2023 International Book Awards Finalist in Autobiography/Memoir
2023 National Indie Excellence Awards Finalist in Memoir
“Laura Engel tells her emotional and compelling story of becoming a pregnant, unwed teen in the Deep South in the 1960s, being shut away in a home for wayward women, and being forced to give up her first son to adoption. Then, after years of shame and guilt, she tells the heartwarming and inspiring story of reuniting with her long-lost son after forty-nine years. A powerful true story of historical, societal, and cultural stigmas against women, the complicated but strong bonds of family, the difficult road to self-acceptance and forgiveness, and the fierce love between a mother and her lost, but never forgotten, child.”
—Nina Neilson Little, author of Spirit Baby: Travels Through China on the Long Road to Motherhood
“You'll Forget This Ever Happened will break your heart and exhilarate your spirit. Honest and vulnerable while offering hope and love, Engel speaks to and for many young women of a generation that had little choice on how to cope with teen pregnancy at a time when shame was buried deep and heartbreak was never to be spoken of. Engel's prose is lyrical, and her storytelling is filled with rich and imaginative details. Endearing and heartwarming, this book is a treasure.”
—Madonna Treadway, award-winning author of Six Healing Questions: A Gentle Path to Facing Loss of a Parent
“You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is a deeply moving, heart-wrenching, and visually alive memoir exposing the pain Engel experienced after becoming pregnant at a young age and being forced by her southern parents to give up her child. Ultimately the story is one of resilience, forgiveness, and acceptance, with an ending made for a movie.”
—Roberta S. Kuriloff, author of Everything Special, Living Joy
“When seventeen-year-old Laura finds herself pregnant, she hopes to find a way to keep the baby—even if it means raising him as an unmarried single mother. Unbeknownst to her, her parents have other plans, and Laura is forced to relinquish her son shortly after his birth. Fifty years later, thanks to DNA technology no one in the ’60s could have imagined, Laura and her son are reunited. You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is a triumph of the human spirit and a mother’s enduring love.”
—Lauren Cross, writer and reproductive rights advocate
“You'll Forget This Ever Happened is a powerful, gripping memoir that grabs a hold of you from the first few words and keeps you turning pages to find out what will happen next. Engel travels back in time to when she was a young teen in the Deep South and was all but forced to give up a baby she wanted. She deftly captures her heartbreaking struggle—and explores the way she faced down shame and buried secrets to find herself and her long-lost son. Told with heart and grit, honesty and wisdom, You'll Forget This Ever Happened is a poignant read about a mother's unending love that will stay with you long after you have read the last page.”
—Marni Freedman, author of 7 Essential Tools, and Permission To Roar and cofounder of San Diego Writers Festival
“Laura Engel’s You’ll Forget This Ever Happened: Secrets, Shame and Adoption in the 1960s is a gripping and ultimately redemptive story about a teenage girl forced to relinquish her newborn son in a New Orleans home for unwed mothers in the 1960s. With beautiful descriptions and poetic, engaging writing, Engel breathes new life into a long-gone time in the South. This memoir is hard to put down in the best of ways. Full of surprises, plot twists, and you-can’t-believe-it's-true moments, this book is a testament to a mother's enduring love. Grab a glass of sweet tea and prepare to fall in love with this moving and uplifting memoir.”
—Tracy J. Jones, content writer, editor, and writing coach
“I can remember when young girls, classmates, would disappear from school. They were usually ‘helping take care of an elderly relative in another state.’ They would reappear in a few months and resume their lives. Laura Engel was ‘this girl,’ and she may have resumed her life, but with a painful memory of a firstborn that would grow up to never know or be known by his mother. At times this is a painful, difficult book to read, but the voice of the author gets you through the sadness to the complete joy of the reunion between mother and son. This is so much more than ‘a woman's book.’ It deals with universal questions and truths for all readers. An important read.”
—Jim Edwards, former English and journalism teacher
“You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is the heart-wrenching story of a young, pregnant southern girl sent away by her mortified parents to have her baby, then misled into believing that she would return home with her love child. Laura Engel reveals her inner self with such clarity that we can feel the sadness, remorse, anguish, and guilt that rack her soul daily for decades. She never allows us to forget the love she left behind, even after the births of three additional children. Her secret is uncovered by chance, allowing us to cheer with hopeful tears as she struggles and manages to navigate the gap of those missing years with optimism. This story of life in the 1960s will resonate with some and educate others. We applaud the changes today that allow us to heal the wounds endured during those times.”
—Suzi Schultz Gold, author of Look at the Moon
“This is a story of a bewildered teenager who grows into a loving mother who is blessed during her grandmother years in ways she never dared hope for. It is a story of confusion and shame evolving to hope and joy. It could have happened to anyone.”
—Kathleen McCabe, Writer, award-winning artist
“You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is the compelling story of a young woman being told to ignore giving birth and giving up her son, as if it’s an event easily erased—like turning off a light switch. Laura shows how living with the secret of her son’s birth impacts her world and how releasing the untold secret enabled her to move forward. The story is vulnerable, heartbreaking, and triumphant.”
