I basically read this all in one sitting last Saturday morning. It’s a relative short book at around 220 pages, but I think I would have wanted to read it fast even if it were 400. Nichole Chung, unsurprisingly to anyone who’s read her other work (I’ve mostly done so on The (dearly departed) Toast), is a very good writer. In fact, she started writing about adoption years before this book was published; I remember reading several of her articles about it and thinking at […]
Little Boxes on the hillside, Little Boxes all the same
I meant to read Everything I Never Told You ages ago but I think I had read too many novels about family secrets and suburbia at the time and kept putting it off for later. I always meant to get around to it, but with the whole Reese Witherspoon book club and optioning of Little Fires Everywhere, I decided to start with Ng’s follow up. The novel, set in 1998, begins in early summer in suburban Shaker Heights, outside Cleveland, Ohio. Ng hints at previous […]
How flattering, I said, meaning the opposite
Hey you. You. I’m talking to you. A human living in the world in 2017 who takes things like The Handmaid’s Tale incredibly personally. A human living in the world in 2017 who is horrified by what has been happening for centuries in a very real, cold-blooded, and methodical way to the Native American community. A human living in the world in 2017 who cannot believe that people don’t believe in science and climate change. A human living in the world in 2017 who still finds […]
In which my sweet Granny comes up once again.
I guess I should’ve expected how close to home this would hit: the subtitle sums it up. It revolves around the oral histories of women who were sent to homes for unwed mothers in the 1940s-1960s, their nearly-always coerced adoptions, their lives after surrendering, their reunions if they ever occurred. I am part of a birth family: my mother relinquished my two younger siblings for adoption, and it defined my childhood. Adoption is such a sore nerve, I almost never read about it. Besides which, […]
Deaf Culture and Adoption
Best for: People interested in learning a bit more about Deaf culture in the U.S. and who also have a strong stomach for not great writing and questionable storytelling. In a nutshell: Deaf mother with three hearing sons desperately wants a daughter; Deaf husband not totally on board; teenager gets pregnant and surrenders daughter for adoption. True story. Line that sticks with me: “He felt that part of the magic and mystery of giving birth to a child is parenting that particular child. However, he […]
Nobody puts Baby in a corner!!!
I’m pretty sure I first heard about this book in a CBR review, but it must have been before we had this domain, because the only other review on the site as of now is expandingbookshelf’s, which is actually the reason I finally picked it up. Anyway, this is one of those times I’m so glad I’m a part of the online book community, because I never would have heard of this book otherwise, and it was a very worthwhile reading experience. I wouldn’t have known […]
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