Reviews with content warning for Infertility - Any Other Family

Any Other Family is a warm-hearted exploration of family and motherhood. It focuses on three women who have adopted four siblings in an open adoption and committed to retaining the family bonds between them, as well as with their birth mother via weekly dinners, joint celebrations, and now a shared holiday. And it’s on this supposedly relaxing holiday that they learn the birth mother is pregnant again and wants one of them to adopt the new baby or at the very least help her select the new parents.

I liked getting to know each of the three women, seeing their very different personalities, their strengths as mothers, but also their unique struggles both as individuals and as mothers. I’m sure most mothers reading this book would be able to relate to at least one of the struggles. The found family aspect was also really positive - the way previous strangers committed to being in each other’s lives in order to ensure their children could maintain relationships with their birth family. Some personal issues and resentments arose during this holiday, and the challenges as well as the advantages of open adoption were canvassed, but by the story’s end the air had been cleared, and everyone had learnt they could both support and be supported by the others.

This was very much a story centred on adopted mothers. The two fathers and the children were more in the background as was the birth mother, even though she was definitely present in the lives of the children. Obviously it would have been nice to have their perspectives but a single book can’t necessarily be expected to cover every angle. Hopefully more books exploring open adoption from different perspectives will be published in the future.

One feature of the novel that struck me was the inclusion of letters from prospective parents essentially stating their credentials and highlighting why a birth parent should select them. It was an interesting way of showing the many reasons why people seek to adopt, prompting the reader to think about the factors that make a good parent and which prospective parent/s they would select for the new baby.

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blackbookishbabe89's review

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I loved how this felt like an honest portrayal of adoption, foster care, motherhood and what comes after. The fact that being a mother is multifaceted. It’s not easy and how when you try to make a family, no matter how much you try, you will learn as you go and also deal with the tears, fears of failure and the joy of being a mother.

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