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All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir, by Nicole Chung
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From School Library Journal
This raw memoir about growing up as a transracial adoptee will reverberate with anyone who yearns to belong. Chung writes about identity, race, motherhood, and her journey to find her true self. Her book starts with her struggle as a Korean child adopted into a white family, then digs into her growing relationships with her adopted family, husband, birth family, and children. Through letters and emails, Chung makes sometimes difficult discoveries about her birth family. The work closes with reconciliation for her families, the truth about her adoption, and understanding about herself. VERDICT Purchase this must-have title where Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere, Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese, and Lisa Ko's The Leavers are popular.-Caitlin Wilson, Meadowdale Library, North Chesterfield, VAα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Praise for All You Can Ever Know Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for AutobiographyLong-listed for the PEN Open Book Award Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, NPR, Time, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Review of Books, Real Simple, Buzzfeed, Jezebel, Bustle, Entropy, PureWow, Brit + Co, Chicago Public Library, Electric Literature, Paste, Women.com, and more A Barnes & Noble Discover Selection, A Junior Library Guild Selection, and an American Booksellers Association Indie Next Pick "[A] deeply moving and profound account of [Chung's] life as a Korean American adoptee, as she grows up and strives to understand her identity . . . All You Can Ever Know honors the grand complexity of love, family, and identity, while showing us how these things can save us and break us with devastating clarity and beauty." ―Today "Chung’s memoir is more than a thoughtful consideration of race and heritage in America. It is the story of sisters finding each other, overcoming bureaucracy, abuse, separation, and time." ―The New Yorker "Chung’s search for her biological roots . . . has to be one of this year’s finest books, let alone memoirs . . . Chung has literary chops to spare and they’re on full display in descriptions of her need, pain and bravery." ―The Washington Post "All You Can Ever Know is partially about Chung's search as an adult for her birth family, and who she found. But it's also a thoughtful look at transracial adoption and a meditation on identity and culture . . . Her memoir is a sometimes heartbreaking, always unflinching look at what it means to feel rootless." ―Samantha Balaban, NPR "In her memoir, All You Can Ever Know, Chung writes with an empathy that's careful to consider the perspectives of everyone involved in her adoption story: herself, her adoptive parents and her birth family . . . Though the story is intensely personal, it's never myopic and, ultimately, it's universal: a story about learning to grapple with our own identities, about learning where we belong, and about families." ―NPR Books "The book is an extraordinary, honest, nuanced and compassionate look at adoption, race in America and families in general. It's also such an engaging read. I stayed up way too late one night reading it because the story just pulled me in. I read it months ago, and I still think about it and quote some of the lines in this book at least weekly." ―Jasmine Guillory, Code Switch, NPR "Her reflections on identity and culture explore the need to belong." ―Time "Opening readers’ eyes to the complexities of cross-cultural adoption, Chung makes a resounding case for empathy." ―Time "Written with all the style and narrative of great fiction." ―Vanity Fair "In this gorgeous memoir, Chung examines our ties to family and what it means to belong." ―Real Simple "The author . . . revisits her coming of age with a deep melancholy, favoring clarity over sentimentality. She writes crisply, intimately, bringing us close to her experiences of pain, isolation, and discovery . . . Passages like this give All You Can Ever Know real texture, the sensations practically flowing from the page. And Chung emotionally relays her journey to becoming a writer―her path of negotiating and asserting her identity―and to learning about her birth family’s rather traumatic past. Yet her empathetic, graceful prose shines brightest when she casts her gaze elsewhere: on her adoptive parents―their warmth and their secrets, their struggle to talk about race―or on her birth sister, Cindy, who opens Chung’s eyes in adulthood, while similarly trying to find herself. Through them, Chung reveals a family story of heartbreaking truth―personal in its detail, universal in its complexity." ―Entertainment Weekly "The former Toast editor beautifully tells her life story, from growing up with adoptive white parents to uncovering the truth of where she came from." ―Entertainment Weekly "Following a season of (wonderful) books about motherhood, Nicole Chung's memoir stands out for its broadening of the discussion, exploring the complicated