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Given Away
When Anny Kang was six years old, she was sent by her mother to live in America, where she became Kate Strand. Within the white suburban civility of Minnesota, Kate struggles as a Korean adoptee, her voice capturing the loneliness and sadness of a young girl forced to forget everything she knows in order to navigate a new terrain.
Never really identifying with her Asian roots or harboring a desire to uncover her ancestry, she comes face to face with her past when her Korean birth family contacts her after more than two decades.
How do we inhabit the place between who we are and how others might see us, between our history as it is and the rewritten one we imagine it could be?
Only by reconnecting to her birth family in Korea does an adult Kate begin to understand her past as she faces her long-standing inner conflicts with identity, loss and rejection.
Given Away is the portrait of a childhood spent in two very different Korea and America. One forgotten, one remembered. It is in its own right, a story of race, and of belonging, a story that asks the complicated questions of home, family, and self as the author untangles the unlikely strands that formed her destiny.
Never really identifying with her Asian roots or harboring a desire to uncover her ancestry, she comes face to face with her past when her Korean birth family contacts her after more than two decades.
How do we inhabit the place between who we are and how others might see us, between our history as it is and the rewritten one we imagine it could be?
Only by reconnecting to her birth family in Korea does an adult Kate begin to understand her past as she faces her long-standing inner conflicts with identity, loss and rejection.
Given Away is the portrait of a childhood spent in two very different Korea and America. One forgotten, one remembered. It is in its own right, a story of race, and of belonging, a story that asks the complicated questions of home, family, and self as the author untangles the unlikely strands that formed her destiny.
- GenresBook Club
224 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 23, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 7, 2025
I really liked the way the author described her relationships and how they changed and evolved over time. I think she did a really good job of showing her growth over the years. It was interesting reading about her experiences and learn about her story and more about her culture. I do wish it had a better editor though.
January 7, 2018
I am really torn about how to rate Given Away. To begin, I am not a fan of Memoir, I guess that makes me an unfeeling clod.
On another hand, the book is well written. I quite like the style although I think she could use more separators between scene changes, and she does that often. Someone once described this a free flow of consciousness. I have come to be able to follow the form, but I would like to be warned.
I must preface the following with acknowledging I am neither female, Amerasian, nor adopted, so I have little basis for judging Katie/Kate's view of the world, but that shortcoming doesn't prevent me from having an opinion.
While I hate to say it, I never came to like Anny/Katie/Kate. I found her to be broken and blaming everyone except herself for the injuries she visited upon herself. That said, she did have a difficult life to live. She should have kicked the old guy that molested her in the balls, and then reported him to the police. I think it was unfortunate, actually unforgivable, that her American mom encouraged her to let it go. I was very angry, but not surprised, by the reaction of the "good Texas Christians" had to her as well as the potential mother-in-law who didn't want her grandchildren to look like her. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that, apparently, Korean's have the same inbred bigotry as to half-breeds as to the afore mentioned Texans.
Although the book covered much of her life and the revelations of why she was put up for adoption, eventually, I think she could have used another few pages to explain that the visit healed her life with some examples. Although I guess it did in a way.
I think that the entire first half of the book feels more like something that should be discussed with her therapist or priest, but not published. It really isn't something that the world needs to know. Reading her account of her life just made this reader angry. Perhaps someone who is a memoir fan will think of it differently.
On another hand, the book is well written. I quite like the style although I think she could use more separators between scene changes, and she does that often. Someone once described this a free flow of consciousness. I have come to be able to follow the form, but I would like to be warned.
I must preface the following with acknowledging I am neither female, Amerasian, nor adopted, so I have little basis for judging Katie/Kate's view of the world, but that shortcoming doesn't prevent me from having an opinion.
While I hate to say it, I never came to like Anny/Katie/Kate. I found her to be broken and blaming everyone except herself for the injuries she visited upon herself. That said, she did have a difficult life to live. She should have kicked the old guy that molested her in the balls, and then reported him to the police. I think it was unfortunate, actually unforgivable, that her American mom encouraged her to let it go. I was very angry, but not surprised, by the reaction of the "good Texas Christians" had to her as well as the potential mother-in-law who didn't want her grandchildren to look like her. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that, apparently, Korean's have the same inbred bigotry as to half-breeds as to the afore mentioned Texans.
Although the book covered much of her life and the revelations of why she was put up for adoption, eventually, I think she could have used another few pages to explain that the visit healed her life with some examples. Although I guess it did in a way.
I think that the entire first half of the book feels more like something that should be discussed with her therapist or priest, but not published. It really isn't something that the world needs to know. Reading her account of her life just made this reader angry. Perhaps someone who is a memoir fan will think of it differently.
September 4, 2024
A beautifully written memoir! Well done, Kate!!
July 27, 2020
The author came out book club. Loved hearing from her directly.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews