Various authors.
My husband of 20 years is adopted, his birth mum was in no position to look after him and at the age of 6 weeks he went to live with the people he has called mum and dad for 46 years.
As a couple we often talk about his birth parents and we are honest with our children. So I thought he would be the right person to read this book and review it.
Two teens take the stage and find their voice. . . A girl learns about her heritage and begins to find her community. . . A sister is haunted by the ghosts of loved ones lost. . . There is no universal adoption experience, and no two adoptees have the same story. This anthology for teens edited by Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung contains a wide range of powerful, poignant, and evocative stories in a variety of genres. These tales from fifteen bestselling, acclaimed, and emerging adoptee authors genuinely and authentically reflect the complexity, breadth, and depth of adoptee experiences. This groundbreaking collection centres what it’s like growing up as an adoptee. These are stories by adoptees, for adoptees, reclaiming their own narratives.
Nobody really understands what it’s like being adopted unless you have experience of it. My adopted parents were open with me from the moment I was old enough to understand it, and looking back on it now I really wish this book was around then.
When Helen gave me the chance to read a book written about this sensitive subject I jumped at the chance.
With various authors there is something for everyone.
This is an anthology of fifteen stories, each written by an adoptee author. In fact, not just an adoptee, but a transracial adoptee.
The central character in each story is also a transracial adoptee, thereby giving the author a chance to imbue their protagonists with authenticity. The stories come from varied genres such as drama, sci-fi, and fantasy. The adoptees are also cross-cultural, coming from backgrounds as varied as Black, South Asian, East Asian, Mexican, and Indigenous American. Every single story features a protagonist who is dealing with conflicted emotions not just related to being adopted but also about not fitting in with their family in terms of looks/skin colour. A couple of the stories also have the protagonists struggling with gender or sexual identity issues, thereby adding a third layer of inner turmoil to the plot. While all the protagonists are teens, their age-related behaviour is balanced with their honest feelings about their adoptive status. And to be perfectly honest the teen years are the years that being adopted really hits home and you find yourself asking what’s wrong with you. Growing up I never saw stories about adopted kids. It was like this was a taboo subject and was never spoken about.
Helen is an massive fan of YA but I’d never read an YA book before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Of course in a book like this you will always have favourite stories and here’s mine
Cora and Benji’s Great Escape – Mariama J. Lockington: An interesting story about how a white parent goes out of the way to learn more about her adopted daughter’s Black origins, without understanding what her daughter actually wants. This was among the most heartfelt stories in the book, and that caused me to see many things with a new perspective. –
Helen of course has also read it and by reading the book she has been able to put herself into an adoptee’s shoes.And although she has experienced my life for the last 20 years she had never really known what it has felt like.
So I urge you that if you only read one book, then this is it. It’s honest and truthful and it will provide you with a different outlook.
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