Customer Reviews

Unlearning Adoption: A Guide to Family Preservation and Protection

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

This is quite possibly one of the worst anti-adoption books I have ever read. Ms. Delbalzo is not a psychologist, nor is she a social worker. From what I understand in reading the book, she is not even adopted and has little upfront contact with adoptees and adoptive families.

She seems to ignore the other side of the issue- that there are children whose biological families abandon them, that there are children who have no family members to be their legal guardians. She flys right over the positive things adoptees and birth parents have to say, and instead only focuses on one side.

I enjoy reading books that have to do with controversial topics, but this one is just very poorly written. If you decide to be anti-adoption or want to educate yourself on the issue, please find a book that covers both sides of the story and is written by somebody with actual credentials.

This is a terribly biased book, from a woman who has stated publicly that she believes in infanticide within 24 hours after birth, and would forcibly commit her children to a mental institution if they ever wanted to give up a child for adoption. Anyone who disagrees with her views is immediately labeled as a brainwashed child abuser.

I really wish I could give a 0 star review on this book. It's terrible. Jessica DelBalzo could have actually researched this topic and the book might have been better. Instead, she spills her "riot girl" attitude into these pages and tries to pass them as wisdom and knowledge of subject. While age does not indicate intelligence or knowledge, the 26 year old author of this book does show her age or at least maturity through her once sided, biased, and unfounded look at the subject.

Lastly, her publisher, BookSurge, will publish just about anything. Her book is in effect self published, meaning that no one had to fact check or validate her claims. Self publishing in principle makes a book, in my opinion, less creditable.

This author has no particular credentials in this field, and no apparent reason to hold such virulent anti-adoption feelings -- yet her anti-adoption venom comes through on every page. There's no doubt there have been abuses in the past, and some continue into the present. But the diatribe here has nothing to do with abuses and everything to do with her mystifying conviction that children would better off living in homes not as family but as legal wards -- why that's better than including those children as family members is never quite explained. It's more "honest"? Tell that to the legions of children being raised as the much-loved sons and daughters of adoptive parents -- why in the world anyone would suggest that they'd be better off not as sons and daughters but as wards (what, like Robin in the stately Wayne Mansion?) is a mystery.

Read this book if you're an adoptive parent and you want to know the opposition. Just don't expect to understand it.

The first thing, as a reader of non-fiction or scholarly work, is review the credentials of the writer. Ms. DelBalzo has none. This isn't an autobiography, or even a biography, much less a scholarly work. Ms. DelBalzo has no background in the area other than feeling pity for those who have been adopted into poor situations. We can relate to that, right? What most of us can't relate to is how the writer went from feeling sympathetic to losing her mind over a subject that, by her own account, isn't even personal.

This is certainly no unbiased work: the author believes that if you cannot have biological children, you wouldn't have made a good parent anyway, and that the infertile should simply "choose a hobby" or foster children without showing them affection or welcome. One should also realize that Ms. DelBalzo advocates post-birth abortion; that is, performing infanticide on a child after birth if the parents change their mind after his or her birth. She also advocates returning the children of child molesters, abusers, rapists, and murders to their care. This is preferable, in her admitted opinion, to a child being adopted by a family. She also admits that she would try to have an adult child of her own involuntarily committed if they chose to adopt or to give a child for adoption.

With that said, this book is laced with hate. Ms. DelBalzo would have been a great propagandist of the past. She completely disregards anyone who have great biological parents; they must be brainwashed. Don't want your child? Abort. Don't believe in it, but don't want your child? Well those people don't exist in her mind. Have an adopted child? Well, you shouldn't be a teacher, or a child psychologist; Ms. DelBalzo and her ilk would never frequent your practice or let you teach a child of theirs. This book is sick, just like its author and the movement she stands for.

The author uses biased sources and anectdotes to push her anti-adoption agenda, resulting in an unbalanced work that verges on propaganda for her cause. Conflicting evidence is either imperfectly dismissed or, more commonly, ignored altogether. She is dismissive of all adoptees with positive experiences, referring to them instead as brainwashed abuse victims. A shallow, sensationalist piece of trash.

Narrow-minded, one-sided, selfish and uncaring about the reality of what good things there are about adoption -- mostly for the child. Is this woman crazy?? Where did she get her "agenda?" I'd like to give the book a -5 rating, but it's not a choice. So it's a big, fat ZERO. Avoid this book, unless you want to get yourself aggravated and upset. Boy does she have issues!

The author literally has no idea what she's talking about. The majority of her statistics were garnered either from her own imagination or from unverifiable websites. She has severe emotional and mental problems which are evident if you've ever had any contact with her (and I have) or read any of her postings about adoption online.

This book is not worth the paper it's printed on.

Also, people should know the majority of the positive reviews of this book are not in fact from unbiased readers, but from friends of Jessica's who wrote bogus reviews to make her page look good.

Don't waste your money on this. You'd be better off getting advice from a blank book.

Just horrible. The author seemed to have spent very little energy in looking up facts and instead filled the novel with hateful anti-adoption propoganda that was loosely backed. Any information collected that disagreed with her, she disregarded.

I was sorely disappointed.

This is the worst book I've read about adopting in a long time. Filled with Fallocies and lack of actual information, this book is a no read for anyone with a true brain.

Please, if you are going to insist on being anti adoption, atleast do it with a bit of knowledge, something this author has none of.