100 books like I Would Meet You Anywhere

By Susan Kiyo Ito,

Here are 100 books that I Would Meet You Anywhere fans have personally recommended if you like I Would Meet You Anywhere. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption

Rebecca Wellington Author Of Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption

From my list on straight up, real memoirs on motherhood and adoption.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am adopted. For most of my life, I didn’t identify as adopted. I shoved that away because of the shame I felt about being adopted and not truly fitting into my family. But then two things happened: I had my own biological children, the only two people I know to date to whom I am biologically related, and then shortly after my second daughter was born, my older sister, also an adoptee, died of a drug overdose. These sequential births and death put my life on a new trajectory, and I started writing, out of grief, the history of adoption and motherhood in America. 

Rebecca's book list on straight up, real memoirs on motherhood and adoption

Rebecca Wellington Why did Rebecca love this book?

Okay, this is not a memoir, and Glaser doesn’t have a personal connection with adoption. BUT she is a phenomenal writer and excellent reporter, which means she beautifully tells other people’s stories. And she does so here with so much empathy and integrity. This is the story of the forced relinquishment of a baby boy during the Baby Scoop Era and his journey of reconnecting with his birthmother decades later.

It’s an astounding, heart-wrenching story that highlights the incredible tenacity of a young mother and her stunning fight to keep her baby. This story made me cry….a lot.

By Gabrielle Glaser,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked American Baby as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A New York Times Notable Book

The shocking truth about postwar adoption in America, told through the bittersweet story of one teenager, the son she was forced to relinquish, and their search to find each other.

During the Baby Boom in 1960s America, women were encouraged to stay home and raise large families, but sex and childbirth were taboo subjects. Premarital sex was common, but birth control was hard to get and abortion was illegal. In 1961, sixteen-year-old Margaret Erle fell in love and became pregnant. Her enraged family sent her to a maternity home, and after she gave birth,…


Book cover of All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir

Rebecca Wellington Author Of Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption

From my list on straight up, real memoirs on motherhood and adoption.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am adopted. For most of my life, I didn’t identify as adopted. I shoved that away because of the shame I felt about being adopted and not truly fitting into my family. But then two things happened: I had my own biological children, the only two people I know to date to whom I am biologically related, and then shortly after my second daughter was born, my older sister, also an adoptee, died of a drug overdose. These sequential births and death put my life on a new trajectory, and I started writing, out of grief, the history of adoption and motherhood in America. 

Rebecca's book list on straight up, real memoirs on motherhood and adoption

Rebecca Wellington Why did Rebecca love this book?

Chung was born and adopted five years after me, also in Washington state. Like me, she wrestled her whole life with feelings of shame and discomfort around her adoption. Unlike me, Chung is a woman of color, adopted into a white family in a super-white town where she stood out like a sore thumb. Unlike me, Chung took the brave step, before having her own children, of searching for her birth family.

While I read this vulnerable and beautifully written memoir, I felt like I was walking with Chung on her journey as an adoptee and mother, all the while wishing I could be as brave as Chung. This is a truly inspiring story.

By Nicole Chung,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked All You Can Ever Know as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER

This beloved memoir "is an extraordinary, honest, nuanced and compassionate look at adoption, race in America and families in general" (Jasmine Guillory, Code Switch, NPR)

What does it means to lose your roots—within your culture, within your family—and what happens when you find them?

Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. From childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth. She believed that her biological parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hope of…


Book cover of Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America

Rebecca Wellington Author Of Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption

From my list on straight up, real memoirs on motherhood and adoption.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am adopted. For most of my life, I didn’t identify as adopted. I shoved that away because of the shame I felt about being adopted and not truly fitting into my family. But then two things happened: I had my own biological children, the only two people I know to date to whom I am biologically related, and then shortly after my second daughter was born, my older sister, also an adoptee, died of a drug overdose. These sequential births and death put my life on a new trajectory, and I started writing, out of grief, the history of adoption and motherhood in America. 

Rebecca's book list on straight up, real memoirs on motherhood and adoption

Rebecca Wellington Why did Rebecca love this book?

Austin’s memoir was the first book I read as a starting point for researching my own historical memoir. Simply put, Austin’s story blew my mind, challenged my thinking, and massively influenced the way I understand my own motherhood and adoption journey.

Austin is a Black, single mother and adoptive parent of a Black son, who she adopted through the Los Angeles foster care system. Her story of motherhood through adoption pulls no punches. She takes on the intersections of racism and misogyny and speaks truth to power in this deeply personal and powerful memoir.

