DISCOVERING MOM is a period piece set in Oklahoma during the 1970s, focusing on thirteen-year-old Daniel Bennett. Adopted at birth and part Comanche, Daniel struggles with identity issues and feels completely alone in the world 'til he meets and befriends Jasmine—the other biracial student in his seventh-grade algebra class. Together, they achieve remarkable feats, like taking down the class bullies and starting their own gang of loners and misfits. Plus, Jasmine encourages Daniel to find his birth parents, and with the help of her detective uncle, they manage to locate Daniel's birth mother, Karen, who lives sixteen hundred miles away in the San Francisco Bay Area. She agrees to reconnect with him over the phone. Yet the more they talk and get to know each other, the more Daniel longs to be with her, prompting him and Jasmine to do the unthinkable as they say goodbye to their cozy existence and set out on the adventure of a lifetime.
The book focuses on Daniel's adoptive parents as well, especially his mother, Mary, who's also having identity issues and feels so disillusioned with her life that she sets off on a journey of her own—an inward journey of self-discovery. Not to give too much away, but her ultimate transformation from doting housewife to a liberated woman of the seventies is astounding. The story is chock-full of such fascinating characters that are sure to make you laugh or cry.
