maddiemar's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
stacylaughs's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Abortion, Pregnancy, and Suicide
Minor: Racism
betweenbookends's review against another edition
3.0
This didn't quite reach the heights that The Vanishing Half did, nonetheless, it's a compelling and engaging novel following the messy intersections of friendship, love, secrets and betrayal. The characters are very well drawn and I was intrigued enough to keep turning the page. The writing too is fluid and reads easily while still being lyrical. At the end of it, I found the reading experience enjoyable enough but not really as memorable as I'd hoped for.
absolute_bookery's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Soooo good, I love an in-depth character study and this was exactly it. I enjoyed it more than the vanishing half!
jordanahemp's review against another edition
2.0
It didn’t really make me feel anything. Maybe it’s because I speed-listened to it.
bbthebookworm's review against another edition
5.0
do you ever read a book and you have to take time to process what to actually think of the book, and when you do realize if you like, love, or dislike the book you’re still left speechless??? yup, that’s me! let me just say that oh my goodness! this...THIS book was amazing! this is my first book reading from bennett & i love her writing. the way she builds up the scenarios of each chapter and the dialogue as a whole is smooth. oh! & of course the character development in this book is outstanding!
each chapter i adored more and more. the story is told from the perspectives of the mothers of the upper room where they discuss and gossip about people in the church. during the chapters we get to read from the perspectives of the main characters, nadia, aubrey, and luke. there are realistic events that happen in each chapter, which is one of the reasons i highly appreciate this book.
there are some trigger warnings, such as abortion, rape, suicide, physical & sexual abuse, and ptsd from injuries; i.e. injuries from sports
each chapter i adored more and more. the story is told from the perspectives of the mothers of the upper room where they discuss and gossip about people in the church. during the chapters we get to read from the perspectives of the main characters, nadia, aubrey, and luke. there are realistic events that happen in each chapter, which is one of the reasons i highly appreciate this book.
there are some trigger warnings, such as abortion, rape, suicide, physical & sexual abuse, and ptsd from injuries; i.e. injuries from sports
tachyondecay's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
As someone who is childfree by choice but who has many friends who are parents, I think a lot about how this event in someone’s life affects our evolution as individuals. The Mothers approaches this with additional layers of considering race and class. I say “layers” because that’s how it feels like Brit Bennett tells this story: like a croissant, hundreds of thin layers folded over on each other, waiting for you to read them.
Nadia, almost done with high school, starts seeing Luke, who is older. When she discovers she is pregnant, Luke comes up with the cash she needs to get an abortion. Later, Nadia goes off to university and Luke marries her best friend. As she returns to her hometown to take care of her father, Nadia has to confront how her choices and those of others around her have shaped her life—and in particular, how our response to the pressures of religion, culture, racism, and society in general shape us.
I really liked the way that Bennett uses space as well as time to delineate her narrative here. Nadia leaves her small town in California to go to the University of Michigan and doesn’t return for years, not even to visit her father or Aubrey, not until Aubrey gets married. She escapes and lives so much, goes so many places, experiences quite a bit, before getting pulled back to her hometown in a semipermanent way. Although there isn’t much that I have in common with Nadia, as someone from a small town that many people leave only to come back to, I can identify with that experience.
Similarly, I enjoyed the way Bennett charts Nadia’s experiences and comments on them through the omniscient narrators that are the eponymous Mothers of the church. The way they say that they saw this coming (or would have), that they could have warned Nadia off the pastor’s son, etc.
There’s also a lot that can be said here about race, though I am sure others have said it better. We can’t talk about pregnancy and who is burdened with the risks of it without talking about the way that healthcare in the United States fails Black women and girls in particular. The story that Bennett is telling her is a story that feels very timeless—aside from a couple of references to texting, and of course Nadia going off to university, this story could have taken place in now or in the nineties.
I yelled at the book when Nadia did the thing that she, of course, was inevitably going to do when she returned to her town. The aromantic in me finds it really hard to wrap my head around the choices that people in romantic relationships make sometimes!
Bennett’s style didn’t work as much for me as the characterization did. The book is very light on dialogue, heavy on narration and description and telling us what a character feels or thinks. This isn’t to criticize Bennett’s writing skills—I loved some of her turns of phrase, some of the metaphors and descriptive language she uses. But the storytelling happens at a distance from the characters, and it is hard to get emotionally invested in the events despite their intense emotional experiences.
I enjoyed The Mothers and think I get what Bennett is putting down here. That, in a way, is a good measure of the success of a book: did I connect to the author enough to hear their message? The answer here is yes. Whether I will read more of Bennett’s work—I know The Vanishing Half is very well regarded—is up in the air.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Nadia, almost done with high school, starts seeing Luke, who is older. When she discovers she is pregnant, Luke comes up with the cash she needs to get an abortion. Later, Nadia goes off to university and Luke marries her best friend. As she returns to her hometown to take care of her father, Nadia has to confront how her choices and those of others around her have shaped her life—and in particular, how our response to the pressures of religion, culture, racism, and society in general shape us.
I really liked the way that Bennett uses space as well as time to delineate her narrative here. Nadia leaves her small town in California to go to the University of Michigan and doesn’t return for years, not even to visit her father or Aubrey, not until Aubrey gets married. She escapes and lives so much, goes so many places, experiences quite a bit, before getting pulled back to her hometown in a semipermanent way. Although there isn’t much that I have in common with Nadia, as someone from a small town that many people leave only to come back to, I can identify with that experience.
Similarly, I enjoyed the way Bennett charts Nadia’s experiences and comments on them through the omniscient narrators that are the eponymous Mothers of the church. The way they say that they saw this coming (or would have), that they could have warned Nadia off the pastor’s son, etc.
