Elmarie Arnold’s Un-Adoptically Me is a raw and personal memoir told through 88 vivid “snapshots” that trace her journey as an adoptee navigating the complex and lifelong ripples of primal trauma. It dives into the bittersweet paradoxes of adoption, love wrapped in loss, gratitude clouded by grief, and identity tangled in silence. Through poetic, bold, and often gut-wrenching storytelling, Elmarie lays bare her emotional landscape, from her childhood innocence to adult reckoning, through motherhood, heartbreak, and healing. It’s not a straight line. It’s layered, messy, and brave.

There’s a section in “A Life Reborn” that just clung to my heart—Elmarie writes about holding her newborn son for the first time in the same hospital where she was born and later adopted. That moment wrecked me. She’s breastfeeding him, watching this new little life cling to her, and all she can think about is how she’ll never abandon him like she feels she was abandoned. I’ve had my arms around my own kids and thought those same fierce, protective things. Her writing is like that, so personal it feels like it echoes something unspoken in you. It’s poetic without trying too hard. Honest without being self-indulgent.

What stood out most to me, though, was her unfiltered rage and heartbreak when she finally receives that cold, clinical letter from the adoption agency. Just nine sentences about her birth mother. Not even a name. No warmth, no story. As a mother, that shattered me. The way she talks about the absence—not just of facts, but of acknowledgment—makes you see how trauma isn’t always what’s done to you but what’s never given. It made me want to hold my own daughter tighter. Elmarie doesn’t ask you to agree with her or pity her. She just wants you to witness her truth.

Her writing about motherhood is probably what resonated with me the most. “The Shadows We Keep” is a letter she wrote to her son after learning he had been molested for years under her roof while she was lost in trying to “find herself.” The pain in her words is unbearable. Grief, guilt, shame. She admits everything. Doesn’t hide behind excuses. I found that passage almost too painful to read, but also too important to skip. It’s a brutal, beautiful reckoning. And what’s wild is, despite all this trauma, Elmarie keeps showing up. For her kids, for herself. She breaks apart and pieces herself back together again, and then somehow, she writes it all down for the rest of us to read.

This book is for anyone who’s lived through loss or felt alone in a room full of people. It’s for mothers, daughters, and anyone who’s struggled to feel like they belonged. If you’ve ever tried to heal something that didn’t leave visible scars, you’ll see yourself in these pages. I cried, I got angry, and I paused more than once to just breathe. And in the end, I closed the book and felt like I’d made a friend.

Pages: 386 | ASIN : B0DV11GJ2N