Home of Her Heart

by Tara Goldstein

At age 10, Luisa is separated from her birth country and family when she is adopted and transported from Colombia to Canada. Seven years later Luisa still has questions. Why did her mamá die of pneumonia when antibiotics could have saved her? Why did her papá disappear? When a long-awaited family trip to Bogotá is suddenly cancelled, Luisa leaves Toronto without permission to return to the orphanage she last knew as home. Determined to find answers and reconnect with her birth family, Luisa risks alienating her adopted family to make a place for herself in Bogotá, the home of her heart.

At age 16, Luisa's adopted grandmother Nana Lottie flees Nazi Germany through the Kindertransport Program, where she comes to England to wait for her parents to rejoin her. Caught up in the brutal violence of the Shoah, they never come. After losing her entire family, Lottie needs to find a way to carry on.

Spanning borders from Colombia to Canada, Germany to England, a grandmother and her granddaughter, both survivors of state violence, search for family and a place to call home.

276 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 12, 2023

Reviews

[Bronwyn Garden-Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I teared up at least ten separate times reading Tara Goldstein's Home of Her Heart. This is a novel that does not shy away from hard questions about transnational adoption, queerness, religion and its role in different cultural contexts, art, love, identity, rage, and grief. The intensity of the subject matter doesn't bog the novel down, though: it is balanced gracefully by the characters' resilience and a sense of steadfast support for the main character. The ending is satisfying without dipping into cliche: the questions set out at the beginning are mostly answered by the end, but Luisa is nonetheless just at the beginning of her journey.

Goldstein's characters each have unique goals, struggles, and flaws, and all of them are rendered with an empathy that really touched me. The story centres on Luisa, an 18-year-old Colombian girl who was adopted transnationally by a Jewish couple living in Toronto, Canada, after her mother passed away. As soon as Luisa graduates from high school in Canada, she flies alone to her home city of Bogota in Colombia to discover more about her biological family. Luisa's adoptive grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, sends her a series of letters detailing her experience escaping from Nazi Germany via the Kindertransport. The stories in her adoptive grandmother's letters provide Luisa with an understanding of how state violence touched the lives of her adoptive family members -- leading indirectly to her own adoption -- just as she is uncovering more about the state violence in Colombia that resulted in the death of her own parents.

Gorgeous novel. Anyone wanting to read a novel that is as well-researched as it is beautifully written involving transnational adoption from a position of justice for adoptees should definitely give this a read!

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to win this book in a giveaway, special thanks to Storygraph and Tara Goldstein!

3,5 ⭐ - it follows Luisa, a Colombian girl adopted by a Canadian couple. Now that she's 18 and graduated from high school, she travels to Bogota hoping to find out more about her biological relative who's a Holocaust survivor.

Overall a nice read with some heavy subjects that's switched up with Luisa figuring out her sexuality.

[GigiReads · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first time reading a book about transnational adoption, and I found it to be a fascinating topic. I felt like I learned a lot, especially by seeing the adoptee’s perspective. While the subject was emotionally complex, I often felt that the book’s portrayal of the story wasn’t as emotionally intense as I expected. There were moments where I wished for more depth in the descriptions of the characters' emotions instead of just saying "she cried". Additionaly, I felt the narrative sometimes focused on details that felt irrelevant or unengaging, almost like reading a script. This lack of emotional depth made it hard for me to connect with the main character, and at times, she even became irritating. It wasn’t until the final chapters that I began to feel more emotionally invested in her story.
On the other hand, I found Grandma Lottie’s stories, that were intertwined into the main character’s journey, far more captivating and emotionally resonant. In fact, I felt her story was more engaging and enjoyable to read overall.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Home of Her Heart, Tara Goldstein writes a compelling story about transnational adoption through the eyes of Luisa, the main character. Goldstein brings forth the important truths that are often overlooked when wealthier families adopt children from countries of turmoil, conflict, and poverty. Luisa shares her feelings of anger and grief through losing her biological parents as well as losing her birth country. She is conflicted about her own identity and which country her heart belongs to. While her adoptive parents try very much to support, and nurture Luisa’s dual cultural identity, it is through her adoptive Jewish grandmother Nana Lottie that she is able to find the “home(s) of her heart. A thought-provoking YA read!

[HEATHER V · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two story arcs give the novel a complexity that makes it relevant across historical periods. The contemporary story of the Colombian/Canadian character, Luisa, provides important insights into many issues including transnational adoption, state violence, gender identity and growing up. These issues are also developed in the Kindertransport story of Luisa’s adopted grandmother, Lottie, who travelled from the violence of Nazi Germany to start a different life in England. She also had to deal with the difficulties of leaving her loved homeland, racism, the tragic loss of her family, and later migration to Canada as an adult. The intertwining stories are handled adeptly and while there are some difficult moments, the reader gains an understanding of the often hidden concerns around transnational adoption. The compassion developed between the characters is quite moving. For an Australian reader the novel highlights the difficult conversations around the Stolen Generations of First Nations people, their ‘adoption’ by different families and the violence of their separation from their original families and land. Home of her heart is an important contribution to these conversations.

[Vivian Wang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliantly nuanced story that incites such emotional investment! Tara Goldstein intricately explores profound and complex themes of social inequity, geopolitics, political corruption, The Holocaust, diasporic life experiences, identity exploration, intergenerational trauma, chosen family, transnational adoption, and other themes through the captivating and endearing characters of Luisa and Nana Lottie. "Home of Her Heart" interrogates the question of where one’s home is through Luisa and Nana Lottie’s journeys, showcasing the complexities of locating home in lives that are touched by diaspora as well as what it means to be family—regardless of blood relation and geography. It is an absolute must read for folks interested in a relatable and emotional deep dive into exploration and struggles of diaspora, identity, family, and home!