There’s also a lot that can be said here about race, though I am sure others have said it better. We can’t talk about pregnancy and who is burdened with the risks of it without talking about the way that healthcare in the United States fails Black women and girls in particular. The story that Bennett is telling her is a story that feels very timeless—aside from a couple of references to texting, and of course Nadia going off to university, this story could have taken place in now or in the nineties.
I yelled at the book when Nadia did the thing that she, of course, was inevitably going to do when she returned to her town. The aromantic in me finds it really hard to wrap my head around the choices that people in romantic relationships make sometimes!
Bennett’s style didn’t work as much for me as the characterization did. The book is very light on dialogue, heavy on narration and description and telling us what a character feels or thinks. This isn’t to criticize Bennett’s writing skills—I loved some of her turns of phrase, some of the metaphors and descriptive language she uses. But the storytelling happens at a distance from the characters, and it is hard to get emotionally invested in the events despite their intense emotional experiences.
I enjoyed The Mothers and think I get what Bennett is putting down here. That, in a way, is a good measure of the success of a book: did I connect to the author enough to hear their message? The answer here is yes. Whether I will read more of Bennett’s work—I know The Vanishing Half is very well regarded—is up in the air.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
msaari's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Brit Bennett teki läpimurtonsa heti tällä esikoisromaanillaan. Suomessa julkaistiin kuitenkin ensin vuonna 2020 ilmestynyt The Vanishing Half eli Mikä meidät erottaa. Keltaisessa kirjastossa on tapana julkaista kirjailijoilta useampi teos, joten esikoisteoksen suomennos oli odotettavissa. Maria Lyytisen suomennos The Mothersista on saanut nimekseen suoraviivaisesti Äidit.
Äidit on kertomus kolmesta nuoresta ihmisestä, joiden elämä järjestyy uudella tavalla yhden kesän aikana. Romaanin pääosassa ovat Nadia, Luke ja Aubrey. 17-vuotias Nadia Turner on fiksu villikko, joka on menettänyt äitinsä traagisesti: Nadian äiti teki vastikään itsemurhan yllättäen, ilman sen kummempia selityksiä. Luke Sheppard on pastorin poika, jolla oli todella lupaava urheilu-ura, jonka katkaisi vakava loukkaantuminen. Aubrey Evans on hiljainen ja harras tyttö, jonka äiti on kyllä elossa, mutta yhteys äitiin on täysin poikki.
Viimeisenä kesänä Oceansidessä Kaliforniassa ennen kuin Nadia lähtee Michiganiin yliopistoon opiskelemaan, Nadia ja Luke lyöttäytyvät yhteen. Nadia tulee raskaaksi ja tekee abortin, koska ei voi nähdä pitävänsä lasta – sehän tuhoaisi kaikki suunnitelmat opiskelemisesta. Tämä päätös muuttaa kaikkien kolmen elämän, myös Aubreyn, sillä kun Nadia lähtee pois, Luke ja Aubrey lähentyvät. Ennen sitä Nadia ehtii ystävystyä Aubreyn kanssa työskennellessään Upper Roomin kirkossa, jonka pastori Luken isä on. Kolmikon kesken on kuitenkin liikaa salaisuuksia.
Kirjan nimi on oikein sopiva. Äitiydestähän tässä on pitkälti kyse, mutta myös äidin puuttumisesta. Nadian äidin selittämätön itsemurha, Aubreyn äidin poissaolo, Nadian keskeytetty raskaus, Aubreyn halu tulla äidiksi… Nadia pohtii jatkuvasti äitiään ja tämän päätöksiä ja omaa osaansa niissä. Myös Luken äiti Latrice, seurakunnan tehonainen, on hänkin osa kuviota ja välillä kertojanäänen ottavat seurakunnan äidit, joukko vanhoja naisia, joilla on jonkinlainen draaman kuoron osa tarinassa. Se tuntuu hieman irralliselta, mutta etenkin kirjan loppua kohden osoittautuu merkityksellisemmäksi.
Abortti on tälläkin hetkellä hyvin painava kysymys Yhdysvalloissa, kun aborttioikeuksia on kavennettu tai suorastaan poistettu monessa osavaltiossa. Äitien tapahtumat sijoittuvat Kaliforniaan, missä näitä ongelmia ei ole, mutta aborttikysymyksen vakavuus näkyy silti tässäkin tarinassa. Salaisuuksien, häpeän ja uskonnollisuuden kietoutuminen yhteen tekee asioista kipeitä ja vaikeita. Bennett nostaa esiin myös lapsen isän surun abortin vuoksi. Abortissa on kyse naisten oikeuksista omaan kehoonsa, mutta lapsella on isäkin, jolla on oikeus omiin tunteisiinsa, vaikka päätös lopulta naisen onkin.
Brit Bennett on taidokas kirjailija. Se nähtiin jo Mikä meidät erottaa -kirjan kohdalla – ja se on mielestäni näistä kahdesta silti vahvempi – mutta jo tämä kirja on 26-vuotiaan esikoiskirjailijan työksi hienoa jälkeä. Bennettiä on kutsuttu uudeksi Toni Morrisoniksi, mikä tuntuu hieman hätiköidyltä, mutta ovathan nämä hyviä kirjoja ja aivan ansaitusti Keltaisessa kirjastossa. Maria Lyytinen on tehnyt hienoa työtä kääntäessään Bennettin tekstin suomeksi. Äidit on sujuva, helppolukuinen kirja, joka kuitenkin porautuu syvälle päähenkilöidensä sielunliikkeiden ytimeen.
belle_oftheball's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
loopylouu's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.75