All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via Netgalley included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here
Born prematurely to Korean parents, who had emigrated to America, Nicole Chung was adopted by a white couple. Growing up in a small town in Oregon in the 1980s, Chung faced discrimination and racism that everyone around her, including her adoptive family, struggled to see or fully understand.
From the beginning, Chung's adoption story was framed by her religious parents as being destined by God and that her birth parents made the ultimate sacrifice in order for Nicole to have a better life. As she grew up, Chung began finding this version of events less comforting and more confusing.
It felt like only half of the story and Chung wanted the whole story.
It is while pregnant with her first child that Chung makes contact with her birth family. She needs more details about her premature birth than her adoptive parents can provide.
As suspected, the reasons for her adoption were more complicated than her parents portrayed. More complicated than they, themselves, understood.
Chung gives voice to her complex and, often, messy and conflicting emotions about being a transracial adoptee. She writes about these complexities in a way that is sensitive to the experiences of her adoptive parents and her birth parents and siblings.
All You Can Ever Know is a moving and thought-provoking memoir about transracial adoption, race, identity, motherhood, and family in all its forms.
All You Can Ever Know is published by ONE, an imprint of Pushkin Press, and is available in hardback. paperback, ebook, and audiobook format.