I loved this book! I was very impressed with how the author seamlessly transitioned between plot lines, settings, and decades while making every chapter feel necessary and enjoyable. The writing was witty and authentic, and the overall message was beautiful.
Thank You to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for providing an Advanced Reader Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I give this book 5/5 Waffles 🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇 🎉

I think it would be a cliche if I said this book should become a movie, but considering the main character goes on to become a famous actress, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch. This story started off slow but eventually I figured out the rhythm between present day and past. I love that the author incorporated modern issues such as covid, social media trends, but also keeping the classics, kids banding together for their families, teenage love, college dreams. Seeing how all these people share a connection with India was so unique and also shows just how easily folks can get pulled in by her.

India is a strong, determined female lead in more ways than one. She goes for what she wants and does not let anyone or anything get in her way. The title "Family family" is perfect because nowadays, a typical nuclear family isnt that, its just a type of family amongst so many other ones. Like the single parent and kid(s), still a family, the kids raised by their grandparents, still a family, the kids with 1/2 sibling, still a family. It helps break away from the norm and show that family love is immense and you can see just how far someone close to you, not just by blood, will go to support and take care of you. I like that the kids shared a phone, that is something that would be great for future generations, and I love that they were not afraid to express their feelings, even if it included a few curse words.

Give yourself the time to read this book and get to know all the characters at your own pace, and see just how much people are willing to do for themselves and for those in their lives.

Also, big thank you to @netgalley for this ARC, I really enjoyed it.

Laurie Frankel writes the best family-affirming stories, hands down. Her 2017 book, This Is How It Always Is, is in my top 10 books of all time, so I am a super fan - but that also gave me some pause as I started Family Family. That's a hard act to follow, and I had some trepidation that she wouldn't deliver a believable story. I am a single mom to a large family created through birth and adoption, so Family Family needed to hit the right cords to speak to me. And Frankel delivers.
Adoption is complicated. There is always some loss, some trauma, and some grief - but as this book portrays so eloquently- adoption brings people together and creates crazy, diverse, complicated, and connected families.
Frankel places word and phrase echos throughout the book, like the title Family Family. I enjoyed this literary device and smiled every time I encountered a new echo. Readers can interpret these echoes in many ways, but they all make one pause for a second and think about words and language - how a small thing like a comma or changed emphasis on a word can alter the meaning.

Book clubs will find a lot to discuss about this book.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an electronic ARC in exchange for a review.

Family Family is a thought provoking look at families in all the ways they are formed. I loved seeing the perspective of adoption from all sides and how it can be a happy and life changing situation for not only the adoptive parents.

I enjoyed the way the story was slowly revealed and seeing the layers of India’s life take place. With that being said, I did feel that it was perhaps a little too slow for me and could have been told in far less pages to hold my attention better.

I have posted this review on goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6139085519

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/p/C2iEmN-LreS/?igsh=MW9uOHd6MGxjaW1sMQ==

And Amazon.

Thank you to @henryholtbooks for the gifted copy!!!

My first 5 star read of the year!

This is a book that focuses on family’s and the different ways they are formed! It’s a story about adoption!

This Is How It Always Is was one of my top reads last year so I was ecstatic to get this arc! Frankel has such a gift for writing character driven family sagas! This story is full of quirky and lovable characters! I felt so many emotions reading this!

This book had so many twists and turns! I never could predict what would happen next! This one was hard to set down!!

This book is going to stick with me for a long time and will be one of my favorite reads of the year! I will be recommending it to everyone!!

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book.

I love a good family drama. I wanted to love this book. The story starts good. Not all adoption stories I filled with trauma or regret. That seems to be the just of the story. India gets pregnant as a teen and chooses to not get an abortion but adopt the baby to a single mom instead. It seems the outcome is fantastic for everyone. India goes to a prestigious college and becomes a a famous actor and the child grows up into a well adjusted adult. For me the book glossed over the complexity of human emotions and life. I just couldn’t get into it. The story dragged in the middle. This book is for people looking for a happy story about family that like a slow burn.

After reading the amazing This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel, I knew I had to get my hands on her newest book, Family Family, and it did not disappoint! India Allwood is a celebrated actress, but recently she’s come under a lot of scrutiny for a film she’s in about adoption. Critics say the movie doesn’t portray the trauma of adoption well enough, and what would India know about that? Turns out, India has a lot to say on this subject and is more knowledgeable than people think on this matter. Her adoptive twins, Fig and Jack, are thrown into this mess as everyone around them tries to learn what family and adoption truly mean to them.