consequences of interracial adoption . . . All You Can Ever Know is the messy navigation of Chung's new reality―her working out the boundaries of these people who are both kin and strangers, her careful confrontation and reconciliation with her parents, and her exploration of the profound, ever-shifting meaning of family." ―BuzzFeed "If you’re looking for a memoir that can pull you in on the first page, and leave you thinking for months afterwards, it’s this book. It’s written by a woman who was an adoptee, and decided when she was pregnant with her first child to see if she could find out more about her birth family. There is so much in this book that moved me, but the friendship between the author and her sister, who she meets as an adult, makes me tear up to just think about." ―Jasmine Guillory, Hello Sunshine "Nicole is an incredibly talented writer and All You Can Ever Know brims with her insight and thoughtful prose." ―Stassa Edwards, Jezebel “There is one memoir that I am very excited about by a woman named Nicole Chung, called All You Can Ever Know, which is a memoir about a Korean woman adopted by white parents. She then grew up in Oregon surrounded only by white people, and she kept a list of Asian people she saw, and it would be years before she saw a new person she hadn’t seen before. It’s a really interesting story about her search for her biological parents while she is pregnant with her own first child. That one is going to be just fabulous.†―Emma Straub, All of It, WNYC "[Nicole Chung] explores her experience as the only Asian person in an Oregon town nestled 'in a valley in sight of three mountain ranges' with an open heart and clear-eyed grace . . . Her quest is gripping . . . All You Can Ever Know is a book about true love―and therefore laced with pain as well as joy." ―Jenny Shank, The Dallas Morning News "With clarity, grace, and no small amount of courage, Chung has written a powerful memoir about her experience as an adoptee, an Asian-American, a daughter, a sister, and a mother. All You Can Ever Know is a candid and beautiful exploration of themes of identity, family, racism, and love. And while the answers Chung finds in her search for the birth family she never knew are fascinating, the power of this book lies in Chung's willingness to 'question the things [she'd] always been told,' even while knowing that she might find unsettling truths and an origin story unlike what she'd always thought had existed. Though this book is specific to Chung's experience and an important example of the complexities inherent to transracial adoption, its words will resonate deep within the core of anyone who has ever questioned their place in their family, their community, and the world." ―NYLON "She’s one of my favorite essayists of all time, the kind who expands my mind with every sentence and makes me reconsider everything." ―Gary Shteyngart, Vulture "Considering that Chung is an editor at Catapult and formerly The Toast (RIP), it’s not surprising that she makes storytelling feel less like a skill and more like a magic power." ―Jessica Blankenship, InStyle "[A] stirring new memoir . . . Chung’s book is, at heart, a love story between sisters, and a hopeful witness to the ways people with multiple ambiguous losses can help each other heal." ―International Examiner "A fascinating, heartwarming and heartbreaking story of ancestry, family and racial identity in America." ―Chicago Public Library "Chung investigates the mysteries and complexities of her transracial adoption in this chronicle of unexpected family for anyone who has struggled to figure out where they belong." ―The Seattle Public Library "The honesty with which Chung grapples with this kind of racial erasure is a hallmark of her stunning debut memoir, a book that confronts enormous pain with precision, clarity, and grace . . . In addition to being deeply thoughtful and moving, the book is a fiercely compelling page-turner . . . But what shines through this beautiful book is her clear-eyed compassion for all her relations, her powerful desire for connection, her bold pursuit of her own identity, and the sheer creative energy it took to build her own family tree, to 'discover and tell another kind of story.'" ―The Boston Globe "A Korean American adopted by white parents in Oregon, Chung writes movingly of her search to find her birth parents; her personal quest leads not only to her own story, but also to meditations on race, parenthood, and the construction of identity." ―The Boston Globe "Beyond its critical and popular success, All You Can Ever Know is a landmark in the literature of adoption, and will be of enduring value to people looking for advice about raising a child of a different race. In fact, it opens with a story about one such couple who came to Nicole with their questions back when she was just out of college, years before she began her search for her family. Did she ever feel like her adoptive parents weren't her real parents? they asked. Had she had any issues growing up? . . . The whole answer, in all its unsentimental, unshrinking complexity, is found in this courageous book." ―Marion Winik, Critical Mass: The Blog of the National Book Critics