I really enjoyed this complex topic that Welch wrote about. I'm a mom to a teen born in Guatemala and the title of this book caught my attention. I found it to be a valuable story with excellent writing. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This was devastatingly beautiful! I loved this story and I will be telling absolutely everyone to read this. Immediately buying a physical copy!

This was an unexpected find on NetGalley but I’m so glad I grabbed this up. This book explores many complexities. Generational trauma being passed down to one decision changing the trajectory of your whole life. This book had some heavy topics but was approached with care and respect. I truly enjoyed this book.

The Borrowed Child surprised me — the title made me expect a straightforward adoption story, but it's really about parenting across cultures, migrant life, and two women who become family without ever sharing blood.
Mia and Helen carry the dual narrative. The book opens with Mia running away from Helen's home, then rewinds to when Mia was ten and Helen had just lost her son — and from there builds toward the moment you already know is coming. Helen becomes Mia's tutor, then something like a mother, pouring the same stubborn devotion into Mia that she once gave her own child. Mia, meanwhile, is juggling her own mother, her sisters, a bad relationship, and the exhausting work of just trying to study and survive. Moving in with Helen looks like rescue but isn't simple — and eventually, Mia leaves.
What I loved most was how detailed and lived-in every scene felt, especially around migrant life — crowded houses, too many people under one roof, the invisible weight Mia carries. It made an experience I only knew from a distance feel real. Helen's fierce, flawed dedication to Mia is what stayed with me — not a clean rescue story, but two people who almost break each other with love before finding their way back, years later, to something like peace.
A quiet, detailed, emotionally honest read.