black_girl_reading 's review for:

Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related.: A Memoir by Jenny Heijun Wills

5.0

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The final book in our three book transracial adoption buddy read, Jenny Heijun Wills’ Older Sister, Not Necessarily Related was spare, nuanced, multilayered, and profound in it’s revelations. The story of Wills’ reunification with her original family, and where that took her, in terms of the child she had been, the adult she was, and the person she is in the process of becoming, this book highlighted the pieces that can fall back into place with reunion, as well as those are shoved out of the way to make room, and those that can’t fit back into the puzzle at all. I was touched so many times, by what it is to be among those going back to Korea in the hopes of finding birth families, by what it is to find those who let you go or never knew you at all, and also what it is to reckon with the entire life you’ve lived to date when you suddenly know your self, but also by what it is to look unflinchingly your very human pain around attachment and abandonment as you build new love and tell hard truths and try to just hold space for everywhere and everything you suddenly are. I loved this book. I loved it’s form, I loved it’s openness, and I loved where it took us (it specifically took me to my bed quietly sobbing last night while I found my love for my children expanding beyond containment while I processed what Wills has accomplished in telling her own story in the way that she did). Another book you have to read, I can’t wait for you all to pick this one up.