As a foster/adoptive parent, I'm always on the lookout for similar stories.

For anyone who hasn't considered foster/adoption as way to expand your family, it can be an amazing experience, but it can also be heartbreaking and difficult.

Straight forward stories like Tinderbox can be hard to read as the journey to make a forever family isn't easy. Children who are in foster care have been through some sort of trauma. Even if they had incredible care givers during that time in their lives, the reason they are in foster care isn't one that many of us will ever experience.

Patience, understanding, and a lot of help is required to give these children the emotional security they truly need. As for the caregivers, it's a parallel path to finding how to fulfill those goals, but also knowing your own boundaries and when to ask for your own help.

As important as it is to read first hand accounts of foster/adoption, it's important to note that every child in foster care has their own stories to tell. We simply need to be receptive to hearing them.

I'm glad author Alsup told hers and her daughter's.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and She Writes Press for providing me with a e-arc of this title!

Unfortunately, this book was not for me and I chose to DNF this book just before the 20% mark.

In the portion of the book that I read, Alsup delivers a moving and heartfelt story. Her prose and writing style is beautiful, and thus my reasons for not finishing this title do not reflect the quality of Alsup’s work.

I chose to read this book due to my interest in reading about adoption, but I discovered that I am not the target audience for this book. As a younger reviewer without children, I found it more difficult to connect to the book than I anticipated. I think older readers with children would be the ideal audience for this title.

Although this title was not for me, I am thankful for the opportunity to read this title. Thank you again to NetGalley and She Writes Press for this opportunity.

Tinderbox is an interesting and sometimes powerful memoir about a white couple’s adoption of not one but three troubled children. Each of the Alsup daughters had some degree of Black ancestry, and two were ultimately identified as having fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Those diagnoses were a long time coming.

Author Lynn Alsup, a social worker, documents the multiple approaches/modalities/therapies that were employed with the girls, and she explains how her understanding of what was going on with her children evolved. The eldest, a child of Haitian ancestry who was also diagnosed with complex developmental trauma, underwent psychiatric hospitalization and spent extensive time at two residential treatment facilities some distance away from the family home. It’s no understatement to say the Alsup family—Lynn, Jeff, and the kids—went through hell. Home life could be and often was chaotic, stressful, and even violent. “Consequences” for infractions and meltdowns simply did not work.

Parts of this book would likely be valuable and informative for educators, parents, and family physicians—anyone, really, who interacts with children, youth, or troubled adults, for that matter. While I am able to recommend Tinderbox, I do have some major reservations. First of all, it is too long by at least a third. There is an awful lot of padding: unnecessary descriptions of people (especially their clothes and hair), furniture, rooms . . . you name it. There are also play-by-plays of various routine tasks—e.g., cooking, washing dishes, sipping tea, or painting—that are quite tedious to read. I understand that the author practises mindfulness, but I was not terribly interested in reading what she’s mindful about, including quinoa in boiling water or the position of one’s head when painting a ceiling.

Where reconstructed conversations (from memory) are concerned, less really is more. This means honing rambling dialogue down to the strong bare bones, something the author seldom does. The same economy is in order when reporting on conferences one has attended. Unless truly noteworthy, a speaker’s opening remarks and announcements about coffee breaks, for example, should not be included.

Finally, I have concerns about the number of pages dedicated to the author’s spirituality. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the subject; I’m just doubtful that most readers interested in fetal alcohol syndrome/fetal alcohol spectrum disorder—i.e., the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on the human brain and behaviour—wish to read quite so much about the author’s Christian/New Age contemplative practice: the retreats, “journaling”, mosaic art, visualizations, meditations, blessing of spaces, and multiple kinds of prayers she performs. On the matter of gratitude specifically: I’m all for it, but a few expressions of thankfulness and appreciation in a book can have more impact than many.

Good stuff can get lost when there’s too much verbiage. It nearly does here. I dearly wish an editor had taken Alsup in hand and urged her to cut large chunks of the manuscript. Tinderbox would have been better for it.

