This award-winning American novel is an absolute gem; a heart-warming story of family and friendship, as well as an interesting reflection on nature vs. nurture. Sixteen-year- old Grace was adopted into a loving and protective family at birth. But when she gets pregnant and has to give away her own newborn baby for adoption, she suddenly feels devastated and alone, and can’t help wondering if this is how her birth mother felt. She decides to track her down but instead discovers that she has two siblings. She first meets her younger sister, Maya, who is the only dark skinned one in her wealthy adopted family of redheads; and then Joaquin, who has been in and out of foster care all his life and badly wounded by his experiences.

The siblings discover they have much in common with each other, as well as significant differences due to their own life experiences. Chapters cycle through each of their perspectives and the reader is rapidly engrossed in their lives and their slow unveiling of themselves to one another. But the reader also comes to discover that each of them is hiding secrets from the others that they are deeply ashamed of and are terrified to reveal.

These are wonderful, complicated, real characters who you cannot help feeling empathy and compassion for, who come from diverse, complicated families. Winner of the National Book Award in the US, this is a brilliant story of family and genetics that is not to be missed and readers aged twelve to adult will thoroughly enjoy.

Angela Crocombe is the shop manager at Readings Kids.