I have known the author who writes under the pen name Anna Jinja for many years. I knew enough about her to realize her new novel is very much influenced by her own life.
Jinja was adopted as a child. She came from Korea and grew up in Iowa. Her literary protagonist, Grace, followed the same path — adopted from Korea with a Midwestern upbringing. But from there, the fiction diverges. Grace is a seamstress. The author wasn't, but her mother was.
In "Adopting Grace," we learn what it was like for the author and her fictional alter ego to blend into a very different terrain, and we hopefully gain a fresh understanding of the challenges adoptees can face. Another powerful theme in this story is our cultural obsession with the appearances of young women and the lengths society will go to in absurd quests to satisfy a constantly changing, virtually impossible standard.
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The Book Nook on WYSO is presented by the Greene County Public Library with additional support from Washington-Centerville Public Library, Clark County Public Library, Dayton Metro Library, Wright Memorial Public Library, and Tipp City Public Library.