I LOVE this book, and everyone needs to read it (especially white people).

By Nefertiti Austin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Motherhood So White as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The story every mother in America needs to read. As featured on NPR and the TODAY Show. All moms have to deal with choosing baby names, potty training, finding your village, and answering your kid's tough questions, but if you are raising a Black child, you have to deal with a lot more than that. Especially if you're a single Black mom... and adopting.

Nefertiti Austin shares her story of starting a family through adoption as a single Black woman. In this unflinching account of her parenting journey, Nefertiti examines the history of adoption in the African American community, faces…


Book cover of Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption

Rebecca Wellington Author Of Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption

From my list on straight up, real memoirs on motherhood and adoption.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am adopted. For most of my life, I didn’t identify as adopted. I shoved that away because of the shame I felt about being adopted and not truly fitting into my family. But then two things happened: I had my own biological children, the only two people I know to date to whom I am biologically related, and then shortly after my second daughter was born, my older sister, also an adoptee, died of a drug overdose. These sequential births and death put my life on a new trajectory, and I started writing, out of grief, the history of adoption and motherhood in America. 

Rebecca's book list on straight up, real memoirs on motherhood and adoption

Rebecca Wellington Why did Rebecca love this book?

I was drawn to Harness’ incredible memoir because she speaks truth to power from an Indigenous perspective as a survivor of Indian adoption.

As an infant in the 1960s, Harness was adopted by a white couple and raised far from the rez, far from her birth community, and completely segregated from her cultural heritage. This story is about her weaving her way back home and making sense of her traumatic adoption.

As an adoptee myself I found her story gut wrenching and inspiring. Harness is a brilliant writer and a phenomenal woman. Her wisdom, authenticity, and strength reverberate through the pages of this beautiful memoir.

By Susan Devan Harness,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Bitterroot as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

2019 High Plains Book Award (Creative Nonfiction and Indigenous Writer categories)
2021 Barbara Sudler Award from History Colorado

In Bitterroot Susan Devan Harness traces her journey to understand the complexities and struggles of being an American Indian child adopted by a white couple and living in the rural American West. When Harness was fifteen years old, she questioned her adoptive father about her "real" parents. He replied that they had died in a car accident not long after she was born-except they hadn't, as Harness would learn in a conversation with a social worker a few years later.

Harness's search…


Book cover of Then She Found Me

Stephanie Kepke Author Of Feel No Evil

From my list on flawed, yet sympathetic characters.

Why am I passionate about this?

In second grade my teacher told me I should be a writer—I haven’t wavered in my path since. I was a voracious reader as a child and regularly snatched books off my mom’s night table. My love for flawed characters grew with each book I devoured. I felt a connection with these characters, which fueled my dream to become a writer. When I was twenty-one years old and studying writing, I wrote in my journal, “I want to write books that make people cry.” I love to explore the gray areas in life, and I’m honored that readers have told me my books do make them cry (and laugh). 

Stephanie's book list on flawed, yet sympathetic characters

Stephanie Kepke Why did Stephanie love this book?

I love this book because, beyond the fabulous, richly layered story, it takes what should be unlikeable characters and makes you root for them. April Epner is flawed—brittle, sarcastic and closed off at times—but I love her.

As a reader, I can understand why she is the way she is, and that’s the key to making her sympathetic and likable. The payoff is so satisfying when April makes a deep emotional connection and opens up. Bernice Graverman, April’s newfound biological mom, is tacky, loud and over the top, and yet, I was rooting for her. She has a tough shell, but there’s a touching hidden vulnerability.

One more thing I loved about this book…I lived in Quincy, MA (outside of Boston), where this story is set, for five years—it perfectly captures what life was like there in the nineties.

By Elinor Lipman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Then She Found Me as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

April Epner teaches high school Latin, wears flannel jumpers, and is used to having her evenings free. Bernice Graverman brandishes designer labels, favors toad-sized earrings, and hosts her own tacky TV talk show: Bernice G!

But behind the glitz and glam, Bernice has followed the life of the daughter she gave up for adoption thirty-six years ago. Now that she's got her act together, she's aiming to be a mom like she always knew she could. And she's hurtling straight for April's quiet little life....


Book cover of Say Her Name

Angela Henry Author Of The Perfect Affair

From my list on thrillers about missing black women & girls.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a mystery/thriller author fascinated by how and why people, especially black women, go missing. I’ve probably watched every episode of Unsolved Mysteries, Dateline, and Forensic Files. For me, the questions are always the same. What led up to their disappearance? And more importantly, who were these women? What’s their backstory? So often, the lives of the missing get lost in the circumstances and details surrounding their disappearances. These five books show how the media ignores missing marginalized women. I hope that these excellent thrillers give readers some much-needed food for thought.