Adoption is not always peace love and lollipops. Often (mostly from my experience), it comes with trauma, drama, heartache and a deep learning curve for neurodiversity- due to either fetal issues or environmental ones. What that generally means is adoptive parents finds themselves behind 'the punt', having to take their child to different types of doctors/psychologists, going through tests/medicines/therapies, and all in an attempt 'to see what works' for that ONE child. In this book, Alsup takes us through her family's story of the induced trauma, and it's consequences and how they coped.

Not much is really in the public eye about FASD, yet it is is as common as 6-9 children out of every 1000 school age in some areas. While that may seem small, remember ADD is now 9% of the same amount of children, and frequently FASD can be misdiagnosed as ADD, so that stats could actually be higher. While this book is a memoir, it is an important look at how FASD can manifest itself in adoptive children, and coping strategies for both the child and parent. I highly recommend this book if you have a child with possible FASD, or if they are adopted and have ADD/are neurodivergent, as you may see symptoms that could be crossing over.

Wonderful book. I highly recommend it if you are looking for a good story, that you can’t find everyday.

This is a difficult one to review because although the subject matter and content is fascinating, heartbreaking and touching, the book itself is clumsily written and edited to the point at which it’s hard to read. Also I struggled to engage with the spirituality aspects personally, although that’s entirely my issue. However, the subject matter is fascinating and it was a privilege to hear Clare, Anna and Lucy’s stories. This is a book that I WOULD recommend to anyone interested in fostering, adoption, brain development or social care, but with the caveat that it’s not a well-written book and has a heavy focus on spirituality and religion.

I requested this book as we are an adoptive family and have neurodiverse children as well. I do think it’s important to note that this story has some major trigger points (trauma, sexual assault, violence, suicidal ideation) and it should maybe have a trigger warning at the beginning of the book.

I appreciated the raw and emotional re-telling of this family's journey of adoption and healing in a memoir style book. This family has gone through both International and Domestic Adoption and highlights the highs and lows of these processes. The emotional incidents were honest and completely relatable for those that have adoptive and neurodiverse children. Lynn was incredibly brave to share her honest feelings and reactions while parenting during high stress interactions and incidents. I appreciated how she and her husband were always searching to better themselves as parents by accessing counseling, going to therapy, and connecting with workers from organizations to teach and train them on neurodiversity and what that means for their children.

Thank you to NetGalley and She Writes Press for a copy of the eARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

The Tinderbox by Lynn Alsup is a gut wrenching piece of nonfiction that tells the true story of a family’s challenges after they adopt three children. All three children have significant neurological issues that are very difficult to diagnose and live with. This novel is written in a clear and honest way and will certainly educate the reader about various challenges that can occur when raising adopted children. Thank you to Lynn Alsup, She Writes Press, and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this novel.

Cannot give an honest review as I did not finish reading the book. The subject matter is too mature for my young students.

I have mixed feelings about this book. There are a lot of emotions packed into this family's story of adoption, neurodivergence, and spirituality. There are aspects of the narrative that I feel concerned about and aspects that I find admirable and thought-provoking.

My concerns are rooted in the amount of personal information and details the author shares about her daughters. As a professional in the child welfare sector, I am cognizant of how important agency over one's own story and experiences is. TINDERBOX details a lot of the author's personal story . . . and the stories of each of her three children. I am hopeful that the author discussed the narrative and details with her children before sharing. I have a feeling that, given her quest for awareness throughout her journey, she absolutely did so.

I was surprised at how deeply the author shared her spirituality and faith; I wasn't expecting it, but I found that those details were some of my favorite parts. I also admired how deeply committed the author and her husband were to finding the right help and support for each of their children--how often they shared their "no matter what" commitment to their children. I appreciate the moments of vulnerability and "brokenness" that she included, as well. Far too often, families touched by adoption, foster care, and kinship care feel like they are the only ones feeling a certain way. I respect the courage that Lynn Alsup demonstrates throughout her story.

My thanks to NetGalley for the complimentary copy of this e-book in exchange for my honest opinions.

