Lisa Genova meets 23andMe in this exploration of the genetic and emotional ties that bind, as debut author Julie Clark delivers a compelling read about a young boy desperate to find his place in this world, a mother coming to terms with her own past, and the healing power of forgiveness. The powerful forces of science and family collide when geneticist Paige Robson finds her world in upheaval: … world in upheaval: Her eight-year-old son Miles is struggling to fit in at his new school and begins asking questions about his biological father that Paige can’t answer–until fate thrusts the anonymous donor she used into their lives.
Paige’s carefully constructed life begins to unravel as the truth of Miles’s paternity threatens to destroy everything she has grown to cherish. As Paige slowly opens herself up–by befriending an eccentric mother, confronting her own deeply buried vulnerabilities, and trying to make sense of her absent father’s unexpected return–she realizes breakthroughs aren’t only for the lab. But when tragedy strikes, Paige must face the consequences of sharing a secret only she knows.
With grace and humor, Julie Clark shows that while the science is fascinating, solving these intimate mysteries of who we are and where we come from unleashes emotions more complex than the strands of DNA that shape us.
more
This chimera of heart and science skillfully produces an extraordinary breakthrough novel. I love smart fiction with a sharp heroine at the core. Julie Clark has perceptively given us that in The Ones We Choose. A story of mother and son and the ties that bind, right down to the marrow. Trust me, you’re going to want to read this.
If I’m being honest, I fell in love with the cover immediately and thought the story line sounded interesting but I had my doubts.
The Ones We Choose is an extraordinary, eye opening novel. Julie Clark introduces us to a mother and son who’s bond is a lot deeper than the cells within them. Paige, a geneticist, has decided to conceive a child via an anonymous sperm donor, but she doesn’t realize how her decision would affect her and her child’s future.
So many important themes are seen in this novel – how to open up and find courage after fear has taken over your life. How letting love in means you don’t have to do it alone. I loved Julie Clark’s storytelling. It is also very clear that Clark has spent many hours researching and chatting with someone in the field of genetics to make her main character believable, realistic, and knowledgeable.
Trust me when I say, you WANT to read this!!!!!
/ 5
Reading The Ones We Choose by Julie Clark was like a punch to the heart for me. I don’t know if I have ever both laughed and cried so much while reading a book before. What is the analogy? This book took my heart and ripped it out of my chest… I think that’s it! I was literally a puddle of emotions after reading this one. Ok sorry, I’ll stop now. There is just a lot of loss in the book, and it was a very sad but very moving experience for me as a reader.
Even though this book is very sad in parts and talks a lot about science, it was such an easy read for me. I started reading this book after 5 PM and finished before 2 AM. And that literally never happens when I am reading a 300+ page book. So I would also mark this down as a very fast read.
The Ones We Choose is told all from one viewpoint which is our main character Paige. She is a geneticist at a small college in southern California and has an 8 year old son she conceived by using a sperm donor. She is in the middle of conducting a study while also worrying about her son and trying to overcome her past which included a great mother and sister, but an absentee father. Because of this she is very closed off to her boyfriend Liam which ends up creating all sorts of drama.
There is a lot of talk about science and genetics in the book, and the chapters are broken up with little bits of scientific explanations, among other tidbits, some of which relate to her life. So definitely be prepared for a lot of terms, and a lot of talk about genetics. She is a female scientist and researcher afterall. I personally found it fascinating, but I know not everyone will. I am just shocked that The Ones We Choose is a debut novel, and I can tell that Clark put a massive amount of research into the book.
The Ones We Choose focuses not just on genetics and science, but also the bonds of mother and son as well as family, friends, etc. As many of you know, I don’t have children nor do I plan on having them, and sometimes it can be hard for me to connect with a book that focuses on that type of relationship. But The Ones We Choose had so much more going on, and the author made it so easy for me to become invested in both the parents and the children in this book.
The only {super} small grievance I have is that I think some of the characters could have been a bit more developed. There are a few players that I wish I could have gotten to know a little better.
Final Thought: I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in literary fiction and even genetics and science for that matter. You just need to be OK with reading a lot about it because this book is full of it. You also better make sure you have tissues handy because you are going to need them! I cannot wait to see what Clark writes next and she definitely has an instant fan in me.
