An Instant NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A LOS ANGELES TIMES, BOSTON GLOBE, WALL STREET JOURNAL, and NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR according to Elle, Real Simple, and Kirkus Reviews “Memoir gold: a profound and exquisitely rendered exploration of identity and the true meaning of family.” —People Magazine “Beautifully written and deeply moving—it brought me to tears more than once.”—Ruth Franklin, The New York Times Book Review From the acclaimed, best-selling memoirist, novelist—“a writer of rare talent” (Cheryl Strayed)— and host of the hit podcast Family Secrets, comes a memoir about the staggering family secret uncovered by a genealogy test: an exploration of the urgent ethical questions surrounding fertility treatments and DNA testing, and a profound inquiry of paternity, identity, and love. What makes us who we are? What combination of memory, history, biology, experience, and that ineffable thing called the soul defines us? In the spring of 2016, through a genealogy website to which she had whimsically submitted her DNA for analysis, Dani Shapiro received the stunning news that her father was not her biological father. She woke up one morning and her entire history--the life she had lived--crumbled beneath her. Inheritance is a book about secrets--secrets within families, kept out of shame or self-protectiveness; secrets we keep from one another in the name of love. It is the story of a woman's urgent quest to unlock the story of her own identity, a story that has been scrupulously hidden from her for more than fifty years, years she had spent writing brilliantly, and compulsively, on themes of identity and family history. It is a book about the extraordinary moment we live in--a moment in which science and technology have outpaced not only medical ethics but also the capacities of the human heart to contend with the consequences of what we discover.
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"In "Inheritance" Shapiro reveals the shocking result received after a DNA test. Comparing her DNA test with that of her half-sister, Shapiro discovers the father that raised her is not her biological father. Identifying the man who is her biological father is simple and quick, which is not always the case. This leaves Shapiro facing a difficult decision - to contact her father or not, to share the news with her teenage son or not, and how to reconcile the new information she has discovered. Shapiro's parents have been deceased for years and therefore she isn't able to inquire about why her parents kept this information from her. She recalls her mother mentioning fertility problems and this leads to the basis of the story. This is a great read and I enjoyed it. "
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Julie (5 out of 5 stars)