Written by Niha Hasan
“Bio always trumps foster...”
This is a story about 3 teen siblings: Grace, Maya, Joaquin who are separated into different homes.
16 year old Grace had to give her baby up for adoption, because of her teen pregnancy. By struggling with giving up her newborn baby for adoption, she revives a plot twist that she was adopted too! She wants to meet her biological mother to ask why she was adopted. And suddenly, she gets information that Grace has two more siblings that she never knew, Maya and Joaquin.
•Maya: She is a loudmouth and a lesbian. Yet funny, full of love and wonder.
•Joaquin: He has been struggling with the life of foster care systems for 17 years.
•Grace: She is the middle child, who finally found her youngest sister Maya and her older brother Joaquin. And the journey of finding their biological mother begins in this story!
While these three are starting to know a little bit more about each other, they all struggle with the want of finding their biological mother and with their own lives as well.
Their heartfelt struggle filled me up with all good feelings as well as teary eyes at once. While I was reading, it felt like I was feeling something heavy on my chest until the moment that all three children finally knocked at their biological mother’s door. I too wanted to know why their mom gave them up, which we find out at the end of the story.
Grace had gone through so much with her teen pregnancy within the book, and I appreciated how she dealt with every terrible step. She was so brave! Every family needs a girl like her. I loved her character while reading this story!
Maya proved that being adopted into a good family doesn’t mean it is all rainbows and butterflies.
However, my most adored character in the book is Joaquin. After meeting his sisters once, he thought that “if anyone had ever hurt either one of his sisters, he’d grind them into dust”. This is the most adorable sentence I found in the book. I don’t know how the author attached so many different roles from so many different perspectives in one book. It’s just spectacular!
This story made me realize that when someone says some pretty terrible things about my family, I can’t let the person get away with that. It taught me how to get back at that person without hurting myself. This book also alerted me that no one wants a guy who can buy you frozen yogurt, but not take care of a baby.
A true fact: “Boys who get girls pregnant are heroes and girls who get pregnant are sluts”.
This commentary on sexism within our own society also goes to show what an up-and-coming kind of story this is, and is another reason why I enjoyed it.
This is such a heartwarming story, and would definitely recommend it!