WOW! This is an amazing novel...beautiful, hopeful, and tear-your-heart-out sad. The storyline revolves around Paige, a geneticist, and her 8-year old son Miles whom she conceived via a sperm donor. Miles is a quirky kid who has some problems fitting in and making friends, and the fact that his father is nameless and faceless seems to exacerbate his sense of isolation. Paige has her own issues with her largely absent and disappointing father, and has immersed herself in clinical research around genetics and the impact on father/child bonding. The novel works in a good dose of genetics info that is fascinating and actually moves along with the plot beautifully. This is an amazing first novel that deserves all possible stars. Thank you Netgalley and publishers for providing a copy for my review.

Paige is a scientist, studying the genetic precursors of good fathers versus bad. She is also the loving mother of Miles, a lonely, brainy eight year old, conceived through anonymous sperm donation. Paige's personality has been shaped her own absent father who drifted in and out of her life throughout her childhood. When Miles meets Neil, another brainy eight year old, Paige is thrilled. Her boy has finally found a friend. She also forms a close friendship with Neil's mother, Jackie, which enriches her own life. But when Miles starts to ask difficult question about his own biological father, and Paige's own father returns, Paige's life becomes immensely more complicated. THE ONES WE CHOOSE examines the deepest issues that drive us - a sense of belonging, where we come from, and how our childhood shapes us. THE ONES WE CHOOSE both entertains and educates. Excellent read, and I look forward to reading more by Clark.

This is one of those books where I desperately need the ability to do half stars. 4 stars seems so offensive, but it doesn't quite hit my personal criteria for a full 5 stars. Solid, solid 4.5 stars though!

First, debut author? Seriously? Comparisons to Lisa Genova are pretty accurate - love Lisa Genova, now I love Julie Clark. I would never have guessed this was her first novel, and can't wait for the next one! Great character development, and such an intriguing subject matter. The author just brought these people to life for me, and made me want so badly for things to turn out okay for everyone. I also really enjoyed all the little inserts about genetics and DNA. Really interesting stuff, and I loved how it allowed me to learn things but kept it entirely related to the characters and wove them in.

Second, there cannot be enough closure in this book for me. I want more - more from the characters, more of their story, more of what happens to them. I need this to be a 10-season family drama on NBC so I can see Miles grow up, find out where he goes with his life, see what happens to Paige and her relationships and her family. Hell, I even want to know what happens with Bruno and Scott and all the little peripheral characters! I just found myself so engrossed in their lives and their stories, and now I don't want it to end. Highly recommend this one!

Wow. This book threw me for an emotional loop I wasn’t expecting. I thought it sounded like an interesting story, but I didn’t plan to relate to it so much and certainly didn’t know I would learn so much about genetics and DNA.

Paige Robson is a geneticist with an 8-year old son, Miles, whom she conceived with an anonymous sperm donor. She loves her son fiercely, and he is aware of how he was conceived. But Paige hasn’t ever really considered how having a blank paternal history will affect Miles until the day he tells her how different he feels from other kids who know who their dads are. I admit, at this early point in the story I felt for Miles, but I was also irked at the idea that it seemed that the rest of his class had two parents. In this day and age, that’s not so common any more. Luckily, the story progressed past this stumbling block, and so did I.

Paige grapples with memories of her own childhood, and the disconnection from a father who disappeared frequently for months or years at a time throughout her life. She has painted herself in a box, not letting people get too close, while trying to keep control over her own feelings and the lives of her son, her lover Liam, and herself.

When, through a remarkable coincidence (almost too remarkable, but the story owned me at this point and I didn’t care if the odds were astronomical) Paige finds her son’s father, a whole new set of problems and potential issues arise. With a tragic twist thrown into the mix, the story kept me enthralled and I finished reading it in just a few hours.

One thing that kept the book from being a simple run of the mill family story was the insertion, between each chapter, of a little blurb, definition or explanation regarding things scientists have determined about genetics and DNA. These little notes all related back to what was going on in the story, but they were also riveting bits of knowledge that not a lot of laypersons know. I was immediately fascinated by this information. It has made me consider my parents and my children, and now I want to learn even more about my own genetic history.

I highlighted many lines in the book, and for me, that’s a sure sign that I loved it and will refer back to it again. The author, Julie Clark, showed a real grasp of the family and how loss and pain can change us all, either for better or worse, and she did a wonderful job of explaining how those feelings become part of our own DNA, to be passed on forever.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I give this one 5 stars.

I loved that the author wasn't a professional geneticist. She did enough research into genetics and sperm banks that the backstory was fully fleshed out without it being taken over by medical details.