Love Our Way is Julia Rollings’ unique story of her ‘large and wonderfully complicated’ family. Both having children of their own, and then children together, Julia and her husband decide to adopt children from overseas, in a bid to help and heal those children others did not want. Told with honesty and elegance, the story unfolds to cover an array of social and cultural issues including inter-country and ethical adoption, child trafficking and parenthood. Rollings does an amazing job of seamlessly blending her own personal stories of triumph and heartache with more encompassing world issues. Julia’s story redefines our set cultural understandings of family and motherhood, but does so in a truly interesting and easily accessible way, as the book is approachable in both style and language. One small fault is that there’s not a lot from her children’s perspectives, as she seems to speak for them. More from the children’s viewpoint could have added balance and depth. Also her claims to ‘own’ these children before even bringing them into her country or home are at times strange to read. Overall, Love Our Way will appeal to a wide and receptive audience of readers who enjoy biographies, travel literature or humanitarian texts.

Lucy Meredith is a freelance author and part-time bookseller

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

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