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3.97 AVERAGE
3.97 AVERAGE
Hello. Give me one moment...looking for my soapbox so I can take a big ol step onto that bad boy.
Got it. Okay.
Ahem.
Stories like Nicole Chung's are so goddamn important.
I grew up in a majority-white community where many of the Asian people I knew were adopted by white families. As we got older, I witnessed friends of mine struggle and reckon with growing up severed from their birth culture, mostly by well-intentioned and loving families who either didn't try to help their children connect with that aspect of themselves or did so only cartoonishly with very little research.
The point is we have so many stories of ADOPTERS, as selfless, adoring, generous saints - when actually they just are people who want a kid for whatever reason. That kid shouldn't be made to feel grateful for that action. They're just kids who deserve as much as any other kid, including the right to criticize their parents.
Anyway. This is a good book to read after Little Fires Everywhere. Or just in general.
Bottom line: More stories of the adopted!
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pre-review
the Can I Finish Four Books In One Day challenge
update: I CAN.
review to come / 3.5 stars
------------
taking lily's idea and reading only books by asian authors this month!
book 1: the incendiaries
book 2: last night at the telegraph club
book 3: dear girls
book 4: sigh, gone
book 5: frankly in love
book 6: emergency contact
book 7: your house will pay
book 8: convenience store woman
book 9: on earth we're briefly gorgeous
book 10: we are not free
book 11: searching for sylvie lee
book 12: the displaced
book 13: schoolgirl
book 14: sweet bean paste
book 15: little fires everywhere
book 16: trust exercise
book 17: front desk
book 18: the bride test
book 19: interior chinatown
book 20: it's not like it's a secret
book 21: almost american girl
book 22: never let me go
book 23: prairie lotus
book 24: earthlings
book 25: a pho love story
book 26: love, hate & other filters
book 27: the best we could do
book 28: all you can ever know
Got it. Okay.
Ahem.
Stories like Nicole Chung's are so goddamn important.
I grew up in a majority-white community where many of the Asian people I knew were adopted by white families. As we got older, I witnessed friends of mine struggle and reckon with growing up severed from their birth culture, mostly by well-intentioned and loving families who either didn't try to help their children connect with that aspect of themselves or did so only cartoonishly with very little research.
The point is we have so many stories of ADOPTERS, as selfless, adoring, generous saints - when actually they just are people who want a kid for whatever reason. That kid shouldn't be made to feel grateful for that action. They're just kids who deserve as much as any other kid, including the right to criticize their parents.
Anyway. This is a good book to read after Little Fires Everywhere. Or just in general.
Bottom line: More stories of the adopted!
------------
pre-review
the Can I Finish Four Books In One Day challenge
update: I CAN.
review to come / 3.5 stars
------------
taking lily's idea and reading only books by asian authors this month!
book 1: the incendiaries
book 2: last night at the telegraph club
book 3: dear girls
book 4: sigh, gone
book 5: frankly in love
book 6: emergency contact
book 7: your house will pay
book 8: convenience store woman
book 9: on earth we're briefly gorgeous
book 10: we are not free
book 11: searching for sylvie lee
book 12: the displaced
book 13: schoolgirl
book 14: sweet bean paste
book 15: little fires everywhere
book 16: trust exercise
book 17: front desk
book 18: the bride test
book 19: interior chinatown
book 20: it's not like it's a secret
book 21: almost american girl
book 22: never let me go
book 23: prairie lotus
book 24: earthlings
book 25: a pho love story
book 26: love, hate & other filters
book 27: the best we could do
book 28: all you can ever know
important read for those interested in transracial adoption
Beautifully written. I felt like I had to sip this book carefully, sentence by sentence. I loved her honesty throughout, and although I’m not an adoptee, resonated with her journey of trying to find her identity. Definitely recommend.
Nicole Chung writes about her life growing up Korean in a white home, her life as she decides to find her birth parents, and the life that unfolds as a result. Her straight-forward prose gives the reader a chance to see a first hand account of interracial adoption - her story is beautiful and honest. She captures every angle and every perspective that was affected by her adoption. Your story is beyond touching and I want to thank you @ni for opening up and sharing it with us.
If you haven't already added this memior to your list, please do so now.
If you haven't already added this memior to your list, please do so now.
If not something I felt, not precisely, not yet, love was something I aspired to.
This book blessed me. It is profoundly beautiful, honest, and vulnerable. And yes, I cried.
The greatness of this book lies in Nicole Chung's excellent craft. It is expert level. It is precision. Her story itself is amazing, but the way she tells it? It is so moving and so fantastic, I was highlighting multiple sentences in the first couple of pages. Chung deftly introduces the reader to this highly specific life experience that is truly incomparable to any other life experience. And I walked away feeling enlightened. The way she puts her feelings and her experiences into words is just so damn good. It's so GOOD, y'all.
Many reviewers have noted that there aren't many stories out there about adoption told from the perspective of the adult adoptee, especially when the kids and the parents are of different races or cultures. Part of me went into this wanting knowledge. I recently became interested in learning more about adoption and this was so much more than educational. To call it educational feels like an understatement or like I'm oversimplifying.
It's a story about the complexities of family and the intricacies of love. We're going on a transformative journey with Chung. So while we're getting these very personal scenes, they read as if anyone can relate. It opened the doors to a world I knew very little about and made me ask questions about myself and my family history and my future family that I wouldn't have asked otherwise. Overall, it ended up being ten times more relatable than I ever thought it would be going into it.
If you have a family, of any kind - not just the adopted kind - you will be all about this book, you will love it, you will cry just like me. 10/10 recommend !
Just a note on the audio narration: I didn't really enjoy the narrator, and I thought the lack of chapter announcements sometimes made the changes in text a little confusing.
Edited:
Consistently bowled over throughout this read by the empathy and grace with which it treated each of these real life people who make up its story. Memoirs rarely nail this with such balance, and I sincerely appreciated it. Brought me to tears twice, both moments when someone was surprised to realize how much they needed something.
Vivid, softly told, poignant, darkly funny in places, so grateful this book exists, an unforgettable read.
Consistently bowled over throughout this read by the empathy and grace with which it treated each of these real life people who make up its story. Memoirs rarely nail this with such balance, and I sincerely appreciated it. Brought me to tears twice, both moments when someone was surprised to realize how much they needed something.
Vivid, softly told, poignant, darkly funny in places, so grateful this book exists, an unforgettable read.
I found this immensely readable, which can be tough for me and memoirs.
Intimate and thought-provoking memoir about trans-racial adoption. I learned a lot and my appreciation of the many layers within the word "family."