There’s an interesting thread that runs through Regarding Anna—things that happen to you in the past can mold you into someone you’re not. Most of us know someone like that. For example, had Ma Barker not felt so compelled to protect her unscrupulous sons and their comparable friends, she would have put that protective nurturing instinct to good use instead of becoming involved in their criminal activity and eventually getting gunned down by authorities in her own home. That’s an over-the-top example, but you get the picture.
It’s the “would have been” in the life of the protagonist in this book that torments her to such an extent that she is willing to give up life as she knows it to devote herself to finding out the truth about who her parents really were. During her journey to uncover the truth, she finds many others who suffer from the “would have been” syndrome—some on her side, and others not.