Title: Looking for Jane
Author: Heather Marshall
Release Date: February 7, 2023
Length: 400 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
***My Review***
A remarkable work of historical fiction, Looking for Jane is based on real-life accounts of the Jane collective and maternity home systems and spans three different periods, from the 1970s to the present day in Toronto.
Finding a letter with a confession, Angela Creighton decides to look for the truth. It takes her back to the 1970s when it was illegal to have an abortion. During that time, a group of women operated an underground network known as Jane to assist women in getting abortions through secure medical procedures.
A young Evelyn Taylor is dropped off at the home for unwed mothers in the 1960s and made to put her child up for adoption. Years later, she joins the Jane Network as Dr. Taylor.
Nancy learns a life-changing insight in the 1980s. She also decides to join after witnessing her cousin’s unsuccessful back-alley abortion. How does she feel about it? How do the three women’s lives intersect in the year 2017?
Looking for Jane follows three women through the 1970s, 1980s, and 2010s, as their experiences interweave in both touching and devastating ways. Three viewpoints on parenthood, reproductive rights, and abortion are presented in the narrative, which will grab your attention from the very beginning.
As I already mentioned, the story is told from numerous distinct points of view. The reader is drawn into the tale right away when one of our key characters discovers a letter.
In a letter to her daughter, a mother reveals that she was adopted and expresses her desire for the girl to track for her birth mother before she passes away. Our main heroine immediately starts hunting for the recipient of the letter and her biological mother.
In the years following the war, these young mothers had their options restricted by having their kids placed for adoption and being sent to live in maternity homes. In these homes, they would suffer from abuse, malnutrition, and forced labor. They would also be rejected by society and deprived of the right to decide whether or not to retain their children.
To be perfectly honest, I was aware that there were homes for unmarried moms, but I was unaware of how violent and brutal they were. The way they were pressuring young women to give up their babies for adoption disgusted me and saddened me.
The way these young ladies were handled by their relatives, society, and healthcare providers also astounded me. Unfortunately, they had no choice other than to seek hazardous abortions in dark alleys.
This book’s concept, as well as the issues it covers, are amazing. The emissivity that runs across the pages is undeniable. Neither is the way the stories are linked. This is commendable, especially given that it is a debut. However, the plot of Looking for Jane by Heather Marshall depends on the emotional effect topic, which doesn’t always succeed. There are several loose ends and story flaws despite the detailed and sophisticated plot.
Although all the characters are unique, their characterization could be improved. We are aware of who they are, and that essentially describes them. While connecting to concepts is simple, doing so with the characters is challenging in certain parts.
I enjoyed how each woman’s maternity path was unique. Abortion is a major theme in this novel, and the author did a fantastic job addressing both the human and medical aspects of it. It was mostly personal rather than politically motivated. In writing about this, the author does a fantastic job.
Looking for Jane by Heather Marshall is a great option if you want to read a book that supports women’s rights and the right to make your own decisions. Looking for Jane chronicles the evolution of women’s access to safe abortions from the 1960s to the present. Beginning in the 1960s, when rebellious women were compelled to give their children up for adoption, progressing through the decades during which a secret network of physicians provided secure abortions, and ended when abortion became legal.