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What Was Mine

Written by: Helen Klein Ross
Narrated by: Julia Whelan, Cassandra Campbell, Amanda Carlin, Rebekkah Ross, Jonathan Todd Ross
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Publisher's Summary

Simply told but deeply affecting, in the best-selling tradition of Alice McDermott and Tom Perrotta, this urgent novel unravels the heartrending yet unsentimental tale of a woman who kidnaps a baby in a superstore - and gets away with it for 21 years.

Lucy Wakefield is a seemingly ordinary woman who does something extraordinary in a desperate moment: She takes a baby girl from a shopping cart and raises her as her own. It's a secret she manages to keep for over two decades - from her daughter, the babysitter who helped raise her, family, coworkers, and friends.

When Lucy's now-grown daughter, Mia, discovers the devastating truth of her origins, she is overwhelmed by confusion and anger and determines not to speak again to the mother who raised her. She reaches out to her birth mother for a tearful reunion, and Lucy is forced to flee to China to avoid prosecution. What follows is a ripple effect that alters the lives of many and challenges our understanding of the very meaning of motherhood.

Author Helen Klein Ross, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, weaves a powerful story of upheaval and resilience told from the alternating perspectives of Lucy, Mia, Mia's birth mother, and others intimately involved in the kidnapping. What Was Mine is a compelling tale of motherhood and loss, of grief and hope, and of the life-shattering effects of a single irrevocable moment.

©2016 Helen Klein Ross (P)2016 Simon & Schuster
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What listeners say about What Was Mine

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Plot-line is somewhat thin.

This book has a fascinating premise but the author fails to develop the characters. Lucy would benefit from more complex character development and move insight into how her character develops during the 21 years in which she raises a kidnapped child. Marilyn, the child’s mother lacks the emotional turmoil and pain one would expect from the mother of a kidnapped child. Story contains none of this histrionics one would expect to see from a mother whose infant has been kidnapped.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Long, rambling, boring and predictable

124 chapters of "yeesh". The characters -
of which there are far too many - are the most predictable choices the author could have made. They lack the depth and nuance to drive the reader to care about their fates. You know it's an obligation read when you finish a book just because you started it.

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