This book really took a unique and deep twist on what it means to be family and the people who really matter to us in the end. It doesn’t matter if there’s a blood relation or not, and sometimes family is weirder than you expect. And that’s okay because all families are different and no one has the same experience. Told through dual timelines, the past and the present, and through the perspectives of multiple characters, this story unwinds beautifully, slowly giving us glimpses of what is happening and giving you those jaw dropping moments you don’t see coming. The characters are so unique and different and this book is so wholesome. I absolutely loved India’s perspective on adoption and what it means to be pro-choice versus pro-life! It really opened my eyes and made me think, and I know I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time to come!! My love for Laurie Frankel keeps growing, and I’ll keep reading her books for a long time to come! 💕

I really really like the work of Laurie Frankel and this did not disappoint. Our authors books are always so layered with so much to contemplate and think about. This one is no exception. It would be a great bookclub book. There is so much discussion to be had around this book and it has some pretty spectacular characters.

In our book we have an actress who, many years ago, had a child and placed that child into the arms of a mother who would care for and love the child unconditionally. Some would call it adoption. Now in present day we have said actress finishing up a piece of work about adoption. And she doesn’t feel it was appropriately represented, she has had a beautiful experience without trauma, she voices her opinion. It turns into a storm. We have plenty of viewers that haven’t had the same experience and feel their trauma isn’t being acknowledged or portrayed. They aren’t aware it is an own voices movie and our actress has been through the process. Wait until you see who comes out of the woodwork to defend her. Told beautifully and sensitively our author hits it out of the park again reminding us what truly makes a “family, family”. And how choosing a family can make you a relative. That blood isn’t the equivalent of love. There is a lot to learn in this one and the characters are very life like and expertly woven together into a piece I think you will really appreciate. Touching on opinions on pro-life, pro choice, adoption, same sex relationships and ableism. It has open adoption and closed adoption and representation from parents and children. It’s packed with feelings and emotion and so worth the read.

Thank you to our author, Netgalley and Henry Holt & Company publishing for providing me with an advanced eGalley copy of the book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I do hope if you choose to read it you enjoy it as much as I did.

This book is perfect for book clubs: an insightful, heartfelt and enjoyable story of what makes a family. The "cliffhangers" at the end of most chapters made this compulsively readable, and I enjoyed the relationships. Two less enjoyable parts for me personally were the very dismissive portrayal of pro-lifers (several times characters said things like they were so dumb they couldn't find their way around making a sandwich), which I found disappointing and reductive, also leading to a less compelling discussion potential in something like a book club, and India's character grated on me a bit and I would have liked more perspective from other characters, especially how they were affected by her decisions, which I found to be one of the more interesting parts of the novel. Glad I read and will stick with me.

Do you remember that Parks and Rec episode where Leslie makes a campaign ad and gets so caught up listing all of the things she’s “pro” she forgets to mention she’s running for city council? Family Family feels a little like 400 pages of that.

Late in the story, a character says: “Just so we understand… you’re pro-children, pro-family, pro-choice, pro-abortion, pro-adoption…” and, well, yes. This novel is pro- everything, but at the cost of nuance, character development, and brevity.

I thought I was going to love this one. It made me cry twice in the first 16%. I highlighted passages and anticipated where it was going. And while the plot progressed, the reflections surrounding it just… went in circles. I wish that Frankel had decided to write some essays on this topic and then write a shorter novel, because I think that sharing everything she wanted to say via dialogue and internal character reflections made this muddy and made it feel less authentic and more like an opinion piece than a novel.

Frankel is clear throughout the novel and in her author’s note that this book was written to show a perspective that is under-represented in adoption literature: one in which adoption is not a tragic last resort nor a miracle. And Family Family does portray a different kind of narrative.

In this story, well-supported and well-resourced young people have the agency to make adoption plans for their children that are not motivated by religious objections or lack of access to safe abortions. They have the knowledge and insight at 16 and 20 to know what kinds of adoptive parents they are looking for. They believe adoption to be a gift to adoptive parents. They choose closed adoptions because they think it’s in the best interest of all involved parties. When we see the futures of the characters, everyone is thriving.

I’ll own my own bias here. I have not personally been impacted by adoption: I am not an adoptive parent, an adoptee, nor am I a birth parent. I am a clinical social worker who has specialized in working with adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents. It’s not the same as lived experience. I’ll also own that folks seek out attachment-focused and adoption competent mental health providers for reasons that bias my own perspective. Arguably, I’m also pro-everything on that list. Arguably, I’ve also seen that adoption is a lot more complicated than it’s depicted to be here.

