Ootlin (2024) is the memoir of award-winning Scottish writer Jenni Fagan.

Born in 1977, Jenni had something like 29 different ‘placements’ from birth until age 16, and even though she was ‘adopted’ twice and lived with the 2nd ‘adoptive’ home from the age of 5 until she attempted suicide at the age of 12.

Despite an extraordinarily difficult childhood while in the Scottish ‘care’ system, Jenni did learn she could take refuge in reading and in writing.

Jenni Fagan tells us at the beginning of Ootlin that her memoir began “as a suicide note” twenty years previously. Doing that writing “kept her alive” until she was ready to share her important story with the world.