Circle Board of Directors "A sensitive, clear-eyed examination of the bullying and casual racism that had marked her childhood and, eventually, leads to a search for her birth parents and the origin story she has never known." ―Newsday "A tender, unsentimental memoir . . . All You Can Ever Know has the patient pacing of a mystery and the philosophical heft of a skeptic’s undertaking." ―Newsday "In this much-anticipated memoir, Chung brings her clear and thoughtful prose to the task of untangling the legacy of her adoption to white parents in Oregon. Transracial adoption, often framed as a simple act of altruistic love on the part of white parents, looks far more complicated under Chung’s kind but implacably honest gaze." ―HuffPost “[Chung] has written, hauntingly, about her adoption and growing up in a white family. . . . Her long-awaited memoir promises to explore the subject more fully: her relationship with her adoptive family, her reconnection with her birth family, beginning her own family and how she’s worked to find a sense of belonging.†―Huffington Post "What gives All You Can Ever Know its power is the emotional honesty in every line, essential to the telling of a story so personal . . . All You Can Ever Know, sometimes painfully and always beautifully, explores what it means to be adopted, to be a different race from the family you grew up in, and to later create a family of your own." ―The Seattle Times "Chung’s beautifully written memoir about adoption, parenthood, race and identity has aching honesty in every line . . . You read these pages awed by Chung’s ability to combine clear-eyed unsentimentality with faith and optimism, and to create a family not from her dreams, but from her reality. She has, by its end, built an identity 'from what has been lost and found.'" ―The Seattle Times "Chung’s dynamic prose tackles identity and the forces that shape it . . . What Chung painstakingly unearths about her birth family is thrilling and unsettling, and her articulation of her findings averts tropish feel-good stereotypes. Here, the open wound at the heart of this exquisite narrative heals slightly skewed, exactly as it should." ―Star Tribune (Minneapolis) "Chung, born to Korean parents and adopted at birth by a white family, explores not just her own history but also the larger notion of having a history at all. She invites the reader to join her on the intimate and sometimes heartbreaking journey of discovering―and rediscovering―her identity as a person and a writer. Particularly affecting is the story of Chung's relationship with her own daughter, born, poetically, as Chung commits to searching for her birth family." ―Pacific Standard "A beautifully written book that addresses problems of race and family, drawing the reader in an emotional roller coaster that leaves them wanting to know more." ―The Harvard Crimson Touching on race, family, and the failure of simple labels to define us, Chung instead offers a masterful narrative that proves concepts like culture and origin are simply insufficient in elucidating who we truly are. As conversations about what community truly means continue to remain acutely topical―who we belong to, what aspects of our character we define ourselves by, what we each require to feel whole―the timing of Chung’s memoir could not be better. In the gifted hands of an immensely talented writer, the story of All You Can Ever Know ultimately becomes more than Chung’s personal journey, instead serving as an eye-opening conduit to the universal desire we all share to love and be loved in return." ―SF Weekly "In her glistening debut, All You Can Ever Know, Nicole Chung delves into the knotty question of how to define what family means . . . What she learns upends the tidy story she grew up hearing about her adoption, but Chung, a truth-seeker, does not shy away from the messier reality she finds. All You Can Ever Know holds special resonance for fellow adoptees, especially those navigating transracial adoptions. Yet Chung achieves the goal of many memoirists: She renders the specifics of her story so precisely that it becomes universal." ―Portland Mercury "As unique, affecting, heartstring-pulling as this debut is, Nicole Chung’s All You Can Ever Know will resonate with any sensitive, thoughtful reader who has '[found] the courage to question what [they’ve] been told'―about family, history, their very selves . . . Raw, open, forthright, Chung’s personal odyssey is an intimate journey toward self-understanding and acceptance." ―The Christian Science Monitor "Brimming with secrets sure to keep you captivated, Nicole Chung’s memoir delivers a powerful, honest saga exploring the meaning of family." ―Frannie Jackson, Paste "This memoir documents the heartbreaking, profound, joyful journey that ensues." ―Refinery29 "All You Can Ever Know is a gorgeously written memoir of culture, identity, and belonging. It’s an absolute must-read this fall." ―HelloGiggles "Riveting and painfully real. It’s a story of lost generations and found families, infinitely relatable whether you’re adopted or not." ―Bon Appétit "This inspiring memoir tells the story of a girl who never gives up and finds happiness in discovering where she comes from and who she really is." ―PopSugar "In All You Can Ever Know, Chung asks resonant questions about race, identity, family, adoption, and how we shape our very sense of self in clear-eyed, riveting prose. This immensely moving memoir will leave you changed."