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Kith and Kin
What does it mean to have a family? Singer and Lisa Thurman did everything right for their entire childhood. Their mother wanted a perfect life, and they knew how to fit that vision. Then they grew up. Singer came out of the closet and Lisa joined a cult. Singer and his partner are adopting a son. Unfortunately, all that practice being the perfect child didn't prepare Singer to be a merely adequate father. Lisa's just trying to get through the day. After three years in a cult, it’s almost impossible to leave her bedroom, so redemption is going to have to wait. What does it mean to be a family? When their mother shows up and attempts to reclaim the illusion of her perfect family, old lives clash with new ones. Recovering from perfection is messy, complicated, and fraught, but the riotous clan that rises from the ashes is full of joy—and the best kind of trouble. A groundbreaking, honest, and provocative novel, Kith and Kin is contemporary family drama that grafts an entirely new species of family tree. Family is what you make of it.
438 pages, Paperback
First published June 9, 2017
4 people are currently reading
239 people want to read
About the author
Kris Ripper
89 books402 followersKris Ripper lives in the great state of California and zir pronouns are ze/zir. Kris shares a converted garage with a kid, can do two pull-ups in a row, and can write backwards. (No, really.) Ze has been writing fiction since ze learned how to write, and boring zir stuffed animals with stories long before that.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
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June 23, 2017Look, I read this book in a single day (a working day) and cried like a baby at the end of it, what more do you want?
This is a lovely book. Genuinely lovely, as in found-family, people being good to one another, screwing up and forgiveness and love and reaching out. Community. Things being how they ought to. People not being okay really, but being loved anyway. This stuff goes straight to my tear ducts. Excuse me, I need a hanky.
It's got a central key romance theme--gay couple Singer and Jake in the throes of trying to adopt a baby--but there's two m/f romances as well, one with an asexual. And there's a lot more as well--parental relationships, the family of the baby, friendships, recovery from damage, realisation of lifelong errors. It's very much a book about reaching out and holding on and how hard it is to get stuff right.
And it's compelling. I read it in a day because I had to know how it turned out, although there's no huge dramatic stuff. You just need to know what happens to these people, is all.
In a world that feels increasingly angry and fragmented and bitter, this is a book about people making stuff work. Often out of bad places, but still making it work. I really needed that.
Terrifically written, hugely readable. An Irish coffee of a book--mostly warm and comforting, spiked with seriously grown-up stuff, and makes you feel a hell of a lot better. Massive recommend.
This is a lovely book. Genuinely lovely, as in found-family, people being good to one another, screwing up and forgiveness and love and reaching out. Community. Things being how they ought to. People not being okay really, but being loved anyway. This stuff goes straight to my tear ducts. Excuse me, I need a hanky.
It's got a central key romance theme--gay couple Singer and Jake in the throes of trying to adopt a baby--but there's two m/f romances as well, one with an asexual. And there's a lot more as well--parental relationships, the family of the baby, friendships, recovery from damage, realisation of lifelong errors. It's very much a book about reaching out and holding on and how hard it is to get stuff right.
And it's compelling. I read it in a day because I had to know how it turned out, although there's no huge dramatic stuff. You just need to know what happens to these people, is all.
In a world that feels increasingly angry and fragmented and bitter, this is a book about people making stuff work. Often out of bad places, but still making it work. I really needed that.
Terrifically written, hugely readable. An Irish coffee of a book--mostly warm and comforting, spiked with seriously grown-up stuff, and makes you feel a hell of a lot better. Massive recommend.
October 5, 2019
I read this solely because K.J. Charles mentioned it on her blog and wow am I glad I did. What a wonderful book this was!
It's the story of a gay couple who are trying to adopt a kid and it's about them and both their families and friends. I told my coworker today I couldn't wait to continue hanging out with all these characters, and that probably best sums up my feelings. It's funny and heartwarming and genuine and just such a pleasure to read.
K.J. Charles recommended it right after also recommending "A long way to a small angry planet", which I also loved, and it also had a similarly lovable cast of characters. It also reminded me Marianna Leky's " Was wir von hier aus sehen können" which also has this.. family that isn't just blood relatives. That sort of story has always been one of my favourites and "Kith and Kin" is a great example of that kind of story, with a wonderfully diverse cast and ugh, seriously, I loved everybody in this book. Read it if you need something to make you happy, this is so lovely and good.
It's the story of a gay couple who are trying to adopt a kid and it's about them and both their families and friends. I told my coworker today I couldn't wait to continue hanging out with all these characters, and that probably best sums up my feelings. It's funny and heartwarming and genuine and just such a pleasure to read.