[Lindsay Cavanaugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tara Goldstein artfully transforms research she did about transnational/transracial adoptive queer families in Toronto into a heart-warming novel that hooks you with emotions and layered storytelling. From the start of the novel, Luisa's desire for belonging, her calling to find out the truth about her bio family in Colombia, takes the reader on a journey. The weaving of Nana Lottie's Kindertransport experience, being taken out of Nazi Germany to live with another family, sheds light on another transnational adoption context. Tackling nuanced conversations about colourism, linguistic racism, experiences of diaspora, being queer spawn (having queer parents), and care strategies adoptees and displaced children enact to live through the trauma of adoption, this novel beautifully teases apart what makes a family and a home. Would highly recommend!

[Margot Huycke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Home of Her Heart was a terrific read. It made me cry. I just loved the way Tara brought stories from Colombia, Nazi Germany and Canada together is one book. Both Luisa and Nana Lottie's parents experienced State violence which impacted the lives of their children in ways we don't often read about. Nana's letters to her adoptive granddaughter Luisa are important and help Luisa in her journey to create family and home.

[Jodi Goldstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't put this book down. It was a powerful book that opened my eyes to the important challenges of transnational adoption through an engaging storyline. Reading this book was an emotional and transformative experience.

[Alice Kanitz (bacardibookclub) · Rating 4 out of 5]

engaging story with compelling characters, but it sometimes felt a little underwritten. i think, even if it's a YA, we could maybe get a little more complexity in how things are described. despite that, i still enjoyed it.

[Autumn ✨]

✨ won a digital copy from a storygraph giveaway! ✨

[Larissa M · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tale of self-discovery inside out. A young woman who travels back to her home country to learn more about family. While doing so, she starts to learn more about herself.

[Breaklikeafish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Home of Her Heart by Tara Goldstein takes the reader on the journey of a Colombian adoptee who travels back to her home country to learn more about her past. The novel sets out to present a nuanced view on transnational adoption, and while it certainly succeeded in informing me of the many different perspectives and experiences in this discussion, the emotional arcs often seemed to fall flat due to hurried writing.

I have no personal experiences with transnational adoption or cultural displacement, so my opinion on this should probably be taken with a grain of salt! I absolutely loved how well Tara Goldstein portrayed the many facets of these topics. If nothing else, this read was a very informative one. It definitely made me think more about the ethical implications of adopting children from another cultural background. I enjoyed how the novel highlighted how different experiences can be even for people seemingly in the same situation. Louisa, the protagonist, and Ana, her sister, are shown to adapt vastly differently to their new life in Toronto after being adopted. Though the focus is on Louis in this particular story, the author never passes judgment on other experiences.

Despite this well-researched and heartwarming story, I did not find the writing engaging. The impact of emotional scenes was frequently lessened by a lack of descriptions of the characters' reactions. Often, characters were described as "being angry" or "being sad" rather than detailing these feelings. I liked the protagonist and was at least somewhat immersed in the story. However, at the same time, there was always a certain distance that, in my opinion, did not fit the story's tone.

The novel is interspersed with letters from Luisa's Jewish grandmother, who fled Nazi Germany as a teenager, and relates her own experiences with those of her granddaughter. Interestingly, these parts felt far more engaging than Luisa's narration. I suppose it's because, in contrast to the rest of the books, these letters were written in the first person. I also liked how these letters gave me a whole new perspective and showed parallels between situations that I have never related before.

Lastly, I want to mention that I found the romance subplot extremely unnecessary and annoying. I'm never one to complain about queer representation, and I thoroughly enjoyed the diversity of Luisa's Canadian family and how these topics were handled in regards to her more conservative Colombian friends and family. However, Luisa kissing two different people in the span of the novel (not counting the epilogue) seems to add little to the story. I would've enjoyed Luisa figuring out her bisexuality more if it had been stretched out across the novel more. Like this, it came up out of nowhere and felt like a plot point added simply for additional conflict.

[Tara Goldstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reader Catherine Doherty from New South Wales, Australia, wrote to me and asked me to share her 5-star review on Goodreads. Here it is:

This delightful thought-provoking book weaves a complex account of one adoptee’s search for her past in the clashing intersections of class, race, gender, sexuality, history, time and place behind transnational adoption. The reader is left asking whose problem transnational adoption solves, and what problems it creates in turn. The story is told from the point of view of Luisa, the main character, a prickly girl/woman on the brink of adulthood, who won’t take ‘no’ for an answer as she seeks to recover the backstory to her adoption as a child in Bogotá, Colombia. Her doggedness, gumption and turbulent emotions keep you gunning for her.
Goldstein’s meticulous research excavates sites that contribute to transnational adoption, such as orphanages, graveyards and support groups that get erased in more comfortable ‘happily ever after’ narratives. She illuminates the nuanced language politics of belonging and not belonging. Her rich depiction of life in Bogotá and its art-making are intriguing.
Through the engaging story of one adoptee, we are exposed to deep violent histories and deep wounds, but there is also hope, aspiration, family-making and lots of love. Highly recommended for adults, young adult readers, hearts and minds.

[Lea · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like this but I found myself not really caring about the characters. Also wayyy too much boring dialogue.