All reviews for Philomena: A Mother, Her Son, and a Fifty-Year Search (2009)
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I read this book because I saw a positive review of the movie and I typically like to read books before I see the movie. The book started out strongly and with a very interesting premise, but I would not recommend it. I have since found out it was highly fictionalized (presented as a true story), there is very little in it about Philomena's search (a bit at the end to cover all 50 years), and the dialogue throughout was completely made up. Disappointing. I liked the movie much better, even if one of the main events (Philomena going to America to search for her son) was in and of itself fiction. It was frustrating to read something that was supposed to be an "expose" of the selling of Irish babies and the search of both Mike/Anthony and Philomena to find each other devolve into an extremely poor narrative that read like a tabloid paper.
Engaging writing style kept me going. I found the history of the Irish adoption system fascinating, although having read other reviews I wonder how accurate it is.The US politics were not very familiar to me as I am not American, but where they were used to support the story of Michael Hess's struggles they fit in well.Haven't seen the movie.Thoroughly enjoyed it. Glad to have only discovered its gross inaccuracies after having finished the book. However, if it had been advertised as fiction it wold still have been a good read.
Horrible to think it is true, very interesting and sad.
True story, very well done. An amazing true story.