Angela's book list on thrillers about missing black women & girls

Angela Henry Why did Angela love this book?

As I‘ve said, I love foreign-set thrillers, especially the ones set in England. And this was another book I devoured. 

Although the suspense and intrigue of the plot kept me glued to the pages, I had to put it down multiple times as I went through a range of emotions reading about black women and girls being let down, hurt, and preyed upon by the people meant to protect them.

I eagerly followed Eva’s journey, not just to find her birth mother and reclaim her identity, which was literally cut from her, but to expose the chilling truth of why four black women went missing, and the police didn’t look for them. 

This book was a sad reminder of how easily black women and girls fall through the cracks unnoticed.

By Dreda Say Mitchell, Ryan Carter,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Say Her Name as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'My book of the year so far...' -Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author

In this chilling thriller from the bestselling authors of Spare Room, one woman just wants the truth about who she really is. But she's not the only one looking...

It's twenty years since Eva, a biracial woman, was adopted as an eight-year-old, and Cherry and Carlton 'Sugar' McNeil have always been the only parents she's wanted or needed. But when she's dealt the double blow of Cherry's death and her own suspension from work, Eva decides it's time to discover who she was before she…


Book cover of A Gesture Life

Solveig Eggerz Author Of Seal Woman

From my list on where characters don’t mingle much and talk funny.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have written all my life. This includes freelance writing as well as reporter jobs at small, weekly newspapers in the DC/VA area. I have also taught writing (creative and technical writing) to students as diverse as jail inmates, residents of homeless shelters, military officers at the Pentagon, CIA employees, and firefighters at Ronald Reagan National Airport. Both of my published novels are works of historical fiction set in my native Iceland: Seal Woman and Sigga of Reykjavik. These novels cover the time 1908 to 1955, a period when Iceland was a little-known island. I have always been drawn to novels about isolated, cold-weather places where unusual characters and mannerisms flourish. 

Solveig's book list on where characters don’t mingle much and talk funny

Solveig Eggerz Why did Solveig love this book?

Hata, a Korean, adopted by a Japanese couple, serves the Japanese Army as a medic in World War II. His job is to care for enslaved Koreans who serve as “comfort women” to Japanese soldiers. His experiences are the material of nightmares. Years later he leads a deceptively quiet life in a small town in New Jersey with his Korean adoptive daughter. It is deceptively quiet because his unresolved war experiences, presented in flashbacks, haunt him. I admired the abrupt manner in which Chang-Rae Lee interrupted Hata’s uneventful life with horrific memories.

The author’s method felt like the triggering of those who have suffered trauma and continue to relive events as PTSD. This approach of interweaving past with present inspired my depiction of a young German woman living a quiet life on a primitive Icelandic farm, milking the cows and raking the hay, while being repeatedly interrupted by memories of…

By Chang-Rae Lee,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked A Gesture Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Franklin Hata, Korean by birth but raised in Japan, is an outsider in American society, but he embodies the values of the town he calls his own - he is polite and keeps himself to himself. Franklin deflects everyone with courtesy and impenetrable decorum, and becomes a respected elder of his small, prosperous American town. 'You make a whole life out of gestures and politeness,' Sunny tells her adoptive father. But as Sunny tries to unpick her father's scrupulous self-control, the story he has repressed emerges: his life as a medic in the Japanese Army and his love for a…


Book cover of A Living Remedy: A Memoir

SunAh M Laybourn Author Of Out of Place: The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants

From my list on family belonging.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a Korean transracial adoptee, it seems like I’ve always been thinking about family, or even if I didn’t want to, other people’s intrusive questions about my family makeup forced me to. More than solely thinking about my own family–whether my Korean biological family or my white adoptive family–it led me to be curious about the broader systems, policies, and practices behind something that seems so personal and private. It’s no surprise that I formalized my inquiry into the social world by becoming a sociologist and professor. As a sociologist, my primary research interests are race, identity, and belonging, and yes, Korean transnational transracial adoption is part of that focus. 

SunAh's book list on family belonging

SunAh M Laybourn Why did SunAh love this book?

Grief is such a universal experience, yet I don’t think we get enough opportunities to truly grieve.