―PopSugar "Chung’s story shares what she learned and explores identity, belonging, family, and truth." ―Bustle “In her memoir, All You Can Ever Know, Nicole Chung takes the qualities that make her writing sing―warmth, inquisitiveness, and deep personal investment in the words she types―and turns them inward. Her debut is an investigation into her past in which she aims to leave no stone―or emotion―unturned.†―Shondaland "It’s a true testament of the power of telling the personal stories of history―while fictional, it situates the reader in time . . . A powerful debut." ―Emily Burack, Alma "Chung’s memoir provides insight into life as a transracial adoptee, an experience that is not often talked about. Chung tells an important story, exploring notions of identity and race and the complicated nature of both . . . Chung’s memoir is deeply emotional from the very start. Her search for family and belonging raises important questions about identity and what constitutes family . . . Chung’s memoir sheds light on the complexities of family and the search for identity. She illuminates the difficulties of being a transracial adoptee and feeling out of place in the only family you know. Chung’s memoir is an important one for a number of reasons, but more than anything, her writing is poignant and emotionally compelling throughout." ―The Brooklyn Rail "This is a moving memoir that talks about Chung feeling out of place in certain situations as she lacked representation in her life, some of the harsher realities of adoption, and the journey to finding her birth family once she was expecting a child of her own. This is a story that all of us, whether we’re directly affected by the adoption triad or not, need to know . . . A beautifully written memoir that you won’t soon forget. The story will stay with you for some time, and if you’re anything like me, it will challenge the idea of what family is supposed to be." ―Julia K. Porter, Adoption.com "A must-read . . . All You Can Ever Know is an incredible, humanist look at adoption, and an exploration of the scars Chung has from the subtler, unlabeled racism she experienced growing up in a homogenous plot of America, far from other Asian Americans . . . But adoption or not, the book should be required reading for anyone contemplating parenthood." ―Romper "While grappling with her identity Chung exposes the truths we all endure when we try to figure out where we truly belong." ―Women.com "Nicole Chung's memoir is an honest depiction of how hard it is to understand where we come from and what we seek to fit in." ―Women.com "If you’re an Asian American adoptee, just stop reading this right now and go get this book. I am keeping it and giving it to everyone in my family, my parents, my partner, everyone. This is the book that makes me feel seen . . . This book is tender. I treasure it." ―Utopia State of Mind "Moving, beautifully wrought." ―The Margins "Moving and intimate, All You Can Ever Know is a candid exploration of motherhood, race and the lengths we all go to to feel like we belong." ―PureWow "Beautifully written . . . It’s these universal themes of family, belonging and identity that make All You Can Ever Know such a compelling read." ―Hazlitt "Chung's memoir is full of nuance . . . Through her story, Chung shows that adoption―particularly trans-racial adoption―doesn't fit into a trite, simple narrative. And the lyricism of her language makes that story a pleasure to read." ―BUST "An insightful memoir." ―The National Book Review "In her debut memoir All You Can Ever Know, Nicole Chung challenges the traditional adoption narrative and sheds light on the complicated reality of being a transracial adoptee . . . All You Can Ever Know is yet another reminder of how important representation is, both as an exercise in empathy across cultural boundaries and as catharsis for those who have had undergone similar experiences." ―Chicago Review of Books "At the top of my pile is: Nicole Chung’s memoir, All You Can Ever Know (Catapult), the story of a Korean American adoptee’s relationship with her white, adoptive family in Oregon and her search for her birth family." ―Karen Maeda Allman (Elliott Bay Book Company), The Seattle Review of Books "I read this book in big gulps, thirsty for more each time I had to set it down. Nicole was adopted at birth, and she tells the story of her childhood and later, her search for her birth family, in gorgeous and precise prose. Nicole honors her own experiences while also opening up, again and again, doors to universal truths. Truly, it is one of the most thoughtful and important memoirs I’ve ever read . . . All You Can Ever Know is a book that changed me, and that will stay with me. Nicole’s writing on motherhood, intergenerational trauma, and race is nothing short of brilliant." ―The Rumpus "Thoughtful, conscientious, compassionate . . . Chung, as protagonist and writer, is inspiring in her