Belonging Matters, Julie Ryan McGue
Belonging Matters, Julie Ryan McGue
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Belonging Matters
Conversations on Adoption, Family, and Kinship

Author: Julie Ryan McGue

Narrator: Julie Ryan McGue

Unabridged: 6 hr 53 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Lantern Audio

Published: 11/01/2023


Synopsis

Belonging Matters is meant to support the adoption community while creating a conversation with those not directly touched by adoption. The collection addresses the questions:—If you are part of the adoption universe, how do you find identity, family, and community—If someone you know is adopted, how do you understand and support them in their search for identity, family, and belonging—How do we improve the adoption experience to invoke social change that benefits the individual, the family unit, and the communities in which they live?
This collection is about examining all that makes us unique, and it is about finding meaning and healing from the difficulties we encounter in life.
Author: Julie Ryan McGue is an American writer. She is a domestic adoptee and an identical twin. Her award-winning memoir, Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging, was released in May 2021. It is about her five-year search to locate birth relatives, family medical history and personal background. In Julie’s weekly blog and monthly column (The Beacher Newspapers), she writes about finding out who you are and where you belong and making sense of it. Her work has appeared in the Story Circle Network Journal, Brevity Nonfiction Blog, Imprint News, Adoption.com, Lifetime Adoption Adoptive Families Blog, Adoption & Beyond, and Severance Magazine. Her personal essays have appeared in several anthologies: Real Women Write: Seeing Through Her Eyes (Story Circle Network), and Art in the Time of Unbearable Crisis (She Writes Press, 2022). Julie holds a BA in psychology from Indiana University and an MM in marketing and finance from the Kellogg Graduate School of Business, Northwestern University. She splits her time between northwest Indiana and Sarasota, Florida.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Feathered Quill Book Reviews on January 02, 2024

Belonging Matters: Conversations on Adoption, Family, and Kinship is a deeply stirring memoir of a domestic adoptee, Julie Ryan McGue, and her quest for historical details of her long-lost family. McGue and her twin sister were adopted from St. Vincent’s Orphanage, Chicago, at three weeks of age. Thi......more

Goodreads review by Book on February 07, 2024

Julie's story, as chronicled in Belonging Matters, is a poignant exploration of identity and belonging from an adoptee's perspective. Growing up aware of her adoption alongside her twin, Julie's narrative delves into the complex emotions surrounding her upbringing in a loving adoptive family, juxtap......more

Goodreads review by S. on December 18, 2023

The author of this article collection, Julie Ryan McGue, had grown up knowing that she and her twin sister were adopted. Although she had pondered the obvious questions raised by this, it was not until her late forties that she decided to track down her biological parents for medical reasons. She ev......more

Goodreads review by Yvonne on December 18, 2023

While I am not adopted nor a twin, I found myself deeply drawn to the author's essays in this book. Though there is some overlapping as you read through each short essay, you really get a sense of what it was like for Julie, not only learning she was adopted but also the struggles she went through p......more

Goodreads review by Adina on February 08, 2025

This was a thoughtful and eye opening read that explores adoption, family, and kinship through a series of personal stories and conversations. The book brings together voices from adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents, offering a wide range of perspectives on identity, loss, love, and belong......more