Somewhere Sisters: A Story of Adoption, Identity, and the Meaning of Family
The true story of identical twins Isabella and Hà, who were born in Vietnam and raised on opposite sides of the world, each knowing little about the other’s existence. Then, against all odds, they were reunited as teenagers. How they have come to redefine the meaning of family for themselves is a moving, coming-of-age tale of sisterhood.
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Community Reviews
Erika Hayasaki has successfully written Somewhere Sisters as a heartrending personal story about two twin sisters from Vietnam separated at birth, while also shining a light on the complicated and often corrupt business of adoption. She gives a voice to adoptees, examining intercountry and transracial adoption, asking the hard questions that deserve to be acknowledged. I found myself reading this one quickly, not wanting to set it aside, intrigued and enlightened.
We meet Isabella and Hà as infants born in Vietnam in 1998 to a single mother struggling to care for her two children. As her babies become sicker from malnutrition, someone points her in the direction of an orphanage. The orphanage agrees to take Isabella, the healthier of the two, but declares Hà too sickly to accept. The girls’ mother makes the hard decision to leave Isabella at the orphanage and ultimately leaves Hà with a sister in a nearby village. While Isabella is eventually adopted by a wealthy American family and given the name Isabella, Hà is raised by her aunt and her aunt’s partner in the village. Isabella is adopted along with Olivia, a younger girl at the same orphanage who is not related to Isabella but whom Isabella had become close with, the adoptive family agreeing with the suggestion to keep them together.
When Isabella’s adoptive mother eventually learns Isabella has a twin sister, she is determined to reunite the sisters, starting a chain events that will alter not only the sisters’ lives, but the lives of many others touched by their story, as well.
In this book the reader is given a look at three different adoption stories within one family: Isabella adopted by an American family, growing up amid a wealthy and predominately white neighborhood, is often subjected to racism and bullying, while Olivia is accepted more easily by her school peers. Hà, living in Vietnam, is also bullied for having two moms and being poor. All three girls have complicated feelings about having relationships with their birth relatives, pushed by their parents in varying directions at young ages, ultimately finding some semblance of peace about their own stories.
While it’s easy to only think about the positives of adoption, many times adoptive parents and birth parents are not given the full story. Hayasaki emphasizes the point in Somewhere Sisters that maybe the focus should be more on what’s best for the adoptees than on the adopting or birth parents. Methodically researched, Somewhere Sisters gives the reader plenty to think about, and I most appreciated getting adoptees’ view on their own experiences through adoption. I highly recommend this heartbreaking and illuminative read!
Thank you to Algonquin Books and Netgalley for providing me with an advance copy.
Check out my reviews at A Book Wanderer
We meet Isabella and Hà as infants born in Vietnam in 1998 to a single mother struggling to care for her two children. As her babies become sicker from malnutrition, someone points her in the direction of an orphanage. The orphanage agrees to take Isabella, the healthier of the two, but declares Hà too sickly to accept. The girls’ mother makes the hard decision to leave Isabella at the orphanage and ultimately leaves Hà with a sister in a nearby village. While Isabella is eventually adopted by a wealthy American family and given the name Isabella, Hà is raised by her aunt and her aunt’s partner in the village. Isabella is adopted along with Olivia, a younger girl at the same orphanage who is not related to Isabella but whom Isabella had become close with, the adoptive family agreeing with the suggestion to keep them together.
When Isabella’s adoptive mother eventually learns Isabella has a twin sister, she is determined to reunite the sisters, starting a chain events that will alter not only the sisters’ lives, but the lives of many others touched by their story, as well.
In this book the reader is given a look at three different adoption stories within one family: Isabella adopted by an American family, growing up amid a wealthy and predominately white neighborhood, is often subjected to racism and bullying, while Olivia is accepted more easily by her school peers. Hà, living in Vietnam, is also bullied for having two moms and being poor. All three girls have complicated feelings about having relationships with their birth relatives, pushed by their parents in varying directions at young ages, ultimately finding some semblance of peace about their own stories.
While it’s easy to only think about the positives of adoption, many times adoptive parents and birth parents are not given the full story. Hayasaki emphasizes the point in Somewhere Sisters that maybe the focus should be more on what’s best for the adoptees than on the adopting or birth parents. Methodically researched, Somewhere Sisters gives the reader plenty to think about, and I most appreciated getting adoptees’ view on their own experiences through adoption. I highly recommend this heartbreaking and illuminative read!
Thank you to Algonquin Books and Netgalley for providing me with an advance copy.
Check out my reviews at A Book Wanderer
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