grace. Her story―as she tells it―is also funny in places, though subtly so. It’s also, as the title suggests, a reflection on the power of knowledge and learning, with their capacity to comfort and prepare one for what comes next, as well as the limits of knowledge, its ability to discomfit, and the idea that there are some things even the most curious person may not want to know." ―Vol. 1 Brooklyn "You might know Nicole Chung from her work as an editor at Catapult and, before that, The Toast; you might know her from acclaimed works of nonfiction that have appeared in numerous impressive publications. Now she’s making her book-length debut with her memoir All You Can Ever Know, which explores questions of adoption, parenthood, race, and finding one’s own voice as a writer." ―Vol. 1 Brooklyn "It's beautiful; it's a really beautiful book. I would recommend it as well. It comes out in October. . . . That's going to do well. It's exciting; it's really beautifully done." ―Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan of Go Fug Yourself on Women with Books "Have you read this book yet? It’s a memoir about Chung’s adoption, powerful and generous and wise, and it will crack your heart open." ―R. O. Kwon, Electric Literature, 1 of 5 Books by Women You Should Read “Compassionate and astute, [Chung's] writing has much to tell us about race, America, belonging, and adoption.†―Electric Literature "A deeply engrossing memoir about adoption and motherhood and the meaning of family." ―Vanessa Hua, Electric Literature "Nicole Chung’s first memoir is a soulful and searching account of identity, both as constructed by ourselves over time and as taught by those who reared us . . . Chung’s story cuts to the heart of the complicated ways we love, let go, and find one another." ―Read It Forward "Nicole Chung's All You Can Ever Know is this awesome memoir about her life as an adoptee. She's a brilliant essayist who I'm a little obsessed with. Her memoir got a Junior Library Guild badge, and has crossover potential―I don't know what the exact term is, but I know it's being pushed toward young adults, and I'm very excited about it. I hope a YA audience picks it up, because it's such a powerful story . . . Something for our listeners to keep an eye out for." ―Hey YA "When Nicole Chung decided to search out her birth parents, she didn’t know what she’d find, or whose lives she might upend. She writes about the experience beautifully and with such compassion―turning this very personal story into something more than just a memoir: a deeply resonant and poignant exploration of what it means to be a family." ―Musing (Parnassus Books) "...[A] compelling life story..."―Colorlines "An important memoir about Chung’s search for the couple that gave her up years and years ago and her journey to self-acceptance." ―BookBub "You probably know Chung from the internet, where she is the editor-in-chief of Catapult magazine, but soon you will certainly know her from this memoir, in which she recounts her early life as the child of white parents in a small Oregon town, her search for her Korean birthparents, and the truth about why they put her up for adoption in the first place." ―Literary Hub "[Chung's] memoir, All You Can Ever Know (Catapult, coming in October), is an eye-opening account of what it’s like to grow up without access to your biological family. Chung maintains a wholehearted compassion for both her biological and adoptive families’ toughest choices―and shares what it means to grow up in the space between them." ―MUSE-FEED, Kenyon Review's Summer Reading List "Personal and expansive, intimate and wise, Nicole Chung's memoir is a fiercely successful balancing act of family, identity, becoming and love . . . Chung writes with warmth and earnestness, exploring deftly the complicated questions that tangle the story of her life. She always maintains care and compassion for every character: her birth parents, her adoptive parents, and the woman she would come to know as her sister. No one is idealized, or burdened with the full brunt of her hopes, her grief and her longing . . . Compassion-filled, truthful and page-turningly compelling, All You Can Ever Know is dexterous, honest work. Exquisite and inquisitive, it gets at the heart of what it means to belong." ―Bookreporter "All You Can Ever Know is a tale told with empathy and grace." ―BookPage "Nicole Chung’s first book, All You Can Ever Know, is an intimate reflection on adoption and family, a gorgeously-wrought personal story with universal reverberations." ―Maud Newton, Barnes & Noble Review "Chung creates a suspenseful story with her avalanches of questions and unexpected discoveries, and her hard-won insights into the nature of identity. She has many thoughts about adoption, but this is also an emotional and level-headed book about the rewards of questioning family expectations in order to come to terms with the complicated truth." ―Shelf Awareness "This touching memoir explores issues of identity, racism, motherhood, and sisterhood with eloquence and grace. Highly recommended." ―Library Journal (starred review) "[A] stunning memoir . . . Chung’s writing is vibrant and provocative as she explores her complicated feelings about her transracial adoption (which she 'loved and hated in equal measure') and the importance of knowing where one comes from." