Customer Reviews

Swimming Up the Sun: A Memoir of Adoption

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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Nicole Burton's Swimming Up the Sun provides an insightful account into self-exploration. She brilliantly interweaves the external circumstances of her search with inner musings in an engaging book. The author is quick witted, humorous, and candid in her observations. I would recommend this memoir to people who have had personal experience with adoption as well as those who want to learn about the gripping need for connection with those who share biological ties. Excellent book!

Sara Nieves-Grafals, Ph.D. Clinical Psychologist

Nicole has written a heartfelt, honest account of the complex needs, tensions, and feelings of all the members of a biological family involved in adoption. As an adoptive mother, I especially appreciated the open and sensitive account of an adoptee's search and her emotional roller coaster as she sought to connect with her biological family. I highly recommend this book to all those already involved in adoption, or who are considering an adoption. Adoptees' needs are an important aspect of the situation, and Nicole presents this perspective simply and eloquently.

As the daughter of an adopted woman who was disappointed in her own search for birth relatives, this story resonated with me on many levels, but one needn't have a connection to adoption to enjoy the honest and moving story of this woman's journey. My book club recently read this and, for once, everyone actually read the whole book! All of us connected with at least one of the characters and found this hard to put down. As a memoir of an adoption or just as a good read, this is worth picking up.

Swimming Up the Sun is a touching and well-written story that reveals the wonderful and agonizing complexity of family relationships. The writer demonstrates grace and wit in her portrayals and inspires empathy in her readers. Though I have never been involved in an adoption, I found the story poignant and deeply relevant, especially at a time when fewer and fewer families resemble traditional family models.

I have nothing to do with adoption-I read the book because I knew the author in high school. I could not put it down! Wonderful writing, great characters, drama and humor-I highly recommend this book.

Born into the Midlands of 1950s England, given up by her teenage mother & adopted into a military family which emigrated to America after her Dad retired. By 22, Nicole, with her family disintegrated & her career as a playwright on the move, picks up the scent of who were her birth mother & father.

The how & the why of her exploration: of who they are, where & when they met & what they've done since then, reads like a Maeve Binchy tale (who I love!). This recounting is filled with chilly bureaucrats (& I know something about those!), crazy characters, unknown sisters, rare opportunities & deep philosophies that spoke to my own adopted-ness:

"...All those years of staring at myself in the mirror, trying to see behind my own eyes; my God, I thought, I've done it--I've climbed through the looking glass into the world beyond." p.39

"...I took the picture into my office and asked my colleagues pointedly, "Who is this?" "Who does this remind you of?" Most of the time, people stared at the picture, looked at me, and said, "Your sister?" For an adoptee, this was a sublime moment: to look like someone for the world to see, to be related to someone after all." p.91

It's way more than "just" finding out who your birth mum & dad were -- you've got to be willing to accept them as they are... no judgments. Way more than being ungrateful or disloyal to your Mum & Dad & has zero to do with being "real" mums & dads. Oh yeah, the journey can also last decades!

Nicole has done well, writing a thoughtful & articulate saga, although with some abbreviated segments... I loved her trans-Atlantic adventures, however, what I missed were any photos!

For those just starting on the path to discovering your roots, check out Betty Jean Lifton's life-changing Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness.

This book was a gripping tale which rings very true with all the feelings that go along with being an adoptee - going through search and reunion. I finished this book in two days and would highly recommend it to anyone.

I found this book highly engaging and instructive. Here's why.

One of the reasons I embraced open adoption for my children was that I wanted to avoid the search and reunion that they might one day decide to pursue.

Search/reunion sounded unappealing all the way around. For them -- finding and meeting as strangers the people who are so intimately integral to their lives. For me -- dealing with my own feelings of second-bestness, of fear and trepidation, possibly jealousy, and also wanting to give my full support. Such conflict, such drama.

The solution seemed clear: make search and reunion unnecessary by not having a cleft between our families in the first place.

Reading Swimming Up the Sun: A Memoir of Adoption by playwright Nicole J Burton leads me to believe my instincts were spot on.

I encourage adoptive parents to read the book so that they can understand what the wondering is like for some adopted people, to see that wondering about birth parents can be wholly independent of an adoptee's feelings for their adoptive parents.

Thumbs up.

This was a good read, I did not want to put it down until I learned all of Nicole's story. I recommend it!

I really enjoyed this book. The author spent a lot of time trying to locate her birth family and appears to have written an honest account of her findings, warts and all. It is very well written and all of the people here are likeable and add something to the story. It proves, once again, that for the most part people do the best they can with what they've got, and that's all we can hope for in this life.