Until I Find You: Disappeared Children and Coercive Adoptions in Guatemala

Nolan investigates a devastating system with patience, care, and a clear ethical compass. The book shows how coercion can hide inside paperwork, institutions, and narratives marketed as rescue. It’s attentive to the uneven distribution of power—between countries, between families, and between those who can ask questions and those who can’t. Nolan writes with compassion for the people most harmed, while staying rigorous about evidence and accountability. The reporting reveals how complex causes produce clear suffering, and how difficult it is to untangle responsibility after the fact. Rather than offering simple villains, the book maps a system that rewards silence and confusion. The prose is steady, never exploitative, which makes the material even more affecting. It asks readers to confront uncomfortable trade-offs in international adoption and humanitarian framing. You finish with a sharpened sense of what “choice” means when options are constrained. It’s a hard book—because the truth is hard—but it’s also necessary. A powerful example of nonfiction as witness.