Book Cover
ANNOTATION
Maya helps others discover who is at the end of their red thread in China.
SUMMARY *Spoiler Alert*
Maya runs an adoption agency in Rhode Island. She helps couples longing for a child connect to Chinese infant girls who have been abandoned. Nell Walker-Adams is a successful investment banker with everything anyone could want in life except a child of her own. Theo and Sophie are newly married. Sophie wants several children, but Theo is hesitant and still pines for the love of his life that got away. Emily is Maya's best friend who married Charlie and can't seem to connect with his 14-year old daughter, Chloe. Susanna struggles to love her daughter, Clair, who is disabled-and battles the shame of her revulsion of her own daughter. Brooke longs for child but is afraid her husband doesn't want to upset their happy childless life. Then there is the secret that Maya has been carrying close to her heart for the last 8 years. The secret that she was once happily married with a daughter of her own, but lost it all after a freak accident left her 5-year old daughter, Maile, dead, her husband devastated, and her with a mantle of guilt and shame. Maya believes in the Chinese legend of the read thread-that we are connected by a red thread to others and no matter how stretched or tangled that thread gets it will never break and we cannot escape the inevitable connection to those who are destined to come into our life. Ironically, it is this very destiny that Maya keeps trying to run from all while helping others find those connected to their own red thread. However, Maya learns that allowing herself to open up to others and following her own red thread brings happiness, love, maybe forgiveness, and healing.
MY REVIEW
The Read Thread is a brilliant concept and the story has genius in it. However, where I was hoping for moments of glittering emotional encounters and intimate moments between couples I was disappointed with men and women characters monotonously placed in stereotypical roles. Men who are typical men-shallow, distant, resistant to the idea of adoption, and equipped with a very limited emotional spectrum and only coming alive when sex was involved. Women who were helpless without their husband, victims of their circumstance waiting for someone to save them, and exasperatingly emotional. The book was painstakingly predictable. Even the back story and ending of the main character was no surprise. Despite the predictability and stereotypical characters there moments of real pain that was palpable especially from the parts when taken from the perspective of the mothers in China who were forced to abandon their daughters. I could feel the sharp desperation of the women writhing with the pain of being incapable of having their own child. The tangible strain infertility has on a couple was poignant. If I got nothing else out of this book I at least gained a greater appreciation for the excitement, fear, doubt, and joy and come with the process of adopting a child as well as the heart-wrenching, agonizing, and incomprehensible sorrow that comes with losing a child.
RATING
BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
Hood, A. (2010). The red thread. New York, NY/USA: W.W. Norton
PAGES
304
PURCHASING OPTIONS
Hardcover $31.99
Paperback $13.86
Paperback $13.86
NOOK $11.49
Audiobook $54.95
Audiobook $54.95
Kindle $9.99
Hardcover $13.46
Hardcover $13.46
Paperback $11.93
Audio CD $14.34
ANNOTATION
Maya helps others discover who is at the end of their red thread in China.
SUMMARY *Spoiler Alert*
Maya runs an adoption agency in Rhode Island. She helps couples longing for a child connect to Chinese infant girls who have been abandoned. Nell Walker-Adams is a successful investment banker with everything anyone could want in life except a child of her own. Theo and Sophie are newly married. Sophie wants several children, but Theo is hesitant and still pines for the love of his life that got away. Emily is Maya's best friend who married Charlie and can't seem to connect with his 14-year old daughter, Chloe. Susanna struggles to love her daughter, Clair, who is disabled-and battles the shame of her revulsion of her own daughter. Brooke longs for child but is afraid her husband doesn't want to upset their happy childless life. Then there is the secret that Maya has been carrying close to her heart for the last 8 years. The secret that she was once happily married with a daughter of her own, but lost it all after a freak accident left her 5-year old daughter, Maile, dead, her husband devastated, and her with a mantle of guilt and shame. Maya believes in the Chinese legend of the read thread-that we are connected by a red thread to others and no matter how stretched or tangled that thread gets it will never break and we cannot escape the inevitable connection to those who are destined to come into our life. Ironically, it is this very destiny that Maya keeps trying to run from all while helping others find those connected to their own red thread. However, Maya learns that allowing herself to open up to others and following her own red thread brings happiness, love, maybe forgiveness, and healing.
MY REVIEW
The Read Thread is a brilliant concept and the story has genius in it. However, where I was hoping for moments of glittering emotional encounters and intimate moments between couples I was disappointed with men and women characters monotonously placed in stereotypical roles. Men who are typical men-shallow, distant, resistant to the idea of adoption, and equipped with a very limited emotional spectrum and only coming alive when sex was involved. Women who were helpless without their husband, victims of their circumstance waiting for someone to save them, and exasperatingly emotional. The book was painstakingly predictable. Even the back story and ending of the main character was no surprise. Despite the predictability and stereotypical characters there moments of real pain that was palpable especially from the parts when taken from the perspective of the mothers in China who were forced to abandon their daughters. I could feel the sharp desperation of the women writhing with the pain of being incapable of having their own child. The tangible strain infertility has on a couple was poignant. If I got nothing else out of this book I at least gained a greater appreciation for the excitement, fear, doubt, and joy and come with the process of adopting a child as well as the heart-wrenching, agonizing, and incomprehensible sorrow that comes with losing a child.
