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National Bestseller
Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award
Semifinalist, PEN Open Book Award
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, NPR, The Boston Globe, TIME, Newsday, Library Journal, BuzzFeed, Real Simple, Cosmopolitan, Chicago Public Library, Seattle Public Library, Goodreads & more
A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection
An Indies Choice Honor Book
An Official Junior Library Guild Selection
An ABA Indies Introduce and Indie Next Pick
Finalist, NAIBA Book of the Year
A One Book, One Tulsa Selection
An Amazon Editors’ Pick
“One of this year’s finest books, let alone memoirs.” —The Washington Post
“A family story of heartbreaking truth — personal in its detail, universal in its complexity.” —Entertainment Weekly
“More than a thoughtful consideration of race and heritage in America. It is the story of sisters finding each other” —The New Yorker
“Chung’s All You Can Ever Know takes the grammar of adoption—nouns, verbs, and direct object—and with extraordinary integrity remakes them into a narrative about what it means to be a subject. A primary document of witness, Chung writes her memoir as a transracial adoptee with honesty, wisdom, and love. Her search and what she discovers offer us life’s meaning and purpose of the very highest order.” —Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko, a National Book Award Finalist
“This book moved me to my very core. All You Can Ever Know is full of insights on race, motherhood, and family of all kinds, but what sets it apart is the compassion Chung brings to every facet of her search for identity . . . This book should be required reading for anyone who has ever had, wanted, or found a family—which is to say, everyone.” —Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere
About All You Can Ever Know
What does it mean to lose your roots—within your culture, within your family—and what happens when you find them?
From early childhood, Nicole Chung heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth. She believed that her Korean birth parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hopes of giving her a better life; that forever feeling slightly out of place was simply her fate as a transracial adoptee. But as she grew up, she wondered if the story she’d been told was the whole truth. With warmth, candor, and startling insight, Chung tells of her search for the people who gave her up, which coincided with the birth of her own child. All You Can Ever Know is a profound, moving chronicle of surprising connections and the repercussions of unearthing painful family secrets—vital reading for anyone who has ever struggled to figure out where they belong.
Praise for All You Can Ever Know
“Chung reveals a family story of heartbreaking truth — personal in its detail, universal in its complexity.” —David Canfield, Entertainment Weekly
“Chung’s search for her biological roots . . . has to be one of this year’s finest books, let alone memoirs . . . Chung has literary chops to spare and they’re on full display in descriptions of her need, pain and bravery.” —Bethanne Patrick, The Washington Post
“[A] stunning debut memoir . . . in addition to being deeply thoughtful and moving, the book is a fiercely compelling page-turner.” —Kate Tuttle, The Boston Globe
“Chung’s memoir is more than a thoughtful consideration of race and heritage in America. It is the story of sisters finding each other, overcoming bureaucracy, abuse, separation, and time.” —The New Yorker
“The memoir All You Can Ever Know is written with all the style and narrative of great fiction.” —Vanity Fair
“All You Can Ever Know honors the grand complexity of love, family, and identity, while showing us how these things can save us and break us with devastating clarity and beauty.” —Isaac Fitzgerald, TODAY Show
“A gripping story . . . This touching memoir explores issues of identity, racism, motherhood, and sisterhood with eloquence and grace. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“[A] stunning memoir . . . Chung’s writing is vibrant and provocative.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“All You Can Ever Know has the patient pacing of a mystery and the philosophical heft of a skeptic’s undertaking.” —Lisa Kennedy, Newsday
“Beyond its critical and popular success, All You Can Ever Know is a landmark in the literature of adoption, and will be of enduring value to people looking for advice about raising a child of a different race . . . [A] courageous book.” —Marion Winik, National Book Critics Circle
“[A] stirring memoir . . . In these mellifluous pages, [Chung] reflects beautifully on the complications of identity and belonging, making for a powerful story in which many transracial adoptees can see their struggles recognized.” —Esquire
“[An] intense and moving memoir.” —Oprah Daily
“Chung . . . makes storytelling feel less like a skill and more like a magic power.” —InStyle
“Though the story is intensely personal, it’s never myopic and, ultimately, it’s universal: a story about learning to grapple with our own identities, about learning where we belong, and about families.” —Mariya Karimjee, NPR Books
“Highly compelling . . . the book offers a poignant depiction of the irreducibly complex nature of human motives and family ties. A profound, searching memoir.” —Kirkus
“[A] powerful saga about identity with revelations to keep you captivated from cover to cover.” —Frannie Jackson, Paste Magazine, Best Memoirs of the Decade
“Chung’s memoir takes on a sleuth-like quality as she describes the process of uncovering her birth family . . . [Chung] beautifully expose[s] the grains of an author’s life through the exploration of their place in a family.” —The Spectator
“What Chung painstakingly unearths about her birth family is thrilling and unsettling, and her articulation of her findings averts feel-good stereotypes. Here, the open wound at the heart of this exquisite narrative heals slightly skewed, exactly as it should.” —Anjali Enjeti, The Minneapolis Star Tribune
“A thoughtful look at transracial adoption and a meditation on identity and culture . . . a sometimes heartbreaking, always unflinching look at what it means to feel rootless.” —Samantha Balaban, NPR
“The memoir’s greatest triumph is in its insistence on complicating the rescue narrative of transracial adoption . . . Chung’s decade-long journey expands our language for exploring the disorderly margins of familial legacies.” —The Times Literary Supplement
“[Chung] explores her experience with an open heart and clear-eyed grace . . . Her quest is gripping . . . All You Can Ever Know is a book about true love—and therefore laced with pain as well as joy.” —The Dallas Morning News
“Unique, affecting, heartstring-pulling . . . Chung’s personal odyssey is an intimate journey toward self-understanding and acceptance.” —Christian Science Monitor
“[An] insightful memoir.” —Booklist
“Opening readers’ eyes to the complexities of cross-cultural adoption, Chung makes a resounding case for empathy.” —Lucy Feldman, TIME Magazine
“This book pulses with desire to know where we come from, even if the only outcome we can expect is to know ourselves better.” —Caroline Kim, Literary Hub’s Book Marks
“With clarity, grace, and no small amount of courage, Chung has written a powerful memoir . . . [that] will resonate deep within the core of anyone who has ever questioned their place in their family, their community, and the world.” —Kristin Iversen, NYLON
“Thoughtful, moving, and empathetic, asking timely questions about identity and belonging in America. An expansive story, told in graceful prose, it shines a light on the complexities of transracial adoption.” —Longreads
“[A] dazzling memoir . . . it is the searing emotional depths of [Chung’s] writing that carries her narrative.” —The National
“In her glistening debut, Nicole Chung delves into the knotty question of how to define what family means . . . [Chung] renders the specifics of her story so precisely that it becomes universal.” —The Portland Mercury
Selected Interviews
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah | NPR Weekend Edition with Lulu Garcia-Navarro | BBC Woman’s Hour with Jane Garvey | On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti | LA Times Asian Enough | Live Wire | NPR Code Switch | KUOW’s The Record | KERA’s Think | KCRW’s Press Play | WNYC’s All of It | The Paris Review | The Atlantic | Longreads | NYMag/The Cut | Literary Hub | The Sunday Observer | The Rumpus
