Being close to someone can make it difficult to explain where your own life begins. For Julie Ryan McGue, that question belongs to a childhood shared with her identical twin, Jenny, and to growing up adopted in a family that also included biological children. Twice the Family brings those relationships into a coming-of-age memoir set in Chicago's western suburbs from the 1960s through the 1980s.
Our reason for choosing it is the tension between belonging and individuality. Julie values the love and commitment within her adoptive family, yet the life her parents have built is not the life she wants to reproduce. That is a useful starting point for readers who have struggled to explain that choosing differently does not make their attachment to a family less real.
Loss and difficult experiences test the family's relationships as the twins grow toward independence. We recommend the book to readers interested in what childhood teaches us about the people and parents we hope to become. Its adoption perspective also gives that familiar coming-of-age question another dimension: how do you understand yourself when part of your own history remains outside your reach?
Published in 2025, Twice the Family is a prequel to McGue's first memoir, Twice a Daughter. It offers a way to meet her through the family years before following the later search for her birth relatives. The publisher lists several memoir and nonfiction awards for this book, and McGue welcomes book-club conversations about it. For a reading group, we would begin with a question the premise raises: what do we want to carry forward from our families, and what do we need to choose for ourselves?
Selection note based on official book information, the author's discussion of her connected memoirs and publisher-listed awards.
Author's book page ↗ · How Julie's books connect ↗ · Publisher's information and awards ↗
