There are no guarantees in this life, kids. Love or not loved, abused or cherished, adored or neglected… We don’t choose what happens to us, we only choose how we react to it.

I really liked this book. Originally found in a bargain bin at my local shop, I got pulled in by the cover blurb and haven’t looked back since. I haven’t read anything before by Lisa Unger and after a cursory glance at the site, https://lisaunger.com/books/beautiful-lies/ – I decided to give the book a go for November.

The Story

Apparently even the smallest of choices can affect the long term outlook on life. Especially when the choice to selflessly jump in front of a truck to save a child will have repercussions on the life of the saver as well as the saved.

Ridley Jones – the hero of this story – has a good life as a writer in the city that never sleeps. New York, New York! On her way to work, late for a meeting, she hails a cab only to see a truck moving in slow motion towards a child who escaped the ever careful gaze of his mother. She moves lightning fast and delivers the child to safety and becomes a local celebrity.

The 15mins of fame brings out some creeps, out of which one is apparently her long lost father. She questions the request due to the timing but she feels there might be some truth behind it. No pictures of her pregnant mother. No pictures before she was two. No resemblance to anyone in the family. When she questions her parents about the weird request, they shut it down and present some pretty good arguments for the doubts.

Ridley doesn’t let it go and this desire to know makes her draw in her new mysterious and hunky neighbour Jake – in a chase to find out the truth.

Suddenly forced to question everything she knows about herself and her family, Ridley wanders into dark territory she never knew existed, where everyone in her life seems like a stranger. She has no idea who’s on her side and who has something to hide – even, and maybe especially, her new lover, Jake, who appears to have secrets of his own.

I loved the tension – I even suspected the newcomer Jake for a while. What’s not suspicious about a friendly New York neighbor? I thought her recluse neighbor, Violet, was a better representation of what you get in such a big city.

The conspiracy was well designed, considering that the places and help available for single mothers or fathers looking to relinquish their parental rights do exist. There are load of parents out there who don’t have the means to raise their children. Single unwed illegal immigrants like the one in Little Fires Everywhere (by Celeste Ng) who think it’s better for a rich family to raise their baby than to have it starve in their own arms.

It feels like the same thing happened here with a more sinister twist. The doctors and nurses in local clinics would notice which children were malnourished, beaten, coming in with broken bones and would mark their files. Soon, these children would disappear never to be seen again while the parents either died of overdoses, in accidents or murdered by their disturbed partners. The Angels were actually working with some demons in the form of the Mafia to do the dirty work. Did someone need to disappear from the scene for the child to be taken? Sorted.

And not even all the taken kids escaped the Foster system in America. Some were given up again after being too much (compared with a breed puppy who is left at the pound after barking too much or pooping on the new carpets). It;s stark, it’s brutal and yes, it could happen. People with a lot of money and no children would do anything to get their hands on a suitable baby. White, nice looking, young enough not to remember anything are the most desired adoptees in the US system.

Parents pursuing adoption within the United States have strong preferences regarding the types of babies they will apply for, tending to choose non-African-American girls, and favoring babies who are close to being born as opposed to those who have already been born or who are early in gestation.

https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/african-american-babies-and-boys-least-likely-be-adopted-study-shows-1610

This doesn’t mean that the Safe Haven is not a good protocol on how to save children. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46801838 raises the same question – can the boxes help? It’s very rarely a parent can admit they are not the right choice for their child. The excuses that Kent (in the book) uses is that their intervention was needed in such cases as mothers who are unbalanced and might kill their own children in the bathtub or boyfriends who will forever silence their girlfriend’s screaming child. There are too many articles about horrible, horrible people so in some weird sense, their approach made sense. But that’s why you need to fund CPS and not just go and forcibly remove the kids and immediately give them to wealthy families looking to expand.

Eh. I’ve had my run-ins with the adoption process and I can tell you it’s flawed. I understood both the evil guys in the book and the good guys. It’s terrible for the children but if only one makes it to adulthood as a fully formed and stable adult, was it worth it?