I'm excited to be a part of the Blog Tour and share a Spotlight for Somewhere Sisters: A Story of Adoption, Identity, and the Meaning of Family by Erika Hayasaki! I was provided with a free copy for honest review from the publisher. Thanks so much to Algonquin Books and Erika Hayasaki for letting me be a part of the tour!
Author: Erika Hayasaki
Published by: Algonquin Books
Released: October 11, 2022
Source: Review Copy Provided by Publisher
Synopsis: Identical twins Isabella and Hà were born in Vietnam and raised on opposite sides of the world, each knowing little about the other’s existence, until they were reunited as teenagers, against all odds.
The twins were born in Nha Trang, Vietnam, in 1998, where their mother struggled to care for them. Hà was taken in by their biological aunt, and grew up in a rural village, going to school, and playing outside with the neighbors. They had sporadic electricity and frequent monsoons. Hà’s twin sister, Loan, spent time in an orphanage before a wealthy, white American family adopted her and renamed her Isabella. Isabella grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, with a nonbiological sister, Olivia, also adopted from Vietnam. Isabella and Olivia attended a predominantly white Catholic school, played soccer, and prepared for college.
The twins were born in Nha Trang, Vietnam, in 1998, where their mother struggled to care for them. Hà was taken in by their biological aunt, and grew up in a rural village, going to school, and playing outside with the neighbors. They had sporadic electricity and frequent monsoons. Hà’s twin sister, Loan, spent time in an orphanage before a wealthy, white American family adopted her and renamed her Isabella. Isabella grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, with a nonbiological sister, Olivia, also adopted from Vietnam. Isabella and Olivia attended a predominantly white Catholic school, played soccer, and prepared for college.
But when Isabella’s adoptive mother learned of Isabella’s biological twin back in Vietnam, all of their lives changed forever. Award-winning journalist Erika Hayasaki spent years and hundreds of hours interviewing each of the birth and adoptive family members and tells the girls’ incredible story from their perspectives, challenging conceptions about adoption and what it means to give a child a good life. Hayasaki contextualizes the sisters’ experiences with the fascinating and often sinister history of twin studies, the nature versus nurture debate, and intercountry and transracial adoption, as well as the latest scholarship and conversation surrounding adoption today, especially among adoptees.
For readers of All You Can Ever Know and American Baby, Somewhere Sisters is a richly textured, moving story of sisterhood and coming-of-age, told through the remarkable lives of young women who have redefined the meaning of family for themselves. (Synopsis from Goodreads)
Erika Hayasaki is a journalist based in Southern California, the author of The Death Class, and a professor in the literary journalism program at the University of California, Irvine. A former Los Angeles Times national correspondent, her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, Wired, and other publications. She has been a Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow and an Alicia Patterson Fellow, and she has received awards and recognition from the Association of Sunday and Feature Editors, the Society for Features Journalism, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2019. She is the mother of a daughter and twin boys.
Thanks so much for checking out my Spotlight Post for Somewhere Sisters: A Story of Adoption, Identity, and the Meaning of Faith by Erika Hayasaki! Thanks so much to Algonquin Books and Erika Hayasaki for letting me be a part of the tour. This was such an interesting nonfiction story and I'd definitely recommend it.
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