much you need to realize that you might be related to someone you weren't expecting, and you will find out unpleasant things. I noticed it right away. Not Parent Expected is a real-life facebook group that is referred to several times in this novel. It deserved to be examined in a much better novel.

This book starts out with the heroine bragging about how white she is, and I grimly settled in for--oh fuck she's observant Jewish -that makes her remarks so much worse-. A whole paragraph after how she brags about how white she is, was dedicated to how Jewish people can have red hair. No shit. China also has indigenous Jewish populations, off the top of my head. Every country does, is the point I'm trying to make. Just say you have red hair, you (censored). One thing she didn't talk about was her freckles or her relationship to them, so I assumed she dyed her hair. She mentioned offhand that she sunburns easily, but I was not impressed. So she finally shuts up and the book switches to the 1970s, where we meet her mom as a college student, who has what she considers a love triangle and what I consider social issues that seriously affected people, especially today. The POVs flip back and forth for multiple chapters at a time per person, and--those could be chapter transitions. The mom was such a useless character that I hate to say it, but it would have been far more effective if she were dead. Her whole purpose was to be an enormously passive-aggressive clinical narcissist who never could speak up for herself, refused to tell her daughter the truth, yelled at her, and tried to make her daughter's wedding her own. She makes her college buddy explain really sensitive things. Have her dead, please, and the college buddy tell her after the funeral. Not her dad's. Have him and the other guy hate each other, and have the daughter meet the other guy in a different way. The book is packed with nauseating cliches throughout. Homophobia and antisemitism are rampant throughout, and racism pops up, and xenophobia is definitely here. Misogyny too. I kept reading to learn if the book would end on the vomit-worthy cliche I thought it would. It 85% did. Gag.

Why on earth did the author publish this? She clearly wrote it for herself, but why did it go so mainstream? How frustrating. It doesn't respect people who go through this IRL: having a Not Parent Expected, an emotionally abusive parent who won't talk to you, and such. Gimme a book written from -their- perspective because wow, it will be so different. ( )

This is a magical book which is totally engaging. I read this book in a day.

It's easy to figure out the plot. Paige's father passes away. She does a DNA test and one day gets a message that her biological father is someone she doesn't know. Of course, her mother is in denial. She's getting married within a few months and her friends are encouraging her to find her DNA dad.

The words flow smoothly which makes it super fast to read. The characters are well defined and the plot is current with the popular ancestry kits making us wonder about relationships. It makes a discussion for book clubs with proposed questions in the back of the book. Paige said, "I've always been the kind of person who believes things happen for a reason. And there has to be a reason for all of this to come out now."

It's comforting to read a book that is easy to digest and stays with you over time. ( )

Finding about your real father is not easy when you're mother never told you. Paige finds out through a DNA site. She has a nice life with a fiance, her two best friends who I wanted to be friends with.

Does she want to meet her real father? She only knew her other father who she loved. She always did wonder where she got her artistic ability from though.

She never really got along with her mother though she's tried and wants to try again and wants to know the truth but her mother never wanted to talk about it ( )

Paige is still mourning from the death of her father which happened 2 years earlier. She and her dad, Mark, shared a special relationship, but her relationship with her mother, Elizabeth, is not so special. Paige was born after her mother became pregnant while still in college..Paige feels her mother resents her for this. Paige is engaged to Jeff, and her best friends are Maks and Margaux. These 3 help her when she receives an email alert from Family tree telling her they have found a parent/child match with Andrew Abrams. She can't believe it. Paige does some soul searching to understand how she can no longer be Mark's daughter.
While I can't understand the devastation Paige must have felt to learn this news, I thought both Paige and Elizabeth mishandled the entire issue. The deception in keeping this a secret for so long was terrible. I thought the book definitely captured the mindset of the '70s.
Thanks to The Book Club Girls/Harper Collins and NetGalley for a copy. All opinions are freely given.
#LittlePiecesofMe #NetGalley ( )

I liked this second book by Alison Hammer - the story was engaging and timely and the characters were all likable. But I felt like all of the characters should have been 10 years younger - Paige and her friends seemed more like they were in their early 30s instead of their 40s and the twins acted more like college students than grown women. This will be a great book club selection with lots of topics for discussion. Thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC. ( )