A fascinating look at current issues and concerns in a novelistic setting. City life has changed for everyone, this novel let's you see this through the eyes of someone involved in conflict and survival. The suspense thru-out is very intense and it would make an excellent film. Some current historical situations add reality and an edge to the detail of the storyline.

Amazingly enough this book has a parallel non-fiction story in the news. As we read about the current situation of the Russian spies returning home from here in the US we can also imagine what the author has constructed in this fictional account. The humanity of the characters is always evident and the differences between North and South Korea are made very clear, and currently we can see how the US handled a tricky situation and how it might have otherwise.

Somehow it seems that this book was a lightning strike survivor. The characters live, die and survive only to face the wildness of nature, human and non. Compassion is not often seen, yet seems to arrive in the heart of strangers. There is a wildness in the text that makes one yearn for peace.

The ideas proposed in this book offer a culture shift away from what some believe to be popular, cool and hip. Hip today is not what hip was yesterday, and will not be what hip is tomorrow. The challenge for the young who want to be part of a group for reasons of safety, coolness or just belonging is to find the thoughts that can help create a cool, safe free society. The challenge for adults is to remember that what they do and say is heard and repeated by future generations. In "Losing My Cool" the family is challenging and wise and strongest group of all.

Many themes are presented in this memorable novel. In Secret Daughter the past is a foreign country, a country of extremes where a newborn child can be cast off and another revered for its gender. Adoption provides solutions but no ultimate answer. The past requires a visit so that we can truly see the present for what it really is, our home, our families and our earth.

So many unique voices make for a fascinating view of these United States of America. And the beautiful descriptions of the land and the people inhabiting the towns and byways lend souls to these states. The sorrow that we may not be caring for the land is very evident in some of the essays, that we might need to tread a little lighter, that the stories of the past might be seen in the present and that the present is a gift and that this book is indeed a gift to us.