When I began reading The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow by Kristen Martin, I certainly did not expect to read an uplifting book. Quite simply, being an orphan is sad to begin with and the system which orphans find themselves does not help. That said, Martin's passion, or more accurately rage, goes a bit too far in my opinion.

Martin was an orphan herself although she admits she did not end up in an orphanage or foster care. However, she has done some excellent research into the subject and walks the reader through the ways orphans have been cared for since the found of the U.S. Spoiler: it's been a disaster the whole time! I want to be clear that I completely agree with Martin that the system is broken. My problem was with the presentation of it in this book.

Martin covers way too much ground in a scant 300ish pages. For example, Christine Keneally's Ghosts of the Orphanage (which I highly recommend and is quoted directly in this book) is about the same length and talks about just one institution. Martin needs to cover a lot more which means she needs to generalize often and the individual stories are short. The other problem is Martin's relentless negativity. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to be mad about. However, you need to give the reader a breather once in a while from the sheer negativity. I thought Martin might give the Quakers a positive spin for instance but they were almost immediately called white saviors even while they avoided the horrible abuses of Protestant and Catholic orphanages.

In the end, there is some solid research and an author who cares deeply about the subject. I was not a fan of the presentation, but I wouldn't tell people to avoid the book.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and PublicAffairs Books.)

Being an adoptive mom and someone who has written about the topic, I am drawn to stories like this new title from Martin. I was in awe of the research that she did for this book. It was well-crafted and my favorite parts are the comparisons and deep looks into America's media portrayal of orphans throughout history. Thanks very much to NetGalley for the ARC.