And I’m not arguing for tragic stories about adoption. I’m not. Just nuance. Even if we take India’s experiences at face value, there are other things we almost touch: the ambiguous and disenfranchised grief of biological fathers, and the ambiguous and disenfranchised grief of adoptees who are growing up in safe homes with caring and attentive parents whose motivation adopt was in the best interest of the child. There are glimmers of ambivalence in both of these areas, but even when Frankel raises questions, they’re swallowed by the overwhelming “pro” messaging before they’re fully explored. These questions include what it’s like to parent (or not) after placing a child for adoption (particularly for the birth fathers), or the ways that the adoption story and internal story for adoptees may or may not match when they don’t have access to the people who made the decisions in order to ask questions, but are constantly exposed to them in the media. And because there are so many characters in this book impacted by adoption and whose perspectives are explored otherwise, it felt like a conscious decision to not explore these elements of experience.

I’m pretty sure this book is going to be a hit, and it’s not without justification. Frankel has created a story that’s full of heart, enough plot to drive it forward, and precocious characters you root for.

I’m glad that this perspective exists, but please don’t let it be your only perspective. Please listen to reviews of this one from adoptees and birth parents. Please also read other perspectives centering birth parents who didn’t have the privilege and agency that India, Robbie and Davis had. Not every child comes to be adopted because birth parents make that choice unilaterally, or because something objectively horrific happened to them at the hands of their birth parents. Please consider that there’s a lot of grey between the circumstances that led to the different adoptions depicted here, and there are legacies of racism, classism, and ableism that exist in that grey.

Thank you to Henry Holt and Co. for providing a DRC to review.

India Allwood has always wanted to be an actor. Her new movie is about adoption and people have thoughts about it. In trying to defend herself, India reveals the truth about herself and her family to the public. As a result, a firestorm of media attention rains down on her.

This is for sure a must read. Exploring what makes someone family, along with the heartache and joy of making a family. I really enjoyed this book, as I have enjoyed the other two Laurie Frankel I have read. There's a lot of story and background in this book, but it's so worth it. Don't miss this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Available January 23, 2024.

Family Family is a hard book to review. On one hand, it might be the most positive book on adoption I've ever read. Frankel doesn't negate the trauma and loss of adoption, but India feels almost too idealistic and saccharine at times. Can anyone be that optimistic at all twists and turns?

The plot consists of an adoptive mom playing an adoptive mom in a film, consequently speaking out in support of adoption and against the movie's traumatic storyline, which ignites a media storm.

It's best to go into this one blind. While I did enjoy it, it felt 100 pages too long and was so heavy-handed with its message toward the end. I forced myself not to skim the last 20% because I was ready to be done.

"The one thing she knows for sure is what makes a family isn't blood. And it isn't love. No matter how they're formed, the truth about family is this: it's complicated."

If I liked the beginning and I loved the ending but thought the middle rambled and needed focus where does that leave this review? Three stars?

I appreciated the discussions around family and adoption, basically the entire ending but how the story got there was almost a DNF for me. And ultimately, the main character felt very inauthentic which is interesting because I think her "uniqueness" was an attempt to make her seem authentic 🤔

Super Brief Summary
A story about adoption and family and the complexities of life.

I absolutely loved Frankel's novel This Is How it Always Is, it was a previous # in fact so this one had some big shoes to fill, but overall Family Family left me underwhelmed.

Family Family is out today! Thank you @net for this copy in exchange for my honest review.

If a book is meh for 80% but has a banging ending does that alter your rating??

India Allwood knew that she wanted to be an actor since she was sixteen, and now she’s a Hollywood star. Her new movie about adoption has the same old tired story of tragedy. India is an adoptive mom in real life though, and wants everyone to know there’s more to her family than pain and regret. So she does something an actor should never do—she tells a journalist that the movie is bad. Soon she’s at the center of a media storm, battling accusations from all fronts. Her twin ten-year-olds know they need help—and who better to call than family? But that’s where it gets really messy because India’s not just an adoptive mother…The one thing she knows for sure is what makes a family isn’t blood. No matter how they’re formed, the truth about family is this: it's complicated.

Thank you @netgalley, @laurie.frankel, and @macmillianusa for the ARC and happy pub day to this wonderful book! This was such heartwarming story about adoption and how complicated family can be and it was the perfect amounts of both heartwarming and hilarious. The story is told in dual timelines, which really helped all of the layers, secrets, and drama unfold throughout the book. The dialogue between all of the characters was great, and I loved getting to know each individual character as they were introduced. The kids Fig and Jack have a lot of little phrases or words that they say incorrectly as kids do, and it was adorable and funny. I really loved the beehive analogy at the end of the book when India and Fig are talking about their family and privacy from the paparazzi. I also loved the author’s note at the end and hearing about her own experience with adoption and where she came from in telling this story’s. Overall that was a great book about what truly makes family and the importance of connection and relationships.

