With unflinching candor and vulnerability, What We Wished For explores what it means to be a mother and the hard truth that sometimes the biggest act of love is to let go. —Meredith May, author of The Honey Bus
What We Wished For
Reviews for
With unflinching candor and vulnerability, What We Wished For explores what it means to be a mother and the hard truth that sometimes the biggest act of love is to let go. —Meredith May, author of The Honey Bus
Lisa Crawford Watson’s beautiful memoir will break your heart and give you hope. She‘paints with words’ an unforgettable tale of motherhood in all its joys, sorrows, fears,frustrations, disappointments, and dreams. Why would anyone choose to bear a child,whether by birth or adoption, knowing it most likely means they’ll spend the rest of theiryears caring more for the child than for themselves? That question, like most of life’sgreat mysteries, is more easily answered with feelings than with facts. But Lisa’s writingconveys a poet’s blend of both. In the end, the answer becomes simply and profoundlyclear: It’s called a mother’s love. —Sharon Randall, mother of three, syndicatedcolumnist, and author of The World and Then Some, a novel.
With courage and fearless prose, Lisa Crawford Watson shares an important story about hope, love, and loss, and how to move forward when your expectations don’t meet your reality. —Alka Joshi, author of the internationally bestselling The Henna Artist and The Jaipur Trilogy
What We Wished For is a riveting tale, and I wasn’t more than a few pages in before I sensed a bestseller. Twin girls, Afro-Latina and heartbreakingly beautiful, are born into A Sea of Misfortune. The author and her partner, both white and swimming in The Sea of Plenty, adopt them. Will their love, plus strong extended families and soft sheets from Pottery Barn be enough? The answer changes daily as does the author. Watson is a sharp, funny writer, who bravely shares her disillusionment—with herself—as the story unfolds. As the gap between who Watson thought she was and who she actually is widens, the truth pours in. —Phyllis Theroux’s most recent book is a memoir, The Journal Keeper.
Lisa Crawford Watson’s writing is full of tremendous wit, grace, intelligence—and most important of all, a fierce commitment to get at the truth. —Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation.
Searing, terrible, and tender, a monumental triumph of daring and grace, an ultimate love story. Fearlessly vulnerable, braving pain, this Red Badge of Courage for our time is a writer— a writer who gives us a self-portrait of a mother. This is a rare and daring feat. —Dr. Barbara Mossberg, author of "Emily Dickinson: When a Writer Is a Daughter" and "Here for the Present, A Grammar of Happiness in the Present Imperfect"
​Lisa Crawford Watson's fierce and beautiful memoir grabs the reader from the first dramatic moment and holds us captive until the very last page. Her story is powerful; her prose is gorgeous. Read this book! —Ellen Sussman, New York Times bestselling author of "French Lessons" and three other novels