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Highly compelling for its depiction of a woman's struggle to make peace with herself and her identity, the book offers a poignant depiction of the irreducibly complex nature of human motives and family ties. A profound, searching memoir about 'finding the courage to question what I'd always been told.'" ―Kirkus Reviews "[An] insightful memoir . . . Chung's clear, direct approach to her experience, which includes the birth of her daughter as well as her investigation of her family, reveals her sharp intelligence and willingness to examine difficult emotions." ―Booklist "This book moved me to my very core. As in all her writing, Nicole Chung speaks eloquently and honestly about her own personal story, then widens her aperture to illuminate all of us. All You Can Ever Know is full of insights on race, motherhood, and family of all kinds, but what sets it apart is the compassion Chung brings to every facet of her search for identity and every person portrayed in these pages. This book should be required reading for anyone who has ever had, wanted, or found a family―which is to say, everyone." ―Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere “Adoption is neither an incident nor a process―it is an evergreen story of lives growing and resisting simple definitions. Chung’s All You Can Ever Know takes the grammar of adoption―nouns, verbs, and direct object―and with extraordinary integrity remakes them into a narrative about what it means to be a subject. A primary document of witness, Chung writes her memoir as a transracial adoptee with honesty, wisdom, and love. Her search and what she discovers offer us life’s meaning and purpose of the very highest order.†―Min Jin Lee, author of Free Food for Millionaires and Pachinko “This book will break your heart in all the best ways. Nicole Chung's intimate exploration of motherhood, race, and identity is a beautiful personal story that also reveals something profound about our culture and country. I didn't want it to end.†―Jessica Valenti, author of Sex Object “I’ve been waiting for this writer, and this book―and everything else she’ll write―and now it is here.†―Alexander Chee, author of The Queen of the Night "In All You Can Ever Know, Nicole Chung examines her family history with rigor and grace, which is the best possible way to set about the prospect of asking questions of the people who made you. The book is lovely, and loving, and committed to honesty and exploration. It never shies away from reality. Nicole's earnestness, her great capacity for affection, her commitment to dealing justly with others, her sense of humor are all vividly present here." ―Daniel Mallory Ortberg, author of The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror "An urgent, incandescent exploration of what it can mean to love, and of who gets to belong, in an increasingly divided country. Nicole Chung's powerful All You Can Ever Know is necessary reading, a dazzling light to help lead the way during these times." ―R. O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries "Compassionate and compelling. A memoir about understanding yourself as a daughter so that you may understand yourself as a mother."―Rainbow Rowell, author of Carry On "Nicole Chung has written a book for everyone, but the real gift is for adoptees. With her rare talent for telling a story while also telling you what it means, All You Can Ever Know is Chung at top form. This is a book not to miss and an adoption story we need. Read everything Nicole Chung writes. Start now."―Matthew Salesses, author of The Hundred-Year Flood
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Product details
Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Catapult (October 2, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1936787970
ISBN-13: 978-1936787975
Product Dimensions:
6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.2 out of 5 stars
116 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#10,244 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
My adopted (Chinese) daughter's adoption counselor said to me recently, "She loves you and your husband. She just can't fully open up to you because you're not her birth parents." And then I found this searingly honest and at times quite painful memoir and read it within 24 hours. Nicole Chung approaches her life experience as an adoptee with intense self-reflection and openness. I cried when experiencing the intense loss of her birth family and comparing it to my own daughter's pain over the years. The racist comments, the intrusive questions, the exclusion, the feeling of a dual life, the guilt over that dual life and so many additional layers- - it's all approached so honestly. Every adoptive parent should read this book and give a copy to their child to read as a teenager or adult. How humbling, and what a reminder to always offer love, compassion, and an open ear. Well done, Nicole and family. Thank you for sharing such an intimate part of your life with us.
