Stefany Valentine

"An emotion-filled collection." —Kirkus ReviewsA CCBC 2024 Choices for the Fiction for Young Adult category!Two teens take the stage and find their voice . . .A girl learns about her heritage and begins to find her community . . .A sister is haunted by the ghosts of loved ones lost . . .There is no universal adoption experience, and no two adoptees have the same story. This anthology for teens edited by Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung contains a wide range of powerful, poignant, and evocative stories in a variety of genres.These tales from fifteen bestselling, acclaimed, and emerging adoptee authors genuinely and authentically reflect the complexity, breadth, and depth of adoptee experiences.This groundbreaking collection centers what it’s like growing up as an adoptee. These are stories by adoptees, for adoptees, reclaiming their own narratives. With stories by:Kelley BakerNicole ChungShannon GibneyMark OshiroMeMe CollierSusan Harness Meredith IrelandMariama J. LockingtonLisa NopachaiStefany ValentineMatthew SalessesLisa Wool-Rim SjöblomEric SmithJenny Heijun WillsSun Yung ShinForeword by Rebecca CarrollAfterword by JaeRan Kim, MSW, PhD

Taiwanese American Catie Carlson has never fit in with her white family. As much as she loves her stepmum and stepsister, she yearns to understand more about her culture and find her biological mother. So Catie is shocked when an opportunity comes knocking on her door: Her summer spa coworker, Toby, says he’ll teach her Mandarin. In exchange, she needs to teach him how to date so he can finally work up the courage to ask out his crush. The only problem is that Catie doesn’t actually have any dating experience. But she can fake it. With her late father’s copy of The Five Love Languages and all his annotated notes, Catie becomes the perfect dating coach. Or so she thinks. As she gets dangerously close to Toby and to finding out what really happened to her biological mom, she realises that learning the language of love might be tougher than she thought. Stefany Valentine’s debut novel is both a fresh, fun romance as well as a profound, luminous story about grief, family, transracial adoption, and what it means to truly follow your heart.