Adoption can raise a lot of questions for all involved regarding cultural identity, family history, physical and mental health, and more. These three notable memoirs explore several perspectives on the experience of adoption: that of a mother forced to give up her son, a daughter eager to know about her birth family’s Mexican heritage, and a couple of friends who started their searches for the biological families together and got very different results.

Patti Eddington, a reporter, writes about her own adoption in The Girl With Three Birthdays. A surprising page-turner, the book investigates the conflicting accounts of why the author’s  birth mother chose to put her up for adoption. Eddington describes the process of locating her birth family and learning her birth name (Mary Ann Lopez), birthday, etc. She also writes compellingly about her Mexican heritage and the ways her background might have affected how her white biological parents viewed her. Our reviewer notes, “In some ways, the memoir is typical of many adoptee stories, as in Eddington’s conclusion that people’s true parents are the ones who raised them. But it’s also a bracingly honest look at the author’s feelings about the birth family she discovered.”

In her memoir Childless Mother, Tracy Mayo recounts how her parents forced her to give up her infant son. In the 1960s, Mayo was a pregnant teenager when her military family, then living at theNorfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia, sent her under a pseudonym to Norfolk’s Florence Crittenton Home for Unwed Mothers. Childless Mother movingly depicts Mayo’s efforts to find her boy and the feelings that arose from losing him. Our reviewer says Mayo’s “account of life in the Florence Crittenton Home, and her research into its history, provides readers with plenty of insight into past attitudes toward unwed pregnant women. The author also examines the complexities of reuniting with children given up for adoption—including birth parents’ acceptance of, and by, the families that raised their children—in a nuanced and insightful manner.”

Teacher, musician, and photographer SherriCraig-Evans always wanted to know about her birth origins, and good friend Trish Diggins, a designer and writer, wondered about her own; Diggins was especially curious about the health history of her biological family. They decided to team up and, along with some friends and “search angels” (people who help strangers find biological family), began combing DNA databases to see what they could learn. FOUND: Adopted Friends Search for Their Birth Families recounts the co-authors’ dramatic realizations and upended expectations. Our reviewer notes, “Craig-Evans found a mother who was eager to connect and a father who did not want his family to know that he had another daughter. Diggins discovered that her father had lived a short, tragic life, and that her mother was reluctant to tell her own family about this fact of her past.” The duo considers many issues about adoption and offers good insight into the nature of familial ties, both chosen and biological. “Craig-Evans and Diggins engagingly reflect on many adoption-related issues, such as what creates a sense of connection, or why people choose to accept or reject a biological bond,” says our reviewer.

Chaya Schechner is the president of Kirkus Indie.