What’s it all about?:
‘Where are you coming from with that accent of yours?’ he asks.
‘Nowhere,’ I reply. ‘I’m from nowhere.’
‘Everyone’s from somewhere,’ he says.
‘Not me,’ I reply silently.
Clemency Smittson was adopted as a baby and the only connection she has to her birth mother is a cardboard box hand-decorated with butterflies. Now an adult, Clem decides to make a drastic life change and move to Brighton, where she was born. Clem has no idea that while there she’ll meet someone who knows all about her butterfly box and what happened to her birth parents.
As the tangled truths about her adoption and childhood start to unravel, a series of shocking events cause Clem to reassess whether the price of having contact with her birth family could be too high to pay…
An emotional story about love, identity and the meaning of family, That Girl From Nowehere is the new novel from the bestselling author of The Ice Cream Girls, The Woman He Loved Before and My Best Friend’s Girl.
What did I think?:
I was first introduced to the marvelous author that is Dorothy Koomson by my sister and fellow blogger Chrissi Reads who reads her work religiously as soon as it comes out. I started with My Best Friend’s Girl and haven’t stopped since then. Her story-telling is so beautiful and she chooses to focus on a number of issues that I like to read about, like the dynamics of different relationships, family secrets, betrayal and racism. That Girl From Nowhere is another corker of a story with a number of subplots going on underneath the main thread and has cemented Dorothy Koomson as one of my must read authors.
The protagonist in this novel is a young woman called Clemency Smittson (Smitty to her loved ones). Clem knew she was adopted from a young age and was raised by a white family, knowing nothing about her birth family except that she was handed over in a box decorated with butterflies. Throughout her childhood, although it was happy enough, she felt that she didn’t belong and a number of events lead her to be in quite a sad situation when we meet her. Her adopted father, whom she had a strong, loving relationship with has passed away and she has also ended a long-term relationship with Seth and moved back to Brighton, where she was born, to open up a jewelry store. The items that Clem makes for her clients are truly special. She re-vitalises old and worn pieces of jewelry into something that closely represents where her customer is at the current point of his/her life. A chance meeting with a stranger leads her to find one more information about her birth family and pushes her into finally making a connection with them. However, every family has secrets and Clem uncovers certain things which forces her to confront many events in her past and present. both in her adoptive family and her birth family which may make her then wish that she had never pulled at that thread in the first place.
Once again, I don’t want to say too much about the plot. It’s incredibly convoluted and intricate and simply made for discovering yourself. There’s a host of fantastic characters to enjoy and I loved the way the author explored the different relationships – between parents, siblings, lovers, friends, it’s all here and all completely delightful. I don’t think I’ve read too many books about adoption and it was interesting to read a story where this is one of the issues and we hear from both sides of the coin so as to speak. I also loved the casual racism that the author chose to focus on and it certainly made me think about how prevalent it still is sadly, in today’s “modern” society. If you’re new to Dorothy Koomson, it’s not my favorite of her books (I have so much love for The Ice Cream Girls and Rose Petal Beach) but it’s a solid four stars and a brilliant reading experience.
Would I recommend it?:
But of course!
Star rating (out of 5):