K.J. Charles recommended it right after also recommending "A long way to a small angry planet", which I also loved, and it also had a similarly lovable cast of characters. It also reminded me Marianna Leky's " Was wir von hier aus sehen können" which also has this.. family that isn't just blood relatives. That sort of story has always been one of my favourites and "Kith and Kin" is a great example of that kind of story, with a wonderfully diverse cast and ugh, seriously, I loved everybody in this book. Read it if you need something to make you happy, this is so lovely and good.
May 28, 2022
Objectively, it's a really well-done book, but just reading about Singer and Lisa's mother was making me want to commit murder. She shows up unannounced, moves into the the "guest house" and then WON'T LEAVE. Even when they TELL HER TO!!! Holy shit, that is my actual nightmare scenario.
This all happens right after Singer and his boyfriend have received custody of a foster child in hopes of adopting, and Singer is already having some internal panic over the fact that he doesn't feel immediately connected to the baby like his boyfriend does. It's a really well-written and interesting examination, but watching these two (less than ideal, for me personally, to read about) scenarios collide and almost blowup Singer's relationship was super stressful. It feels very realistic, and I flew through it, but I'm not sure I would have done that to myself on purpose.
This all happens right after Singer and his boyfriend have received custody of a foster child in hopes of adopting, and Singer is already having some internal panic over the fact that he doesn't feel immediately connected to the baby like his boyfriend does. It's a really well-written and interesting examination, but watching these two (less than ideal, for me personally, to read about) scenarios collide and almost blowup Singer's relationship was super stressful. It feels very realistic, and I flew through it, but I'm not sure I would have done that to myself on purpose.
October 7, 2019
Re-reading books I *really* love is always somewhat risky - what if they don't hold up to what they have become in my mind? This one was definitely as good as the first time, and maybe even better.
"Kith and Kin" was the first book by Kris Ripper I read, which means that I missed all the SMU related Easter eggs. It also took me embarrassingly long to realize that the Derries are *Will's* family. But in any case, it's everything that is great about zir books distilled into one. And while I very much don't mind reading kink when ze writes it, this isn't as explicit as the SMU books.
It's just such a lovely book about family and the many, many ways of loving and being. It's real and comforting and remains one of my favourite books.
"Kith and Kin" was the first book by Kris Ripper I read, which means that I missed all the SMU related Easter eggs. It also took me embarrassingly long to realize that the Derries are *Will's* family. But in any case, it's everything that is great about zir books distilled into one. And while I very much don't mind reading kink when ze writes it, this isn't as explicit as the SMU books.
It's just such a lovely book about family and the many, many ways of loving and being. It's real and comforting and remains one of my favourite books.
July 7, 2017
4.5 stars
Lovely, lovely, lovely!! I swear, Kris Ripper just gets better and better with every book ze writes. Kith and Kin is all about family, whether we be related by blood or circumstance, and how having people at your back - who accept you no matter what - is so damn important.
I don't know much about large families, having never come from one or married into one, but I want to be an honorary Derrie so fucking much. I love them all with their pushy, invasive, gossipy ways and would love to find a family like that to adopt me!
Highly recommend.
Lovely, lovely, lovely!! I swear, Kris Ripper just gets better and better with every book ze writes. Kith and Kin is all about family, whether we be related by blood or circumstance, and how having people at your back - who accept you no matter what - is so damn important.
I don't know much about large families, having never come from one or married into one, but I want to be an honorary Derrie so fucking much. I love them all with their pushy, invasive, gossipy ways and would love to find a family like that to adopt me!
Highly recommend.
July 31, 2022
3 out of 5
I didn't enjoy this as much as other Kris Ripper books I've read but that's almost entirely due to the central subject matter of this book, which revolves around the adoption of a baby and what it means to be family. As a child-free (by choice) adult, I don't go looking for books about children. What I did enjoy is that this is SMU (Scientific Method Universe) adjacent and I love all things Derrie family.
Kris' writing is dialog heavy and character driven. There is a plot, but it's really secondary to following a set of characters as the grow and change over a year.
Some people may be bothered that the child adopted in this case is a Black baby and the adoptive parents are White. The implications of this are addressed but not in any real depth.
