ByRonald P. “ithaca4e”on April 17, 2015
What can I say? After reading this book I understood that each one of us has a story to tell and that the sadness, sorrows, and regrets that we all have can be healed. At 66 I am Judy’s contemporary, and although I am a man who was raised Catholic just like her I understand clearly her plight and I have such loving empathy for her. The feelings found in this memoir will remain with me for a long time to come.
ByRebeccaon May 19, 2015
Really in depth story of teen pregnancy and life in the 60’s. Very good story, very honest and heart wrenching. Quite the page turner, I couldn’t stop reading. So well written.
27 of 27 people found the following review helpful
ByJoe Mcnallyon August 16, 2013
This book will be widely read in the coming years. Judy’s book is a rare combination; fine writing, a heart-wrenching story, and a salve for the soul of the sensitive. Everyone takes different things from life…a book read, a movie watched, a news article, a chance meeting, a dream. We act and interpret according to our characters and experiences. Sixty years ago (as I write this), my mother was moving into the last 48 hours of her pregnancy with the first of her eleven sons, me. She bore 4 daughters too, and she lies buried within shouting distance of where I sit. She was 47 when she died; killed, I thought for many years, by her Catholic faith, and its fierce hunger for more Catholics. We, her children were left with our own demons.

What I took from Judy’s book was this: in matters of the heart, of guilt and of shame, of crushing regret, seek not forgiveness from others, turn first to yourself. It is not so much the story of an unwed mother, a teenage pregnancy, a culture of banishing the black sheep lest the neighbours talk (God help us all…how many tears have been shed for the sake of ‘what people might think’?); it is a lesson in how to value yourself, how to heal yourself.

Judy’s long-seeping wound was inflicted by society. To the millions of other Judys of both genders who will read this book, your wounds will not necessarily be from lost children, but, with luck, Judy’s simple solution will help you find peace. Her story takes a long time to tell…she will take you to her childhood bedroom, her school, the Rocky Mountains, Big Sur, her subtly skilful writing carrying you through the years right alongside her. The story is long, but the message is short…forgive yourself.

Thank you, Judy. And good luck. We have never met. But we have.