Nicole Chung’s impeccably told memoir ALL YOU CAN EVER KNOW is about growing up in a world where she felt she didn’t fit in. Her white parents adopted her as a premature baby, struggling for life in the NICU, born to a Korean family, and she was given one story her whole life about why she was put up for adoption. While her parents were loving and cared for her, they were not aware of what she was going through. She never met another person who looked like she did in the small town in Oregon where she grew up, was never introduced to her birth culture, never truly felt like she belonged, and suffered through years of cruel jokes about her physical appearance at the hands of other children.It isn’t until she leaves home for college that Nicole feels free, meets other Asian Americans, and people with whom she feels a sense of belonging. Married and a soon-to-be-mother, she is ready to find out about her birth parents. The journey begins to unfold.Nicole’s story is heartbreaking, heartwarming, enlightening, and told with such warmth, and without bitterness. It is about race, the urgent need to belong, and the importance of family. This book is impossible to read without feeling the intensity of love.
This is the best book I have read about the adoption experience, and I have read many. Nicole is a brilliant writer, flowing in part from her extraordinary insight and honesty. This books gets deeply inside the experience of adoption, transracial adoption, and reunion with the deepest heart and soul. She made me cry and she made me laugh. Mostly, as an adoptee and parent of internationally adopted children, I felt grateful for how much she was able to communicate her experience in a way that will resonate for so many. Again, I cannot recommend this highly enough. It is a great read that will deeply move you.
I loved this true story and its brave and kind protagonist, Nikki. Her journey is harrowing. Chung's portrayals of her loving adoptive family and, later, the Korean family she was born to and given up by, are so arresting. Her search for her roots had me holding my breath for her. I couldn't put this book down. The 'cautionary tale' is in the fact of the town and environs of her upbringing. All white, a small (unnamed) place in which Nicole suffered needlessly for looking different. She wished for blond hair and blue eyes - to fit in without question. Yet to her intelligent, well-meaning, kind-hearted adoptive parents, race didn't exist. They loved their child madly and that was that. Note to prospective adoptive parents of nonwhite children: for heaven's sake, try to live in a diverse locale so your child can at least see other people that 'look like me.' A wonderful, satisfying, beautiful book that I'm recommending to many.
While I was excited to read about this situation, the tone felt somewhat whiny and self-indulgent. I understand that the unique adoptive situation would elicit strong emotions, but the author seemed preoccupied with self and failed to acknowledge in a sincere way sacrifices of caretakers. I've read other adoption memoirs. I just couldn't bring myself to feel anything for the reader's situation because her perspective felt egocentric.
Nothing I could write here could do justice to the elegance and clarity of the prose, to the flashes of her sarcasm and humor, or to the thoughtfulness that suffuses every bit of this book. It is an incredibly compelling story of family and connection, of choices and belief, of the path to finding the truth.
I liked it very much and I think it is something well worth reading That said, I would like to be able to be in touch with the author and have not found a way to do so The young lady seems very young and as they only child of the adoptive parents, she seems to think she can only choose one or two parents to love Plain fact is that The more parents you have the better, since you connect with them in different ways, just as you do with us or all your grandparents or cousins or friends. It’s wonderful that she has discovered a sister with whom she has so much in common and a father and stepmother so that she is part of that family I would suggest to her that she contact her first mother and other sister and listen to them as to human beings with their own stories and not just from what she feels she needs or from a judgemental point of view. Hopefully she figures this out before her mother is terribly ill or dies, because if she doesn’t do it her children certainly will and they will wonder why their mother Nicole didn’t do it. I care for her very much and wish her a wonderful future She needs to know it’s OK if she is not perfect and that doesn’t mean she took after bad traits from anybody – and by the way her mother is not perfect and that’s OK too. Nicole was so blessed to have adoptive parents and they to have her.
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