Also, there is a character who identifies as asexual. That character is also sex averse and maybe even aromantic. I would have preferred more discussion of this because I think many (most?) allosexuals equate asexuality with sex aversion, which is not what it means to be asexual. Some asexual identifying people are sex averse, but some have sex (and even enjoy it). And asexual is also not the same as aromantic. An asexual person can have a committed, happy, satisfying romantic relationship with an allosexual (and vice versa). This was given a tiny nod at the very end of the book, when the sex averse character says that some asexuals do enjoy sex and can have romantic relationships. Sadly, it was almost an afterthought.
Finally, this book is a stand alone. You do not have to have read all (or even any) of the books in the SMU. But almost all the characters have been introduced in one SMU book or another. So it's easier to follow the large cast of characters here if you have read the SMU books first - as this will not be the first time you're introduced to all the (and there are many) Derries and the Thurman family.
I didn't enjoy this as much as other Kris Ripper books I've read but that's almost entirely due to the central subject matter of this book, which revolves around the adoption of a baby and what it means to be family. As a child-free (by choice) adult, I don't go looking for books about children. What I did enjoy is that this is SMU (Scientific Method Universe) adjacent and I love all things Derrie family.
Kris' writing is dialog heavy and character driven. There is a plot, but it's really secondary to following a set of characters as the grow and change over a year.
Some people may be bothered that the child adopted in this case is a Black baby and the adoptive parents are White. The implications of this are addressed but not in any real depth.
Also, there is a character who identifies as asexual. That character is also sex averse and maybe even aromantic. I would have preferred more discussion of this because I think many (most?) allosexuals equate asexuality with sex aversion, which is not what it means to be asexual. Some asexual identifying people are sex averse, but some have sex (and even enjoy it). And asexual is also not the same as aromantic. An asexual person can have a committed, happy, satisfying romantic relationship with an allosexual (and vice versa). This was given a tiny nod at the very end of the book, when the sex averse character says that some asexuals do enjoy sex and can have romantic relationships. Sadly, it was almost an afterthought.
Finally, this book is a stand alone. You do not have to have read all (or even any) of the books in the SMU. But almost all the characters have been introduced in one SMU book or another. So it's easier to follow the large cast of characters here if you have read the SMU books first - as this will not be the first time you're introduced to all the (and there are many) Derries and the Thurman family.
February 8, 2021
I generally really enjoy Ripper's books and there were some things to love here--really lovely found queer family. But the biggest plot in this book is about a white gay couple adopting a kid. They're placed with a Black baby, Miles. His mother is sort of in the picture, and his grandmother definitely is. She badly wants to raise him, has been raising him, but has a back injury and is disabled, and so the system decides she's unfit and can't keep him.
I kept thinking that this would be addressed, so I kept reading, but no. I get that the system is racist and ableist and that this happens and it's awful. But Ripper doesn't really get into that. The white dudes are like "yikes, are we doing a bad thing? Isn't it really hard that our path to parenthood is predicated on other people's pain? This hurts! Poor us! What do we do!" They have these very surface-level conversations about it. Then they're like, "but we want to be good dads! We want Miles to know his grandma!" So she invites them to her Black church, and they go every week. And everyone in the book (including Marie, the grandma) gives them Many Gold Stars for this, like they've done something incredible.
I was physically uncomfortable reading this. The racism and ableism are so blatant. The Black characters seem only exist to teach these white dudes a lesson, to help them turn into better people. Which is bad enough, obviously. But also they don't seem to learn anything, expect maybe that they're now aware of their whiteness and their entitlement. But that doesn't stop them from going about their lives. The book ends with this happy, tearful adoption ceremony where they change Miles's las name and everyone is so thrilled, and Marie, the grandma, is there with her best friend, overjoyed and part of the family. It was really gross and upsetting.
This book really could have been something. If Ripper wanted to write a book about a couple figuring out how to be dads and all the messiness of that, ze could have done that. That's what this book was, really, but because ze never addressed the race dynamics/did so in a super racist way, the book couldn't actually be about that. Or, and this is what I kept hoping would happen, why I kept reading, ze could have done something different. I kept thinking that maybe the white dudes would decide not to adopt Miles, that Marie would get to be a real character, that Miles would get to live with her, and that they'd figure out how to be a family anyway. I don't know enough about the foster system to make any claims about how it works or how realistic something like that is. But this is fiction!
I can't recommend this book, even though I loved the messy queer family aspects of it. Ripper is really good at writing about messy, loving queer families. But ze really missed the mark here.
