Thanks to NetGalley and Kaylie Jones books for this advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review. Inconvenient Daughter is a beautiful and heatbreaking book that keeps you on your toes til the end. The book covers a strong female lead as she grapples with identity and belonging. It tugs on your heartstrings. Beautifully written book!

This book definitely had a haunting quality to it. We follow the main character Rowan who struggles heavily with her identity and finding her place in the world. Her Korean mother gave her up when she was just a newborn which meant she has been adopted by a middle-class American family not long after. Rowan faces problems as any teenager with navigating relationships and discovering who she is. This is all made extra harder for her because of adoption, cultural differences and feelings in general that she has towards her biological mom and her adoptive family. The situation escalates and after she transitions into University/College life we see Rowan's life drastically shift.

Inconvenient Daughter tells the story of Rowan's young life and flips back and forth between her past and present day. She has a typical American childhood in many ways - a struggle for independence and figuring out her own identity. As an internationally adopted child, Rowan is dealing with questions that many adoptees wonder about - Why did my birth mother give me up? Am I a consolation prize for my adopted mother because she could not have kids of her own? As she tries to ask her mother these difficult questions, her mother shuts down, pushing Rowan to look for answers on her own. Much of this book is about Rowan's perception that she was not wanted, not enough for her mother, but seeing in hindsight that her mother has always looked out for her and tried her best. When she gets trapped in an abusive relationship, she begins her downward spiral, alienating her family and friends, and allowing the persistent violence to occur in her tumultuous relationship. Only through all of these hardships does she realize the level of love that her mother has always had for her.

In the book, she does jump timelines often, and because the time periods are close to each other, it can be hard to pinpoint where we are right away. The ending is also fairly abrupt, and I wish that more time had been spent on the relationship of Rowan and her mother, and how they are going to move forward.

This book was a little scattered for me. It jumped around in time in a way that didn't really make sense. In the first half, the adoption was a huge part of the storyline, but closer to the end, it seemed like a plot device to explain the narrator’s bad decisions. SPOILERS The hospital storyline really upset me and I feel like it's dangerous to put this print. Letting hospital staff assume you've been raped is not acceptable. Ever. Under any circumstance. She had consensual sex and regretted it. That's the exact thing victim-blames throw at survivors of actual sexual assault

Wow. Just wow.

I don't know what I was expecting when I requested Inconvenient Daughter, but it certainly wasn't anything like what I got, which was a surprisingly powerful and beautifully written book that deals with many hard-hitting and hot-button issues while relating the story of a Korean girl named Rowan, who struggles with several issues that all seem to stem from her unresolved feelings surrounding her adoption by white American parents. It is told from the first-person perspective in stream-of-consciousness style, detailing the events that ultimately led to Rowan's hospitalization.

If you ask me, the new adult classification is definitely deceiving, as I almost exclusively associate the genre with romances that have explicit sex scenes and not with the kind of gritty fiction that deals with delicate issues such as interracial adoption, identity, self-esteem, controlling and abusive relationships, and infertility. Needless to say, I got a lot more than I bargained for with Inconvenient Daughter. And I'm happy I did, even though the story was a hell of a lot sadder than I expected.

Inconvenient Daughter is a hard book to read but, at the same time, impossible to put down. It is heartbreaking and sad, but it also leaves the door open to hope and the possibility of redemption. I highly recommend this story.

Really enjoyed Lauren Sharkeys writing style. Very easy to follow and read. This story was about Rowan, a transracial adoptee, who is struggling with being given up by her birth mother when she was an infant. This internal struggle leads to abusive relationships which were really hard to read about. I know these kind of relationships really happens everyday but it is so hard for me to comprehend. I was rooting for Rowan and anxious to get to the end to see how it would all turn out.

Wow! I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting, but this book was surprising. Rowan is a girl adopted from South Korea who seems to never really fit into her Long Island home. This sense of not-belonging haunts her, resulting in a young adulthood full of trauma.

I was hooked on the narrative structure, Rowan’s development of her relationship with her mother, and the parental dynamic. Thank you for the ARC, Netgalley.

Spoilers contained: Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book as an ARC in return for a honest review. This was a quick read for me due to the way the author wrote it in the first person for the main character Rowan. I was interested in her story at the beginning as she was born in Korea and then adopted by American parents residing in Long Island. I wish the story was more focused on this issue. The problem was I did not like Rowan as a character or person. She seemed very disrespectful of her mother and unwilling to care about anything other than what she wanted. Rowan goes to college and then everything goes off the rails when she meets Hunter who she falls in love with and drops her family for despite his being both verbally and physically abusive. She gets dismissed from school as she loses her scholarship and winds up back home with her parents who seem to really care about her and love her despite her poor attitude. She continues to pick men who are bad for her and willfully degrades herself. I see the connection was trying to be made that she was cast out by her biomom, men, school. But her parents don't get the credit they deserve as they wanted her when they adopted her. At times the story goes back to present day when Rowan is going to a rape treatment center for help although it does not seem that she was raped but rather just finally going for help of some kind. I am glad she redeemed herself somewhat at the end but overall this book was just a mess. I see it has gotten good reviews so hopefully it will be reviewed better by other readers.

I had never heard of this author or story, but I was HOOKED on the description alone... and it did not disappoint! A wonderful debut novel from Lauren Sharkey, the Inconvenient Daugther follows Rowan's life and the emotional struggles she goes through as a result of her adoption. Struggling through identify problems, I enjoyed following Rowan on her journey to find her sense of belonging.

This story gives insight into life as an adopted daughter. Rowan recalls her first day of school in sharp clear detail. Her first kiss, stolen in moments with her first real boyfriend. She learns as we all do when to draw attention and when to observe.

