Book Review: Inconvenient Daughter by Lauren J. Sharkey

Hey friends!

Today I'm going to review the book Inconvenient Daughter by Lauren Sharkey. I received an eARC of this novel courtesy of NetGalley and Kaylie Jones Books. I was super excited to read this one because it focuses on the early to mid twenties of the protagonist, which is my age group. It comes out on June 23rd.

Goodreads

Summary

Inconvenient Daughter follows a girl named Rowan Kelly who lives on Long Island. She was adopted from Korea by an Irish American family. The story follows her life as she grapples with the realities of being a trans-racial adoptee and the oftentimes destructive ways she tries to deal with her feelings on her family and adoption.

Review

This book has one of the best and most realistic voices I have read in a long time. At first, I wasn’t sure how it worked with the time flow of the novel, but then I decided to think of it as a fictional memoir and I got lost in it. Sometimes stream of consciousness narration gets too abstract and doesn’t work for me, but the voice kept the stream concrete. I could tell that portions of this story were definitely based on the author’s own experiences, which made this even more impactful, especially the hopeful ending.

This book was advertised to me as New Adult and I would definitely classify it as that based on the content (cw for domestic and sexual abuse, fertility issues, drug use). It was definitely gritty but nothing felt gratuitous. However, the story goes back to the main character Rowan’s childhood and I found this incredibly engaging. The scenes of young Rowan helped set the scene for the struggles faced later. 

I would recommend this book if you are looking for a story that shows how ugly reality can be but how it is recoverable. I would also recommend this book if you are interested in an adoption story where the narrator struggles with their adoption. 

I rated this book 4 stars!

Kyra