These days so many people are adopting children from abroad even the rich and famous. Kim makes a great point in her book that I really hope those adopting from other countries take heed to. I was already crying by page 20, and continued to cry throughout this entire memoir. The things Elizabeth Kim has been through in her life is beyond anything anyone should ever have to endure. I have read a lot of heartwrenching true life stories, but this is beyond that. WOW! I don't think words can do justice for the way this book made me feel. Unflinching in her narration, Kim tells of her sorrows with a steady and riveting voice, and ultimately transcends them by laying claim to all the joys to which she is entitled.

But just as her Western features doomed her in Korea, so her Asian features served as a constant reminder that she wasn't good enough for her new, all-white environment.Īfter escaping her adoptive parents' home, only to find herself in an abusive and controlling marriage, Kim finally made a break for herself by having a daughter and running away with her to a safer haven-something Omma could not do for her. Unfamiliar with Western customs and language, but terrified that she would be sent back to the orphanage, or even killed, Kim trained herself to be the perfect child. Left at a Christian orphanage in postwar Seoul like garbage, bleeding and terrified, Kim unwittingly embarked on the next phase of her extraordinary life when she was adopted by a childless Fundamentalist pastor and his wife in the United States. Abandoned at a Christian orphanage in post-war Seoul like so much garbage, bleeding and terrified, Kim unwittingly embarked on the next phase of her extraordinary journey. Omma had committed the sin of sleeping with an American soldier, and producing not just a bastard, but a mixed-race child, considered worthless. The night Elizabeth Kim watched her grandfather and uncle hang her mother from the wooden rafter in the corner of their small Korean hut would forever define her life.

Ten Thousand Sorrows by Elizabeth Kim