Rowan only knows life living in suburban Long Island, but everyone seems to identify her as Korean. She was adopted from Korea by her Catholic parents and knows nothing of Korea. She worries that she’s never been wanted, and like a teenager doesn’t know how to deal with that other than by isolating herself from those who care about her. The first-person narrative does an excellent job in portraying roan’s loneliness and search for identity. It seems a little uneven and that is distracting.

Rowan lives in America with her adoptive parents and has a very strained relationship with her mother. This leads her to make some bad decisions in the future in this quick and very readable novel.

Rowan was a frustrating character for me and I couldn't quite understand what her motivation was and why she seemed to hate her mother so much. The book jumps around quite a lot, giving us more insight into Rowan's background and friendships.

I felt the ending of the story was rushed and I felt a bit unsatisfied at the end. But this was easy to read and introduced an interesting and complex character.

Inconvenient Daughter by Lauren Sharkey

This is a story about a Rowan, a transracial adoptee from Korea. She struggles with feeling loved by her adoptive family, and the trauma of having been given up for adoption by her birth mother. This leads her to make some very questionable choices, and she ends up in an abusive relationship because she doesn’t think she deserves better. I know this because the book tells me. Unfortunately I don’t SEE or FEEL it.

From other stories of/by transracial adoptees I know this can be a very traumatic experience. So it’s not that I don’t find it believable, I just don’t think it comes across in the story and I was unable to connect emotionally with the main character. As a result I found the book somewhat tedious, and ended up skim reading large sections in the middle to get through it.

In parts a difficult read because of the subject matter , but Rowan is a character I kept rooting for and I wanted to keep hearing her story. I enjoyed how the author developed the story between different times and the characters in the story were well developed. Definitely worth a read

thank you so much to publishers and the author for the chance to review this book, full review to come

This is one of the best books I've read in a while. Rowan's experience as an Asian child adopted by white parents resonated with me (although I am not adopted) because she constantly had to find her place in a community where not many people looked like her and at some points completely rejected her Asian-ness. The relationship between Rowan and her mother is also relatable to just about anyone who was angsty as a teen. The second half of the book turns a bit darker (TW: domestic and sexual violence) but is so incredibly heartbreaking and well written.

I went into this not knowing what this was about and let me just say.. this book broke my heart. I finished this in one day because I was nervous what would become of Rowan and needed to know. I wasn't expecting this to be so sad and heart breaking. Rowan struggles with her adoption and feeling like she's never good enough. She went through so much pain physically and emotionally and she REALLY didn't deserve that. I just wanted to reach through the book and give her a hug and protect. I do think the ending was cute but it did sort of end suddenly, I think I wanted more for Rowan and her mother but I'm glad at the end she was finally able to find her worth.

Thank you netgalley and to the publisher for the arc!

Inconvenient Daughter is a look into the life of an adopted Korean girl who is trying hard to discover her own identity in a family that doesn't share her same experiences. As a disclaimer, I will be sharing some major spoilers in this review, which I typically don't do, however, this big plot point is the main thing that impacted my rating on this book, and I feel it's really important to share for readers to make the best decision in their choice to read the book.

Rowan was adopted at a young age from Korea to transplant into an Irish Catholic family in Long Island. She first discovers her transracial identity when beginning school. From there, she begins to question who she is and how she fits into her own family, and within the greater world. From elementary school to college and beyond, Rowan makes choices that impact the trajectory of her life and dive deeper into who she is and who she wants to be.

SPOILERS BELOW.
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So here's the thing - this book was really promising, and there may be a ton of people who really love it. But one of the major plot points really bothered me so much and I have to share that here. Each chapter begins with a paragraph or so of Rowan at a clinic with a nurse. After a few chapters, it's clear she's been sexually assaulted. Later in the book, you find out what's happened to her, however, as an adult, Rowan is promiscuous (no "slut-shaming" here, she has the right to do as she pleases). What bothers me so much is that during the continuous scenes at the clinic, the ones that span the entirety of the book, she is lying about her sexual assault and who assaulted her. She also has evidence collected, which would prove to have been from someone else entirely during a sexual encounter that was consensual. The fact that the entire book leads up to her lying about being raped really bothers me. And I have very strong feelings about this type of situation. I believe women, but it's very difficult for others to believe women for whatever reason, and so someone who does lie about someone sexually assaulting them could negatively impact all women who want to come forward but are afraid to do so. I understand this is a work of fiction. I understand that I've really loved books that are much more controversial, but something about this really got under my skin. I get the concept of the book. Horrible things happen to Rowan in this story, and she deals with that in her own way, and she needs answers and help, but lying about someone sexually assaulting you is not the way to do.


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END SPOILERS

All of that to say, the rest of the book isn't bad. The writing is very choppy at times - the story line jumps around a lot. But again, there was a lot of promise with this book. I just can't get over how everything wrapped up.

"Dad always said love was built on trust. Trust that the other person would be honest about the things that matter, and the things that don't. Trust that they'd love you despite your flaws. Trust that they'd protect you from harm. Trust that they'd never hurt you on purpose." - Inconvenient Daughter, Lauren J. Sharkey

If you go into the book understanding the above, I will say that if you enjoyed Pizza Girl, you'll likely also enjoy Inconvenient Daughter. The storytelling is very different, but they are reminiscent of each other. Both books are about young women struggling with their identities and making choices to try to alleviate a pain in their lives, which is very poetic. I really loved Pizza Girl, and I wish I could've loved this one as much.

The author's novel focuses on a transracial adoption and feelings of not belonging or of being inadequate. Rowan is in a hospital following a traumatic event and focuses on the major events of her life that led to her ending up there. This book will strike a cord with those that struggle with self-esteem, as the author created such a relatable character in Rowan.

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.