e-Audio, 08:46:55
Narrated by: Angel Pean, Greta Jung, Elena Rey, DeLanna Studi, David Lee Huynh, Karla Serrato
Release Date: October 24, 2023
Published by: HarperTeen
Read from: November 2-3, 2023
Anthology
Source: Library’s Libby
TW: Attempted Suicide
For Readers Interested In: Anthologies, Family Diversity, Multi Genres,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 centers what it’s like growing up as an adoptee. These are stories by adoptees, for adoptees, reclaiming their own narratives. With stories
*MY THOUGHTS*
Anthologies are always weird to review because I usually try to review them all at once. But that usually makes them like 50,000 words long lol So instead I just go and talk about some of the things I liked from each and some of the things I didn’t like in each. Listen, it makes sense in my head ok
I loved this so much. Anthologies are kind of hit and miss for me. But I knew this was going to be a win because I mean look at the author line-up. Mariana J. Lockington is one of my favorites so that sealed the deal. Her story was all about finding herself. I loved that she paid homage to the character’s parents, but also mentioned that not everything was perfect. People fail to realize that these are teens and sometimes they’re not exactly happy with things like their hair or having their lives be from things their parents have seen online. I loved all the different lessons we got from them as well. Like in Shawl Dance by Susan Harness where the MC learned not to listen to others and that everyone deserves to know their heritage. (It also gave the lesson that all skinfolk ain’t kinfolk…) There were so many different scenarios and I loved reading all the different perspectives.
Unfortunately there were some that I didn’t care for as well. It was less that I didn’t like them but more like they didn’t stand out to me and I didn’t really remember them. I thought it would be all the stories that weren’t in my prefered genres, but it was a variety of them. I won’t name them, but just know, there were some that left me confused or wondering why. The good thing about this was, these stories were few and far between.
So as usual, to get to the rating, I went and gave each story a rating and then got the average. I don’t believe this is the best anthology I’ve read all year, but I did enjoy it. I think I loved seeing the perspectives of all the ways families can be different. Very much a book that everyone should read.
Overall, I give this