—Jeniffer Gasner, writer
“This courageous, devastating memoir describes the dark side of the adoption fairy tale: the trauma of forced separation of a mother from her child. Engel’s story is stark testimony to the failures of an adoption system that is built on coercion, lies, and shame. Highly recommended to those wanting to understand more about the true story of adoption.”
—Alice Stephens, author of Famous Adopted People
“You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is gripping and well written. Laura’s determination, grit, love, and faith are admirable and genuine. Don’t miss this important book.”
—Leslie Johansen Nack, author of The Blue Butterfly
“Powerful memories wrenched from the soul of one birth mother in the 1960s who was forced by family and society to relinquish her child for adoption. Not only did she never forget what happened, her heart finally healed when she met her adult son, the child she gave away. A true redemption story.”
—Julia Brewer Daily, author of No Names to Be Given
“Laura Engel tells a heartbreaking story of a young mother—separated at birth from a child she never knew—who finds the courage to confront her guilt-ridden past and seek redemption. In her moving and deeply personal account, the author makes peace with a long-lost son, and ultimately with herself.”
—David Sheffield, screenwriter of Coming to America
“A searing energy begins on page one and continues to the unflinching final word of Laura Engel’s memoir, You’ll Forget This Ever Happened. Engel’s triumph is in her unwillingness to turn away from the hard stuff. Devastating and stunning—alive with attention to the abundance of the heart—this memoir will stay with you.”
—Julie Maloney, award-winning author of A Matter of Chance
“In her powerful memoir about making peace with the past, Laura Engel brings the hot summer of 1967 to life. That year, seventeen-year-old Laura is sent to live in a New Orleans maternity home with a rotating cast of pregnant teen girls who are assured they will “forget this ever happened” but of course never can. Losing her firstborn son to adoption changes Engel’s life but does not crush her spirit. In time, she finds love and a career and creates the family she always wanted, which then welcomes the boy she named Jamie when he contacts her decades later. Engel’s transformation from lost girl to grounded matriarch is deeply moving, a story that stays with you long after you reach the last page.”
—Eileen Drennen, writer and editor
“In Laura Engel’s compelling memoir, we experience the terrible irony framed by the title: she will not forget this experience of giving up her newborn son at the age of seventeen as an unwed mother. Engel cannot forget––and doesn’t want to. And the reader will never forget this finely crafted journey of recovery. Through her narrative, insightful self-revelations, struggles, and willingness to expose her trauma, Engel creates an experience of intimacy for the reader that establishes a soulful friendship.”
—Kelly DuMar, author of girl in tree bark
“Heart-wrenching but filled with purpose, this book satisfyingly unreels our emotions to the bright sounds of the ’60s. Laura’s richly detailed story makes us laugh, cry, gasp, and pray for those caught in that cruel time warp that plunged unwed mothers into the lowest, most loathsome level of ‘proper’ society.”
—Linda Bergman, screenwriter, producer, and educator
“Exactly ten years apart, two scared eighteen-year-olds were forced to surrender their newborn sons for adoption in a home for unwed mothers on Washington Avenue in New Orleans. The first was my birth mother, Julie Francis; the second was Laura Engel. For five decades, Engel thought about her son constantly and wondered what had become of him. Then, miraculously, she found him—only to lose him again. You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is a heartwarming and heartbreaking memoir about a mother’s undying love for her son. I couldn’t put it down.”
—Brooks Eason, author of Fortunate Son and Redemption
“Laura Engel’s memoir reads like a conversation with a best friend, both genuine and familiar. She anchors her story with references to the music, hair styles, and fashions of the 1960s, while unflinchingly sharing her pain and humiliation. When Laura got pregnant at seventeen, the trajectory of her life was altered, and she was not allowed to make any of her own decisions. These experiences left permanent scars that she kept hidden for decades—until a defining moment changed everything. You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is Engel’s story of resilience, of moving forward and building a different life but never, ever forgetting the secret baby she left behind.”
—Deborah Reed, coauthor of The Chamber and the Cross
“This book is the reason I read. I couldn’t put it down and when I did, it stayed with me. You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is an incredible story beautifully told.”
—Lindsey Salatka, author of Fish Heads and Duck Skin
“Nearly fifty years after giving up her baby, the past finds her. When Laura Engel’s son, now grown and with a family of his own, locates her, the journey moves from trauma and despair to joy and a bittersweet, imperfect healing. Engel describes it all with poignancy and honesty. You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is achingly lovely, written by a woman who knows her heart, makes up her mind, finds her way, and creates life on her own terms.”
—Lisa Shapiro, coauthor of The Chamber and the Cross and author of No Forgotten Fronts: From Classrooms to Combat
“You’ll Forget This Ever Happened had me hooked from the opening words. I was fully engaged and on the journey with teenaged Laura. Engel paints the details of popular song and the companionship of other girls in such a way that highlights their youth and lack of agency over their bodies or futures. This is an important book, especially today.”
—Louise Carnachan, author of Work Jerks: How to Cope with Difficult Bosses and Colleagues
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