RATING
Quality: Bronze
Popularity: Sapphire
Popularity: Sapphire
GENRE & SUB GENRES
Fiction
Parenting
Adoption
Cultural>China
Adult Fiction
APPEAL FACTORS
The heartbreaking stories of the Chinese women forced to give up or abandon their infant daughters pulls you in. The humanness of the couples like Nell Walker-Adams and Benjamin struggling to keep their love alive under the strain of infertility, or Theo and Sophie who must confront past loves and mistakes kept secret. The prospect of the infant girls and the couples being offered a second chance at life and happiness hooks you to the end to see what happens. Maya still struggles to grapple with the accidental death of her daughter and subsequently walking out on her ex-husband, Adam, because she can't deal with the pain and guilt she's carrying even after 8 years.
BOOKTALKING
Infertility is a real problem. The view of girls and women in China is a real problem. This book takes a hard look at both of these situations and addresses how they affect not only the infertile individual or the abandoned girl infant, but all those connected to them.
It delves in the dynamics of a marriage where a couple struggles with infertility and has to deal with the prospect of the complexities of the adoption process.
It faces head-on the reality that girls and women in China are often treated like property or a commodity than human beings.
The author has attempted to tackle two emotionally charged topics that many of us spend very little time thinking about.
DISCUSSION POINTS
If you were Maya's ex-husband, do you think you'd be able to forgive her for the accidental death of your child? Do you think you'd be able to forgive yourself if you were Maya?
Why do you think Sophie waited to confront Theo about his infidelity?
In what ways has this book given you a better understanding of the pain of infertility, adoption, and the way women are viewed and treated in China?
What makes Maya an ideal adoption agency business owner? How has her past experience shaped her ability to help these families?
Emily struggles with developing a relationship with her step-daughter Chloe. Charlie seems to be caught in a three-way tug-of-war between Emily, Chloe, and his ex-wife. Do you think Emily has a right to parent Chloe? Do you think it's okay that Charlie accommodates to Chloe to the sacrifice of his relationship with Emily?
WHY THIS BOOK?
My aunt and uncle adopted 4 African-American infants, my brother-in-law was adopted, and many of my friends were adopted. I have always wanted to learn more about adoption, and I felt that this book was an opportunity to get a better understanding of it. This book provided that opportunity for me in the form of a novel.
THE AUTHOR
Parenting
Adoption
Cultural>China
Adult Fiction
APPEAL FACTORS
The heartbreaking stories of the Chinese women forced to give up or abandon their infant daughters pulls you in. The humanness of the couples like Nell Walker-Adams and Benjamin struggling to keep their love alive under the strain of infertility, or Theo and Sophie who must confront past loves and mistakes kept secret. The prospect of the infant girls and the couples being offered a second chance at life and happiness hooks you to the end to see what happens. Maya still struggles to grapple with the accidental death of her daughter and subsequently walking out on her ex-husband, Adam, because she can't deal with the pain and guilt she's carrying even after 8 years.
BOOKTALKING
Infertility is a real problem. The view of girls and women in China is a real problem. This book takes a hard look at both of these situations and addresses how they affect not only the infertile individual or the abandoned girl infant, but all those connected to them.
It delves in the dynamics of a marriage where a couple struggles with infertility and has to deal with the prospect of the complexities of the adoption process.
It faces head-on the reality that girls and women in China are often treated like property or a commodity than human beings.
The author has attempted to tackle two emotionally charged topics that many of us spend very little time thinking about.
DISCUSSION POINTS
If you were Maya's ex-husband, do you think you'd be able to forgive her for the accidental death of your child? Do you think you'd be able to forgive yourself if you were Maya?
Why do you think Sophie waited to confront Theo about his infidelity?
In what ways has this book given you a better understanding of the pain of infertility, adoption, and the way women are viewed and treated in China?
What makes Maya an ideal adoption agency business owner? How has her past experience shaped her ability to help these families?
Emily struggles with developing a relationship with her step-daughter Chloe. Charlie seems to be caught in a three-way tug-of-war between Emily, Chloe, and his ex-wife. Do you think Emily has a right to parent Chloe? Do you think it's okay that Charlie accommodates to Chloe to the sacrifice of his relationship with Emily?
WHY THIS BOOK?
My aunt and uncle adopted 4 African-American infants, my brother-in-law was adopted, and many of my friends were adopted. I have always wanted to learn more about adoption, and I felt that this book was an opportunity to get a better understanding of it. This book provided that opportunity for me in the form of a novel.
THE AUTHOR
REVIEWS
SIMILAR TITLES
The Other Mother by Gwendolen Gross
Forever Lily: An Unexpected Mother's Journey to Adoption in China by Beth Nonte Russell
Letter to My Daughter by George Bishop
Forever Lily: An Unexpected Mother's Journey to Adoption in China by Beth Nonte Russell
Letter to My Daughter by George Bishop
POINTS TO REMEMBER
- The legend of the red thread
- Abandoned Chinese baby girls
- Chinese adoption
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