far from the tree robin benway sparknotes

Joaquin was traumatized by a failed adoption when he was 12, and since then, he has given up on the idea of ever being adopted. Unlike his sisters, Joaquin was never adopted and has spent his entire life in the system, never finding a home or a family of his own. When 17-year-old Joaquin was a baby, his mother surrendered him to foster care. However, Maya withholds her emotions and uses sarcasm as a deflection tool, never sharing her deepest thoughts and feelings with anyone, not even Claire. She relies on her girlfriend, Claire, to comfort her and give her some sense of belonging. Maya feels out of place as the only brunette in a family of redheads, and after so many years of feeling different in a hostile household, Maya daydreams about finding a place where she really belongs. Maya’s mother also has a drinking problem, and Maya and her sister worry about their mother’s alcoholism.

Maya’s parents argue constantly, and Maya and her younger sister have spent the last several years running and hiding from their conflict. Like Grace, Maya was adopted, but while Grace is the only child in her adoptive family, Maya has a younger sister who is the biological daughter of Maya’s adoptive parents. Grace learns she has two siblings, a sister named Maya and a brother named Joaquin, and she decides to connect with them for the first time.įifteen-year-old Maya’s family situation is more complicated than Grace’s. Grace has never been very interested in finding her birth mother, but she decides that this mysterious figure from her past might be the only one who can understand how Grace feels after giving her baby to someone else to raise. She loses her friends and boyfriend, and although her adoptive parents are supportive, they cannot understand what she is going through. When 16-year-old Grace becomes pregnant and gives her baby up for adoption, she finds herself adrift and isolated. Content Warning: The source material depicts substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and childhood trauma.

Far from the tree robin benway sparknotes