Review: Without a Map

Without a Map by Meredith Hall
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow - this was another beautiful book. I love reading two good ones in a row. In this memoir, Hall becomes pregnant at 16, and ostracized by her church, both of her sets of (divorced) parents, and her entire community. The next decade of her life is spent wandering the world, and surviving the shame her community made her feel about her pregnancy, as well as the regret for putting her child up for adoption. She thinks of the child constantly, and after marriage, two children, and divorce, ends up finding her birth son. The writing in this book was really touching - you could feel her shame and her confusion and her loss. Also fascinating was her ongoing relationship with her parents, whom she doesn't completely remove from her life. A sad story, but ultimately a redemptive one. I couldn't put it down.

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