Very intense but valuable read for parents of kids who are struggling with neurodiversity, and nothing seems to work. See my full GoodReads review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5775332152

I struggled with how I felt about this book. I have also adopted a neurodivergent child so I felt this story deeply. While the point of this book is to show the author’s journey to figuring out her daughters, but it never touched on the huge problems of international adoption. It never talked about how intricate trans-racial adoption is. There was a part that addressed that adoption is trauma, so I was grateful for that.

I also felt like I was told way too much about these girls. I appreciate how vulnerable the author was, but I wish it was more about her and less about the girls? The oldest one took a beating in this book. I’ve had really intense moments with my daughter (some very similar to the ones in the book) but the idea of putting her out there like that? Too many intimate details about the disabilities and trauma of her girls made me uncomfortable. Trauma-informed care was not mentioned, which would have been life-changing for this family. Clearly the story was about how they learned how to deal with their girls as they went, but the things the author did once they learned their disabilities was just trauma-informed relationship building.

The writing was excellent and hopefully this book can be a starting point for anyone looking for help, but it didn’t seem to hit the most important points.

I received this from net galley in exchange for a review.

What a beautiful journey of Lynn’s family through the challenges, craziness, and trauma adoption brings to the table. As any good mother who loves her children does, she is continually searching for the right key to unlock her girls’ behaviors, their potentials, and set them all free from the hurricane that is their daily life. It’s an imperfect, messy, and difficult journey! I found many parallels between my own challenges of parenting neurodivergent children and my constant search to help our family. Lynn writes brilliantly with heart and raw truths. I feel blessed to have read this book and will endeavor to put these gems of truth into our daily life. .. the term “confabulate” fills in a missing piece of my daughter’s puzzle.

This is an absolute hurricane of a book. Its raw, honest and quite confronting.

So pack an umbrella because this is a rollercoaster of emotions, situations, experiences and behaviours.
You will laugh, cry, scream and everything in between.

I would recommend this to all parents and people wanting to learn more on what happens behind the scenes of adoption and behavioral/developmental issues. I really enjoyed Lynn and her families story. Lynn uses such beautiful ways to describe her experiences and challenges raising her children. She follows the story of adoption, behavioral issues, trauma and learning to cope in a confronting environment. I love how she describes her environment to bring you into the story, it immerses you and you feel part of her story. It is a fantastic story of learning and growing. It's real, open and honest. It's raw insight and I feel I learnt a lot reading this book. You feel there with the author trying to learn how to best care for her kids, make them feel welcome and cared for, the struggles of having children who are a different race, looking and fighting for answers to help children. It is so open and honest and I adore that in the book. There is no hiding, everything is out there in the open.

The only issues I had with this book was that at times the time swapping made it confusing. However, it was easy to pick up where you were. It would end up making sense at a point but at times you were a tad confused.


TW
- Self Harm
- Suicidal Ideation
-Sexual Abuse(Child)
- Trauma
- Therapeutic Boarding School(Including transport agents)
- Fertility issues

Perfect for
-Students in Community Services, Education, Health. Mental health, Alcohol and other drugs.
- Families
-Medical Professionals
- Curious Minds
- People working in Adoption
- Adopted/ Adopting
-Teachers!!!

I was lucky to receive an ARC copy of this book through Netgalley for my feedback.

So many emotions reading this book about the joy and struggles of adoption and neurodiversity. The book takes you on the author's journey of raising her three girls and the challenges they all face. The book is well written and informative not just for adoptive or foster parents, but for any parent. The strength of a mother's love and the bonds formed in raising a child are shown with so much heart in this book. Highly recommend this book to all.

What a beautiful piece. the passages were captivating in its own way. this is a book i must recommend to both young and senior alike.
A master piece indeed.

Adoption books are near and dear to my heart. My husband and I adopted our son from Guatemala and we also tried foster to adopt in the US. I devour books on the topic. Alsup's Tinderbox is well written and thought out. Her emotions are all on the page for us to read. I appreciate her honesty and bravery. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. I highly suggest this book to my friends in the adoption community. Five stars.