Far From the Tree

Far from the Tree is a 2017 young adult novel by Robin Benway. This work of realistic fiction tells the story of three siblings who have just learned about each other’s existence and their journey to find their birth mother. They are forced to grapple with the truth about their pasts and their futures. Far from the Tree is Benway’s sixth published novel. It received several awards, including the 2017 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the 2018 PEN America Award for Young Adult Literature, and a New York Times Bestseller. Far from the Tree is an emotional, heartwarming, and powerful novel about family, loneliness, love, heartache, sacrifice, and what it means to experience true belonging. Benway also explores the complicated world of foster care and adoption and the impact of these systems on the lives of young people. The version used for this guide is the paperback edition of the HarperTeen imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Content Warning: The source material depicts substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and childhood trauma.

Plot Summary

When 16-year-old Grace becomes pregnant and gives her baby up for adoption, she finds herself adrift and isolated. She loses her friends and boyfriend, and although her adoptive parents are supportive, they cannot understand what she is going through. 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. 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.

Fifteen-year-old Maya’s family situation is more complicated than Grace’s. 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. Maya’s parents argue constantly, and Maya and her younger sister have spent the last several years running and hiding from their conflict. Maya’s mother also has a drinking problem, and Maya and her sister worry about their mother’s alcoholism. 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. She relies on her girlfriend, Claire, to comfort her and give her some sense of belonging. However, Maya withholds her emotions and uses sarcasm as a deflection tool, never sharing her deepest thoughts and feelings with anyone, not even Claire.

When 17-year-old Joaquin was a baby, his mother surrendered him to foster care. 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. 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. Joaquin’s current foster parents, Mark and Linda, want to adopt him, but he is so afraid of hurting them that he refuses to agree to the adoption.

When the siblings meet for the first time, they start to share their lives with one another. When Maya’s parents announce that they are getting a divorce, she worries that neither of them will want her anymore, and when her mother falls and hits her head in a drunken stupor, she calls Grace and Joaquin to help her. When Maya breaks up with Claire, Joaquin commiserates and shares the story of how he broke up with his girlfriend, Birdie, because he felt like he wasn’t good enough for her. As the siblings grow closer, Joaquin opens up to Grace and Maya. He tells them about the time he accidentally hurt his foster sister when he was a child. After harboring the shame of this secret for years, Maya and Grace encourage Joaquin to forgive himself and let go of the past. Grace, however, tries to conceal the secret of her teen pregnancy until one day she is forced to tell Maya and Joaquin the truth. Instead of judging Grace for giving up her child as their mother did, Maya and Joaquin are compassionate and sympathetic to their sister’s plight.

The three siblings decide to go looking for their birth mother together, but when they arrive at her house, they discover that she died many years ago. Through their mother’s sister, they learn that their mother loved each of them and never wanted to give up her children, but heartache destroyed her life and made it too difficult for her to be an adequate mother. She died in a truck accident at the young age of 21, which is why she never came looking for her children. The siblings realize their birth mother cared about them, and Joaquin is given a collection of his old baby photos that his mother left for him.

In the end, Joaquin agrees to be adopted by Mark and Linda, and he starts to feel hope instead of dread for his future. Maya and Claire get back together, and Maya tries to reconnect with her adoptive family and be more honest about her feelings. Grace realizes that her daughter deserves to have her biological mother in her life, and she agrees to meet with her daughter and her adoptive parents. At the novel's end, Grace sees her daughter in the park, and when she calls her name, her baby looks up at her and smiles.