What Was Mine: A Book Club Recommendation!

by Helen Klein Ross

"Simply told but deeply affecting, in the bestselling 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 twenty-one 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 the life-shattering effects of a single, irrevocable moment"--

"Simply told but deeply affecting, 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 twenty-one years"--

• ISBN10: 1476732353
• ISBN13: 9781476732350
• Publish Date: 5 January 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Publisher: The Gallery Press
• Imprint: Gallery Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[Linda]

This review was originally posted on (un)Conventional Bookviews
What Was Mine was a strong story, touching on a very difficult subject, made even more difficult because it followed the baby who was kidnapped, her biological mother, and the woman who raised her (after kidnapping her).



There were a lot of things I really enjoyed in What Was Mine, and one of them was that the author actually managed to make me understand, and partly even feel sorry for, Lucy. After years of trying to get pregnant, Lucy's husband decided their lives were just fine without a child, whereas Lucy continued to long for a baby with everything she had! This difference of opinion ended their marriage, and Lucy lived alone in their house in New Jersey for a while. One hot summer Friday, though, she went to IKEA to buy some things, and she happened upon a little baby girl who was all alone in a carriage, too cold because of the air-conditioning, and abandoned in one of the aisles. Without conscious thought, she started moving the carriage, holding the baby close to herself to keep her warm and happy. Before she knew it, she was outside - after a small episode with a security guard. At no point had she thought about snatching the baby, in her mind, it just happened that way. And that is really the crux of the the story in What Was Mine.

Most of the chapters are from either Lucy's or Mia's perspective. Mia is the name Lucy gave to the baby, and she managed to make everyone believe she had finally been able to adopt a baby in Kansas, she had two months maternity leave from work, even. There are chapters from a lot of other characters who were a part of What Was Mine as well, even some that were on the border of the story gave their point of view of Lucy and what she had done, after it became public that Mia was the little baby who had been kidnapped 21 years earlier. I have to say that my emotions were pretty much all over the place when it came to this story. As a mother, I really felt for Marilyn, who had taken her baby to IKEA to get some towels before her parents in law came to visit - only to answer her mobile phone (yes, she had one because she worked for AT&T) and went towards the windows to have a better reception. And when she finished her phone call, there was no more baby. The horror she felt was really well conveyed, between the panic and the way she tried to persuade herself that her baby might be in the next aisle over.

At first, I was also really, really upset with Lucy, and I didn't think there would be anything at all that could happen that would make me enjoy her even a little bit. I did end up quite liking her in many aspects, though, which is really strange to me. I am almost a little angry at Ms. Klein Ross for making me feel something positive about Lucy at all - but at the same time, that also made the story all the stronger to me. And one thing that made that possible was that at no time did Lucy lose her guilt for what she knew she had done to another woman - another family. She lived with that guilt, while at the same time showering Mia with both love and gifts and the best possible schools. And the way she kept tabs on Mia's birth mother was both kind of sweet and a lot creepy at the same time.

As I'm sure you can tell, What Was Mine is a very complicated story, there is no way I can condone what Lucy did, even if Mia had a good life with her. Marilyn, however, felt like her whole life unraveled, and even towards the end, she wasn't at peace with the fact that her baby daughter had been stolen from her. I still became engrossed with the characters, though, and felt something for each of the three main characters.

Because What Was Mine is written in present tense and first person perspective, I felt like I got a very good handle on the main characters, and even those in the periphery of the story brought some insights that made understanding the actions Lucy took somewhat easier, even if I don't think I could really get how she would go to such lengths to become a mother. But seeing her thought process made the story painful in a different way than it would have been if she was completely shallow about how many life her actions affected.



I can't tell my story straight. I have to tell it in circles, like rings of a tree that signify the passage of time. Shall I start with how badly I wanted a child?

We assumed that having a baby would simply be a matter of trying. In fact, we'd gotten pregnant before without trying. I'd been "in trouble" with Warren during our senior year of college.

Sometimes a baby is better off with someone who is paid to take care.

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

Growing up reading the Janie Johnson series obviously left an impression on me as I gobble up any novel that has a kidnapped theme to it. Thus, the premise is what first attracted me to What Was Mine.

Clearly, this topic has been done before from The Face on the Milk Carton to made for tv movies or even real cases such as Carlina White, I am obviously not alone in this fascination. Therefore, what sets this novel apart from the others? It was a little formulaic, I think that is hard to get away from, but what I most enjoyed was the fact that it read like a confession and we learned the inner workings of why someone would kidnap a child.

I read with great ferocity straight through Helen Klein Ross' book, it was addicting and could not put it down despite knowing the conclusion. The character's emotions were raw and believable, to the disgust of Lucy's sister, the devastation felt by Marilyn the birth mother and the betrayal of Mia, the abducted child. This more than anything is what drove me to keep reading, to learn of the character's emotional state rather than the consequences of Lucy's rash action.

While I understood a Mother's clinginess after twenty-one years it was a little over the top for me and Marilyn's obsession for horoscopes did get a bit tiresome. Although it did show her personality despite being unable to see the relevance.

Lucy must be given credit as despite being pulled in two like a wishbone Mia showed that she had a strong head on her shoulders and I felt acted responsibly and very adult for a twenty-one-year-old. Not only did I enjoy reading of Mia's upbringing but also coming into her own and like anyone her age discovering who she truly is.

Even though a little voice in my head kept whispering "She's a kidnapper" I couldn't help but like Lucy. Despite this one really big fault, she seemed like an intelligent person who would make a good first impression and until the end looked forward to reading her passages in the story.

Some novels with multiple narrators can become messy and incoherent. That was not the case in What Was Mine, with each point of view enhancing the other's and flowed naturally. Although, I wish we had been able to read the story from Marilyn's children's perspective, I think it would have been interesting to learn how they were personally handling it. Even so, Helen Klein Ross did a good job incorporating that into the storyline.

As Mia is kidnaped in 1990, before Amber Alerts and the internet I found it very interesting how the lack of these resources improved the chances of Lucy's disappearing act. As the book progresses and technology becomes more prevalent I liked how it was incorporated into the story and how its advancement ie Facebook is what ultimately attributed to the reunion.

The one downside for me was when Lucy escaped to China and realized the jig was up. I felt like too much time was spent on her duration there and got a little repetitive, like guests overstaying, pages of Lucy eating noodles and texting "Let me explain" started to smell like stinky fish.

What Was Mine is much more than a "grown up Face on the Milk Carton". Helen Klein Ross' book is a good thriller that I would recommend to enthusiasts of this genre, not only for the subject matter but for the personality and heartbreak that jump off of the page.

I received an advance copy via Netgalley