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A review by lady_wira
The Mothers by Brit Bennett
5.0
From the onset, this was a heartbreaking read. When you feel like the world is on your shoulders, when you’ve survived your mother’s suicide, your father’s withdrawal, and the boy you like leaving and choosing abortion; how do you not want to end it all? This was the reality of Nadia Turner.
Nadia Turner is a 17-year-old girl barely out of high school whose life has been one big heavy cloud. After her mother’s suicide, she finds comfort in the arms of the preacher’s kid, they get pregnant, and he bails. Brit covers the impact of abortion tastefully, through Nadia we see the challenges of teenage pregnancies and the coming of age of these teens.
Aubrey and Nadia make an unlikely pair but their traumas bond them. In each other, they find solace and a home. Set in a Black Christian community, where there is little to no privacy, the Mothers portrays the pressure to be a certain way to be accepted. Society is judgmental, as in reality, shame and guilt are spread like confetti, and everyone seems to have an opinion on female bodies.
Growing up with so many Dos and Don’ts is not easy for any girl. Nadia takes the punches well into her 20s. Everyone has a breaking point, Nadia hit hers and resolved to leave the small town for college. She devoted her life to moving as far away as she possibly can, mentally and physically. Sadly, we cannot run away from our minds.
As the narrative progresses, Nadia is forced to move back home, forced to face the demons she thought were long dead.
The mothers is a gripping, sad, and triggering book that honestly needs a little self-awareness to read. The plight of the youth bestowed by society is portrayed. The options between pro-life or pro-choice and the consequences of each are cleverly left to the reader to decide. This is no doubt a book that will linger on, long after you are done reading it.
Excerpts:
The weight of what has been lost is always heavier than what remains.
Oh girl, we have known little bit love. That little bit of honey left in an empty jar that traps the sweetness in your mouth long enough to mask your hunger. We have run tongues over teeth to savor that last little bit as long as we could, and in all our living, nothing has starved us more
Suffering pain is what made you a woman. Most of the milestones in a woman’s life were accompanied by pain, like her first time having sex or birthing a child. For men, it was all orgasms and champagne
She wanted this baby and that was the difference: magic you wanted was a miracle, magic you didn’t want was a haunting.
Sometimes the glory was in rebuilding the broken thing, not the result but the process of trying.
By the end of the book, I wanted to hold Nadia dearly, to comfort her and show her, life can be beautiful. Tears of sadness and happiness were shed, and knowing that she fights on, was a pleasant feeling to end at. Brit Bennett at 25 years old wrote a masterpiece!
Nadia Turner is a 17-year-old girl barely out of high school whose life has been one big heavy cloud. After her mother’s suicide, she finds comfort in the arms of the preacher’s kid, they get pregnant, and he bails. Brit covers the impact of abortion tastefully, through Nadia we see the challenges of teenage pregnancies and the coming of age of these teens.
Aubrey and Nadia make an unlikely pair but their traumas bond them. In each other, they find solace and a home. Set in a Black Christian community, where there is little to no privacy, the Mothers portrays the pressure to be a certain way to be accepted. Society is judgmental, as in reality, shame and guilt are spread like confetti, and everyone seems to have an opinion on female bodies.
Growing up with so many Dos and Don’ts is not easy for any girl. Nadia takes the punches well into her 20s. Everyone has a breaking point, Nadia hit hers and resolved to leave the small town for college. She devoted her life to moving as far away as she possibly can, mentally and physically. Sadly, we cannot run away from our minds.
As the narrative progresses, Nadia is forced to move back home, forced to face the demons she thought were long dead.
The mothers is a gripping, sad, and triggering book that honestly needs a little self-awareness to read. The plight of the youth bestowed by society is portrayed. The options between pro-life or pro-choice and the consequences of each are cleverly left to the reader to decide. This is no doubt a book that will linger on, long after you are done reading it.
Excerpts:
The weight of what has been lost is always heavier than what remains.
Oh girl, we have known little bit love. That little bit of honey left in an empty jar that traps the sweetness in your mouth long enough to mask your hunger. We have run tongues over teeth to savor that last little bit as long as we could, and in all our living, nothing has starved us more
Suffering pain is what made you a woman. Most of the milestones in a woman’s life were accompanied by pain, like her first time having sex or birthing a child. For men, it was all orgasms and champagne
She wanted this baby and that was the difference: magic you wanted was a miracle, magic you didn’t want was a haunting.
Sometimes the glory was in rebuilding the broken thing, not the result but the process of trying.
By the end of the book, I wanted to hold Nadia dearly, to comfort her and show her, life can be beautiful. Tears of sadness and happiness were shed, and knowing that she fights on, was a pleasant feeling to end at. Brit Bennett at 25 years old wrote a masterpiece!