I kept thinking that this would be addressed, so I kept reading, but no. I get that the system is racist and ableist and that this happens and it's awful. But Ripper doesn't really get into that. The white dudes are like "yikes, are we doing a bad thing? Isn't it really hard that our path to parenthood is predicated on other people's pain? This hurts! Poor us! What do we do!" They have these very surface-level conversations about it. Then they're like, "but we want to be good dads! We want Miles to know his grandma!" So she invites them to her Black church, and they go every week. And everyone in the book (including Marie, the grandma) gives them Many Gold Stars for this, like they've done something incredible.
I was physically uncomfortable reading this. The racism and ableism are so blatant. The Black characters seem only exist to teach these white dudes a lesson, to help them turn into better people. Which is bad enough, obviously. But also they don't seem to learn anything, expect maybe that they're now aware of their whiteness and their entitlement. But that doesn't stop them from going about their lives. The book ends with this happy, tearful adoption ceremony where they change Miles's las name and everyone is so thrilled, and Marie, the grandma, is there with her best friend, overjoyed and part of the family. It was really gross and upsetting.
This book really could have been something. If Ripper wanted to write a book about a couple figuring out how to be dads and all the messiness of that, ze could have done that. That's what this book was, really, but because ze never addressed the race dynamics/did so in a super racist way, the book couldn't actually be about that. Or, and this is what I kept hoping would happen, why I kept reading, ze could have done something different. I kept thinking that maybe the white dudes would decide not to adopt Miles, that Marie would get to be a real character, that Miles would get to live with her, and that they'd figure out how to be a family anyway. I don't know enough about the foster system to make any claims about how it works or how realistic something like that is. But this is fiction!
I can't recommend this book, even though I loved the messy queer family aspects of it. Ripper is really good at writing about messy, loving queer families. But ze really missed the mark here.
November 28, 2018
What a wonderful story about love and chosen family.
April 29, 2024
Found family!!!!
January 11, 2018
I have never read any single book this beautifully complex. There are six mayor plots and subplots, and so much subtext on family, relationships, parenting, therapy, autonomy, kink, communication, and adoption, just to name the ones that immediately come to mind, that I took my time reading, trying not to miss anything.
Read the Author's Acknowledgments! :)
This is in the 'Scientific Method' universe, like off to one side. I think it kind of helped to have read those, but I think they aren't necessary. Which is astonishing, because there are so many Derrys. But Ripper made it work.
Really highly recommended.
Read the Author's Acknowledgments! :)
This is in the 'Scientific Method' universe, like off to one side. I think it kind of helped to have read those, but I think they aren't necessary. Which is astonishing, because there are so many Derrys. But Ripper made it work.
Really highly recommended.
November 26, 2019
This is the kind of contemporary fiction I would probably never have read if it hadn't been written by Ripper and been tangentially related to the Scientific Method Universe (being all about the Derries). And you know what? I'm very glad I did, because it's a wonderful book. It's not a romance, in the strict sense of the word, but it is about love, and about struggling with and healing of old wounds, and finding and building family, and it definitely has a "happily ever after". It also proves what a tremendously skilful and versatile writer Kris Ripper is.
And why yes, I am doing the advanced level SMU reading experience. No, I am not obsessed. (I totally am obsessed.)
And why yes, I am doing the advanced level SMU reading experience. No, I am not obsessed. (I totally am obsessed.)
April 27, 2022
I read this book because I'm looking to read novels about big families as comp titles for my own work in progress. The emotional arcs of each major character were clear and really well illustrated and I appreciated that. I did however feel that a lot of characters were thrown in at once and it was really disorienting. I also felt there were quite a few unnecessary characters that didn't add anything to the story. The dialogue was uncomfortable and unrealistic in quite a few spots. Wasn't a huge fan of this novel in general but it was nice to see a story about queer adults in healthy relationships, building their own families, and working through their childhood issues.
January 31, 2024
3.5 Clearly a labor of love, as the central story of Singer, and Jake, one of the Derrie cousins, foster, seeking to adopt Miles. Other POVs from Lisa, getting out of a cult, and more in the families.. Perhaps a bit more than needed, but thorough and heartfelt, and sensitive to all the swirling family, including cross racial adoption. Not really a romance
May 1, 2019
I know others loved it, but I found it a bit one note. I also really flinched at the way the adoption was dealt with. It does work out better than the intial set up suggests, but it all felt far too Saviour for me.
May 10, 2019
Too much going on, too many characters, couldn't get past the surface on a lot of it.
May 25, 2019
Beautiful book about family, relationships and so much more. And such a stunning cover as well.
September 9, 2019
I adored this book and stayed up far too late to finish it.
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