Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - All You Can Ever Know

Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

9 reviews

virgilius's review against another edition

Go to review page

hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

Content Warnings

ajluedke91's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

An incredibly beautifully written memoir about the complexities of transracial adoption, the danger of being “race blind”, and the many ways to build a family.

“As my thoughts reached out to them, all at once I could envision hundreds of gossamer-thin threads of history and love, curiosity and memory, built up slowly across the time and space between us - a web of connections too delicate to be seen or touched, too strong to be completely severed (p. 79)”.

“…withholding hard truths and my honest opinions would also sell short the love I have for them, and they for me. The fierce wish I still harbor for them to understand me for who I am, stand with me in love and full acceptance, persists because they chose me and they raised me: we are one another’s responsibility (p. 208)”.

Content Warnings

leweylibrary's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

I read her.second memoir before this one lol but I did like this one better. The religious bits were a lot less frequent, but there were a LOT more about pregnancy and kids which I wasn't a huge fan of. Nevertheless, I know how big of a role those things played in her adoption story, so I get it. It was a really compelling and complicated story, and I'm impressed that she wrote about it so eloquently.

I can identity in some ways because of my being a test tube baby and my parents' separation when I was in early middle school. I got a lot of the same questions about wanting to know my "real" dad, but pushing my mind several steps further to consider not only having no biological relations around you AND being a visibly different race from your family...that's intense.

I feel like I still have a lot of questions having read her second book first, like what thoughts and emotions she was having about her biological family whom she did meet and talked to while her adopted parents were having their health issues and eventually dying. It was really lovely seeing her relationship with her sister take form, especially since my relationship with my own sister is a little like it, even if we aren't related by blood.

Content Warnings

tesslaah's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

Chung does not try to tell anyone else’s story but her own and yet you can easily enter into her experiences with her. The reader gets to travel with Chung through her process of figuring out how she tells that story in a way that feels almost gentle and certainly loving. There was honesty with how she explained her perspective while also being respectful of others in her life. She doesn’t try to speak for her family or anyone else who has been effected by adoption. The adoption experience is unique & nuanced to each family and person and I really appreciated how Chung articulated that message.

Content Warnings

erins_bookshelf_'s review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional reflective fast-paced

4.0

I usually say that I’m not a fan of nonfiction books, but I might need to stop saying that because this is the second memoir I have read and enjoyed a lot (maybe I just need to read more memoirs instead)
Anyway this book was really interesting, the author is a really good storyteller and I really like the writing style in this, it felt very personal and I liked that a lot :)

Content Warnings