The Ones We Choose in 3-ish words: Poignant, Fascinating, Profound
The Ones We Choose is a terrific book. Paige Robson is a woman who conceived using a donor. Now her young son keeps asking why he doesn’t have a father. In dealing with this, she must also confront the untimely return of her own long-absent father. And a secret she’d rather stay hidden begins to surface.
How could I not love a debut about science, secrets, DNA, and how the traumas of our ancestors still live within our very cells? With gorgeous prose, and a deep emotional resonance, The Ones We Choose is about the science of love, how our DNA shapes us, and a mother’s fierce battle to protect her son while confronting what really makes our identity ours, what and who we choose to let in, and what and who we don’t. An absolutely dazzling, profound ruby of a novel.
An engaging, heart-felt alchemy of genetics and emotion, The Ones We Choose is a unique story that will having you thinking about the true meaning of family and how our heritage silently weaves its way into every choice we make.
I love the mix of scientific facts interspersed in this novel. As a single mother, I really enjoyed the premise of a woman choosing to be a single parent. This book is filled with twists and will keep you on the edge of your seat at it tugs at your heartstrings.
Even though this is a fiction book, there is a lot of factual science. Each chapter begins with a one page explanation of a fact that has a bearing on what happens in that chapter. Fascinating book with a good story, believable characters and a drive to find out how it ends.
This is a wonderful debut novel about family – not necessarily the family we are genetically part of but also the family that we create out of love. The subject matter is very up to date and I could see the possibility of the same issues happening in other families.
Paige’s 8 year old son wants to know more about his father which is very normal in a family that is only composed of mother and son. He is getting bullied at school because he doesn’t have a dad and even through Paige’s new boyfriend tries to help out, Miles pushes him away. In truth, Paige can’t tell Miles about his dad because she only knows what she read about him in his application to become a sperm donor. As Paige tries to help her son out with his problems at school and in life, she finds herself finally making some friends and opening herself up to her family.
There is a short chapter between each chapter in the book that explains the science of genetics and DNA. I have to admit that science is not my ‘friend’ and I skipped over a lot of the information in those chapters. The author did a tremendous amount of research to be sure that she had her scientific knowledge sharp to explore the issues in this book. I thought that it was an excellent book and can’t wait to see what Julie Clark writes next.
I read an advance copy of this book. All opinions are my own
Once I started this book, I couldn’t stop reading. I stayed up late to finish it…. I smiled so many times throughout it and laughed at a few characters; and yes there are some tears, as well. So much science and DNA education throughout the book and how it relates to the characters will have you flashing light bulbs in your head saying, well yes, that makes sense and oh wow that’s amazing! I fell in love with the characters in this book from the sad child walking alone without friends, to his mom who tries so hard to help and protect him to the father who wants to make amends. This is the authors debut novel! I can’t wait for more from Julie Clark!!!
I loved this book. From the story itself to the genetic tidbits at the beginning of each chapter, you are drawn into the lives of the characters. Paige and her son, Miles; the family relationships; their friends, Jackie, her husband, Aaron, and her son, Nick…they weave a story that has you waiting anxiously to find out what secrets will be revealed. Lots of love, loss, anxiety, secrets, hurt, and scars are the threads that make up the lives of the characters.
The author does a fabulous job of developing the characters and making you care about what happens to each of them. You’ll cheer, you’ll cry, you’ll be angry. You don’t understand why people make the choices they do. But you want to hang in there until the last page is turned and discover if there is healing in the mess of their lives.
The concept of sperm donors is not new, but this story does a wonderful job of making you take a different look at the positive and negative aspects of choosing to bring a child into the world via artificial insemination. It was a good view and really made me think outside the box.
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. Julie Clark does a great job in this debut novel. I look forward to more adventures with her on the written page.
The Ones We Choose is a beautifully written debut! This story was very thought provoking and made me think about how I would handle the situation presented. I can’t wait to read Julia Clark’s next book!
THE ONES WE CHOOSE is terrifically smart family drama. Clark’s characters utterly drew me in right from the start, but the emotions are well-balanced with fascinating scientific details.
Paige’s story and conflicts are gripping — She’s a fantastic character, whose pain and hesitations and hopes all feel very real. Since the book is in her voice, and since that voice is so wonderful, the reader can’t help but want to side with her. I was entirely on her side right from the start. Her reasoning made perfect sense to me, and I completely understood her reluctance to open herself up to further hurts, considering what she had suffered in the past. That sort of vulnerability is tough to strike with the right poignancy, but Clark does a simply wonderful job. And I love that we get such a great look into the life of a working mom! Her job as a geneticist provides a magnificent counterpoint to the emotional part of the story, and I loved the mini-scientific-treatises that we get between the chapters. Seriously, if you’re someone who finds the idea of 23andMe or Ancestry.com fascinating, you’re going to eat this book up with a spoon.
