Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I would have given the book 2-3 stars had it not contained the offensive custody battle plot. I thought the first half of the novel was fine, in the second half however, you can clearly see the author contorting the characters to make them do what she wants them to do & to paint two specific characters in the worst possible light. It wasn't natural. For that matter, neither was the overall plot which contained enough coincidences for any pulp romance novel. A man sees a woman who looks just like his wife on the subway as he & his wife are looking for a surrogate! The potential surrogate just found out her scholarship was cancelled (and never having heard of this thing called financial aid) & needs money for 3 more years of school! A woman kidnaps a baby. But it's alright because she's the birth mother. Plot point that is still bothering me, a person could leave the country with a child without documentation in the late 80's? I don't think so. And never mind that to that she was a struggling waitress without resources. Where did the money come from - day of travel is one pricey plane ticket even in the 80's. She watches the house on the DAY OF the court decision, kidnaps the kid, is on a plane back to China with the kid within hours & is out of the country... all before the parents wake up? Clunky is a kind way of putting it. That would have rated a 2 star review all things being equal. I am rating this 1 star because I found it so over-the-top offensive about adoption. After caring for an abandoned baby for over a year & right before the adoption is made final, through a coincidence - the birth mother finds out where her child is and goes for custody. The fact that the child had bonded with her parents & that the parents had bonded with the child is completely glossed over. The writer insists on forcing the point that the birth mother (AKA the abandoning parent) is by the fact that she was birth mother is the "mother". The writer also insists that because the parents were Caucasian, that the child would be in some way "harmed" by the fact they couldn't bring her up within her Chinese "culture" (never mind that the kid was born in the US). To help push that idea along she also paints the mother - the one who cared for the child - in the worst possible light. When questioned about Chinese culture on the stand, the woman says that they eat Chinese food. News flash to the author - a REAL parent is the one who stays up with kid when they are sick. A REAL parent is there to read stories. A REAL parent is there to shower a child with love. A REAL parent is the one with whom the child has bonded for over a year. The fact that the writer ends with the parents adopting a "new" Chinese baby, as if the child they had bonded with was a replaceable commodity, was just the cherry on top of the sundae. I don't know what happened to the author when she lived in Shaker Heights but it was bad enough that she treats its residents with the utmost possible scorn. I'll pass on future books by this author & only finished this book because it was a book club selection.