I normally have my review half-written in my head before I start writing it, but I just don’t even know what to say about this book. Let’s start with a necessary disclaimer: I picked this up as a married woman with one daughter, recently off an “I can’t have any more kids” health crisis (in my case it wound up resolved, but I felt the feels), and I had recently taken in a homeless woman with a baby and it was causing a lot of […]
Different, Not Less
… in my opinion, it’s not really a great idea to see people as one thing. Every person has lots of ingredients to make them into what is always a one-of-a-kind creation. We are all imperfect genetic stews. Willow Chance is 12 years old, a “person of color” adopted in infancy by two very white parents, and a genius. She seems to possess savant-like qualities that allow her to remember enormous amounts of information, understand concepts beyond her years, and pick up new languages easily. […]
Adoption is a serious business, but it can be very entertaining to read about
I’ve been reading Dan Savage’s Savage Love for years and years now, and when I’m in the mood for Podcasts (which I have to admit, I rarely am, I just can’t seem to get into them, it puzzles me greatly), I often listen to his Savage Lovecast. He’s generally quite open about himself, his life and his experiences, so I already knew that he was married and that they had an adopted child. My BFF Lydia recommended this audio book to me when I visited her […]
A Story About Chinese Americans (No Concubines!)
The Year She Left Us is a first-rate novel from a first-time novelist. Using the western adoption of Chinese girls as a plot device, it examines issues of abandonment, adoption and assimilation; the relationships among mothers, daughters, and sisters; and, like Mary Karr’s memoir, the impact of “lies of omission” on a family. The Year She Left Us is the story of Ari, her mother Charlie, her aunt Les and her Gran — the Kong women. Gran was born and raised in China, coming to […]
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