Clark also does a great job with the kids in the story. Writing children can be such a challenge, and so many authors make them either seem insipid or too much like miniature adults. All the kids in the story feel like real humans, but Paige’s son Miles particularly stands out as a well-rendered character in his own right.
THE ONES WE CHOOSE is a compelling read start-to-finish, which by turn deals with so much of what it means to be human, from our genes to our memories to our blind spots to our capacity to heal. Highly recommend.
Abandoned by her father as a child, woman/geneticist (Paige) turns to science for an explanation.
While she was growing up, Paige’s father was a “serial leaver” teaching Paige to turn off her feelings and stop caring. How has this affected her later in life? Will facing her fears of trust and intimacy help her understand her father’s actions, as well as her own, better?
Paige’s sister, Rose, “believes in unlimited second chances” while Paige “believe[s] in natural consequences.”
Why are Rose, and their mother, Beth, able to so easily forgive their father/husband while Paige chooses to remain estranged?
“She’s one of the strongest women I know, often sacrificing what she wanted to give Rose and me what we needed. And yet, I’ve never understood what it was about my father that left her unable to move on.” – Paige about her mother
Later, single at age 38 and yearning to be a mother, Paige used an anonymous sperm donor to conceive her son, Miles. Now, at age 8, Miles struggles with not having a father like his classmates. Paige’s boyfriend, Liam, tries to be that person for Miles but he isn’t having it. How can Paige have a future with Liam if Miles won’t accept him?
Paige’s work as a geneticist “studying the link between a genetic marker and paternal bonding” and the intermittent chapters about genetic science were extremely fascinating.
Since my mom passed away just five months ago, Choose was especially poignant for me. It was a quick read but packed with emotion and information about genetics and DNA. It made me laugh, and it made me cry. I am shocked it’s a debut and definitely look forward to more from this author! I would highly recommend it for anyone who has had a less than stellar relationship with a parent, or those mourning a parent.
“When you spend your life carrying anger around like a backpack, an extraordinary thing happens when you finally set it down. The world becomes brighter and easier.”
“Those who have come before you live inside you, shaping who you are.”
It’s also worth noting that the author, a single mom to two boys, wrote this book while going through treatment for breast cancer, being a full-time teacher, and raising two boys on her own. WOW.
Thank you to the author and the publisher for an advance copy of this book! All opinions are my own.
Location: Miami, California
When I finished this beautiful debut novel by Julie Abbott Clark THE ONES WE CHOOSE, I was blown away. Julie writes with heart, and grace with a dash of humor and being a medical science nerd, I love the DNA aspect of this novel and how it spins this beautiful story of the fierce love a mother has for her son and the powerful forces of who we are and where we come from. Emotional and raw, mom Paige, with her very personally structured life, must face her past as she faces the present and all the while trying to protect her sweet son. Forgiveness, love, science and family makes for a supremely sweet debut novel. Clark writes with heart, gorgeous imagery and real emotion.
When a book grabs me at the first sentence (really!) I know it’s going to be a fantastic ride. I knew it was going to be good, but it’s exceptional and a must read and many age ranges will enjoy. 5 stars.
#Netgalley
I thought this book was completely predictable. Paige has a child via a sperm donor. She protects her son, Miles, from other children who make fun of him for not having a ‘real dad’. He begs Paige for info on his father.
When Miles meets another boy and his dad who share his love of science, he becomes a new boy, and is much happier. Then tragedy strikes.
The book examines the anonymity of sperm donors and a a result, the genetics that may be unknown to the children of these donors.
The topic of the book was something I wasn’t looking for but I’ll tell you it was a very interesting topic. I enjoyed it very much.
I would say 3.5. Good story. The characters are realistic.
The geneticist in this book thought choosing her baby’s father from a sperm bank was the logical choice. . . until her son said he wished he had a dad like everyone else. This is a great story of a woman trying to make peace with her own unreliable father while protecting her son from further disappointments. As is often the case, a mother with the best of intentions still ends up with regrets.
Learn aboutgenetics as you bond with the characters