Reviews

We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America by Roxanna Asgarian

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armenag's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

2_legit_2_knit's review against another edition

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5.0

This was absolutely fantastic! While I flew through this, it was by no means an easy read. I was aware of the Hart family murders prior to reading this and found out about the book from listening to an old episode of The Stacks podcast. The story is tragic and heartbreaking but Asgarian’s decision to focus on the children and the biological families gives the reader a portrait we rarely get to see. I highly recommend!

keerriiann's review against another edition

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challenging emotional medium-paced

3.5

This was a really difficult and heart wrenching story to read about. It’s a reminder of how corrupt, fractured, racist, and classist the child welfare system is in the US.

I felt the author sensationalized the backstories of the birth families and centered herself inappropriately at times. Lots of problems with the system were identified (understandable, because there are no shortage of problems) but no solutions were offered until the epilogue, and they were far too few, in my opinion.