Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related

By Jenny Heijun Wills,

Book cover of Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related: A Memoir

Book description

Winner of the 2019 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction

A beautiful and haunting memoir of kinship and culture rediscovered.

Jenny Heijun Wills was born in Korea and adopted as an infant into a white family in small-town Canada. In her late twenties, she reconnected with her first family…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Jenny Heijun Wills was born in South Korea and adopted by a white Canadian family. She not only had to navigate being Asian in a white world, but she also struggled to find her place within a family that sought to give her a safe home. In her twenties, she returned to Korea to meet her birth family. Told in diary form, Wills navigates her journey to find home while fighting language and cultural barriers. It is a raw and emotional story. It makes me think of my own struggles growing up in Detroit. The faces I saw at home…

If you love Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related...

Ad

Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

Want books like Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related.

Browse books like Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related

Book cover of Night
Book cover of Educated: A Memoir
Book cover of Running with Scissors: A Memoir

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,901

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

📚 If you like Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related, you might also like...

Book cover of The Pianist's Only Daughter: A Memoir

The Pianist's Only Daughter by Kathryn Betts Adams,

The Pianist's Only Daughter is a frank, humorous, and heartbreaking exploration of aging in an aging expert's own family.

Social worker and gerontologist Kathryn Betts Adams spent decades negotiating evolving family dynamics with her colorful and talented parents: her mother, an English scholar and poet, and her father, a pianist…

Book cover of Me and The Times: My wild ride from elevator operator to New York Times editor, columnist, and change agent (1967-97)

Me and The Times by Robert W. Stock,

Me and The Times offers a fresh perspective on those pre-internet days when the Sunday sections of The New York Times shaped the country’s political and cultural conversation. Starting in 1967, Robert Stock edited seven of those sections over 30 years, innovating and troublemaking all the way.

His memoir is…

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Canada, South Korea, and Montreal?

Canada 453 books
South Korea 36 books
Montreal 26 books