Nicole’s book provided me with space to grieve alongside her but also to grieve my own losses. I also appreciated how she connected her father’s death to broader systemic failures and how his view of himself shaped the help he was willing to accept or not.

I was especially taken in by how the theme of community shows up throughout the book–how important community is, how we find community, and how we build communities of care.

By Nicole Chung,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked A Living Remedy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Named a Best Book of the Year by: Time * Harper’s Bazaar * Esquire * Booklist * USA Today * Elle

From the bestselling author of ALL YOU CAN EVER KNOW comes a searing memoir of family, class and grief—a daughter’s search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she’s lost.

In this country, unless you attain extraordinary wealth, you will likely be unable to help your loved ones in all the ways you’d hoped. You will learn to live with the specific, hollow guilt of those who leave…


Book cover of The Heart's Invisible Furies

Bart Yates Author Of The Language of Love and Loss

From my list on wiseass narrators and dysfunctional families.

Why am I passionate about this?

The stories I’ve loved the most in my life have all been about the richness of human relationships, told by a memorable narrator who can find humor and hope in almost everything, no matter how screwed up. Whether it’s Charles Dickens poking fun at his contemporaries in Victorian England or Armistead Maupin sending up friendship and love in San Francisco in the 1980s, I’m a sucker for well-told, convoluted, and funny tales about people who find life with other human beings difficult, but still somehow manage to laugh about it and keep on going. As the author of six novels myself, these are the kinds of stories I always try to tell.  

Bart's book list on wiseass narrators and dysfunctional families

Bart Yates Why did Bart love this book?

This is a peculiar and marvelous book about birth families, adopted families, and “found” families, and how each of these can be equally screwed up.

Starting in Ireland in the 1940s, the story is peppered with sharp, clever dialog and vivid, fully-human characters. I love how the narrator struggles with his own heart for decades, unable to decide what he wants, who he loves, what’s right, what’s wrong, etc.—in other words, all the stuff I haven’t figured out yet myself. 

Coincidence also plays a huge role in this book, basically making an ass of everyone, which I find oddly comforting since it reminds me that part of being human is having very little control over my own life. Painfully funny and brilliant from cover to cover. 

By John Boyne,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked The Heart's Invisible Furies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Compelling and satisfying... At times, incredibly funny, at others, heartrending' Sarah Winman, author of When God Was a Rabbit

Forced to flee the scandal brewing in her hometown, Catherine Goggin finds herself pregnant and alone, in search of a new life at just sixteen. She knows she has no choice but to believe that the nun she entrusts her child to will find him a better life.

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery, or so his parents are constantly reminding him. Adopted as a baby, he's never quite felt at home with the family that treats him more as…


Book cover of Probably Ruby: A Novel

Alice Kuipers Author Of Always Smile: Carley Allison's Secrets for Laughing, Loving and Living

From my list on explore brilliant writing from Canada.

Why am I passionate about this?

I moved to Canada because I fell wildly in love eighteen years ago. It wasn’t Canada I loved, but a man, and it’s taken me years to get over my homesickness for the country of my birth. I've found as I’ve grown older that the stories of this place have given me a sense of home and belonging—perhaps that’s why so many of the books I’ve recommended are about identity and what it means to the authors. I’m lucky enough to share my favourite books every month on CTV here in Saskatoon, and I focus almost exclusively on Canadian and local books. I hope you love these books as much as I do!

Alice's book list on explore brilliant writing from Canada

Alice Kuipers Why did Alice love this book?

I’d be remiss if I shared books from Canada with you and didn’t point you towards some of the amazing writing coming out of Saskatoon, Treaty 6 Territory, and the Homeland of the Métis. Lisa-Bird Wilson's newest book is a beautiful novel about an Indigenous woman’s search for identity after her adoption. Living in Saskatchewan as Canada wrestles with truth and reconciliation, books like Probably Ruby give me a path to understanding and learning. The voice of this novel is searing and gorgeous, filled with heart and light, and I believe anyone who reads it will feel changed by the experience.

By Lisa Bird-Wilson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Probably Ruby as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An Indigenous woman adopted by white parents goes in search of her identity in this unforgettable debut novel about family, race, and history.

Finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award • “Engaging . . . Ruby never disappoints with her big heart and outrageous sense of humor—and her resilient search for her own history.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A passionate exploration of identity and belonging and a celebration of our universal desire to love and be loved.”—Imbolo Mbue, author of Behold the Dreamers

This is the story of a woman in search of herself, in every sense. When we…


Book cover of American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption
Book cover of All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir
Book cover of Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America

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