India Allwood grew up knowing that what she wanted most was to be an actor. Armed with a stack of index cards (for research/line memorization/make-shift confetti), she goes from awkward sixteen-year-old to Broadway ingenue to TV superhero. Her newest movie is a tragedy about adoption, but no one knows that India is an adoptive mom in real life. She wants everyone to know there’s more to her family than pain and regret. So she does something you should never do — she tells a journalist the truth: it’s a bad movie. Soon she’s at the center of a media storm, battling accusations from the press and the paparazzi, from protesters on the right and advocates on the left. Her twin ten-year-olds know they need help – and who better to call than family? But that’s where it gets really messy because India’s not just an adoptive mother…
I am of two minds about this book. The premise was interesting, and the characters were fun and quirky. However, the book was exceptionally long , and at times seemed to go really slow. The story is told alternating between past and present, with the past being when India was in high school. Overall, this was an enjoyable read, but I do feel wish the pacing had either been more even, or the story had been a little shorter.

Family Family by Laurie Frankel is a thought-provoking and complex book. It would be a great choice for a patient reader who likes to delve into heavy issues. It would also be an excellent book club read because of its potential for provoking stimulating conversations.

As the title suggests, it discusses families: different types of families that exist, different ways that families form, and issues that families encounter. There are so many different ways that people can become a family. The main theme is adoption: placing a baby for adoption due to unplanned pregnancy (as opposed to choosing abortion, which is also presented as a valid choice. The main character is adamant that abortion is a woman's right, and makes it clear that even though she didn't choose abortion, she believes that others should have the option). There is also adoption of children who aren't newborn babies anymore, when their parents are no longer able to parent. We examine relationships of half siblings, and other family-type connections. All of India's family end up drawn together, curious about each other, wanting to get to know each other, or get reacquainted. She presents adoption as not having to be a last-resort, settled-for option, even though it sometimes is. She also makes the point that even though adoptions can sometimes be traumatic, that isn't always the case. After all, all families are complicated and messy; even traditional, biological, two-parent families. I could tell by the author's passion for adoption that she herself is an adoptive mother (which was confirmed in the author's note).

Another issue that is touched upon is work/life balance. In particular, a single parent needs a job so she can take care of her kids, but how does she take care of her kids when she has to work at her job? The classic conundrum of modern parenting. Also, India has to face the choice of giving up her Broadway dreams and looking for more steady, regular-hours work in Hollywood, if she wants to become a parent.

It was really interesting to get a glimpse into the life of a working actor, to see India's process of preparing for auditions and roles. She was a very hard worker, and at times went a little too far and her life became out of balance.

I love that they call the paparazzi "the smears." Perfect.

There were times it got repetitive and the pacing was a bit slow for me, but overall, it was an interesting and worthwhile read.

Another five star read from one of my favorite authors, with a cast of unique characters and a story that was charming and quirky and heartwarming and eye-opening from beginning to end.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel.

Family Family by Laurie Frankel is a lovely book that I flew through in a matter of days. This novel focuses on adoption, parenthood, many types of family, trauma, privacy, and more. Because it’s from the brilliant mind of Laurie Frankel, these topics are explored through the lenses of witty, precocious children who are a bit too cute to believe and the adults in their lives as they all face a Very Big Situation.

I’m a writer in the loosest of terms, and depicting the dynamics between adults and their children is my favorite. I think Frankel is a great source of inspiration for developing those characters and finding their unique voices.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for giving me access to this ARC.

While promoting her latest movie, actress India Allwood sparks a media firestorm when she complains that the project only shows the tragic side of adoption. India knows the blessings adoption can bring as both an adoptive mom and as a teenage mom who placed a child for adoption. Now that child is sixteen, excited to meet her birth mother and willing to help - only to make the media firestorm worse. Family Family takes on adoption in a nuanced way, reminding us that, no matter how it was formed, every family is complicated.

The world likes to make issues black and white when reality is much more shaded. Which is why I quite enjoyed Frankel's nuanced look at adoption. Frankel tackles the stereotypes of adoption head-on, neither glorifying it or vilifying it, reminding us that because something is often the case doesn't mean it's always the case. India Allwood's backstory provided an interesting an unique perspective and the entire story had a heartwarming tone that made it a quick read.

I received a free e-arc of this book through Netgalley.
This story is about complicated families with birth parents and adopted parents and half-siblings. I think it rings true in that all families seem to be complicated in not only family trees, but in our feelings about them. This book has a lot of acting which I wasn't into, but it does add more layers to the story in how we take on roles or pretend to be other than what we really are. I think being open and honest about how we are feeling is very powerful.