Reviews

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

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bexduck's review against another edition

4.0

Long on my to read list, I finally picked it up after seeing there was no longer a wait list for it on my library app. Chung writes so simply about such complex issues. This is a story about racism and adoption but also belonging. I enjoyed it.

tonloc's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

A very interesting and informative story, not quite for me.

virgilius's review

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hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

Content Warnings

laura_cs's review against another edition

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5.0

A remarkable, thought-provoking memoir about growing up adopted and what it like to be adopted as an adult when beginning your own family. I am the white older sister of a Latino adoptee, and so transracial adoption and adoption in general is a subject close to my heart. Mrs. Chung is open and honest about her feelings, as well as what it was like to grow up as a racial minority by whites in a white town. This is a definite must-read for anyone who is adopted, has adopted, has considered adoption, or, really, anyone and everyone. This is a book about race, and family, and love, and self-discovery. This is a book about how life is both kismet and what you make it.

Adoption is, from my experience, a journey; an incredible, painstaking, wonderful journey full of joy, tears, and prayer. However, Mrs. Chung has made me reconsider where the journey ends. Perhaps, rather, it is more that the journey to adoption ends with a child in the arms of their new parents, or when the new family sits in the courthouse as a judge finalizes the adoption, or when an international adoption ends with citizenship papers signed and notarized. But that is where the adoptee's journey begins. And it is a journey that lasts a lifetime.