This wasn't our typical book club choice. Usually, we select something that has an adoption storyline like The Waiting, You Carried Me, or To Have and Not to Hold. But this year, we wanted to read something a little different that might resonate with a wider audience.

(Warning: Spoiler ahead...) The Waiting took me on quite an unexpected journey. It is the story of Minka, a 16-year-old child of immigrants who is assaulted in the woods by a stranger while attending a picnic in 1928. She becomes pregnant and is encouraged to place her child for adoption.

The book follows Melissa’s relentless and courageous search for her biological parents and the truth surrounding her birth - and the failed abortion that was intended to take her life.

The title caught my attention, and then Phil Donahue's foreword motivated me to keep turning the pages of Lorri Antosz Benson's memoir To Have and Not to Hold. "What follows on these pages is the flat-out naked true story of a twenty-something female who had it all: good job (ahem, she worked for me), handsome boyfriend, big city romantic evenings, loving parents, and ski-champion good looks..."

We're kicking off our very own BraveLove Book Club this summer, reading through some classic and not-so classic books about adoption. We want you to know what adoption books are good, practical, poignant, or just great page-turners. Here is our first book and a brief review of what we thought... Note: There are no spoilers in this book club!