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4.4 AVERAGE
4.4 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
“Maybe at our most maternal, we aren’t mothers at all. We’re daughters, reaching back in time for the mothers we wish we’d had and then finding ourselves.”
What begins as a self-reflected motherhood becomes an externalized motherhood, becoming mother to a mother, and discovering that mothers are not perfect. This might not be a shock to most people, but it was to Lang, who discovers things about her mother that fundamentally alter everything she knew about how her mother survived, planned, and lived her day-to-day life in her years after immigrating to the United States from India. In reckoning with those new truths, Lang faces the lies that shaped her into the person she is today, and the consequences, both positive and negative, that those stories had on her life.
Throughout, however, she is resistant to judge harshly her own mother, recognizing how harshly mothers are judged in general, a point driven home by the occasional repetition of an old tale her mother had told her about a mother wading across a river with her baby. When the water becomes too deep, the mother has to make a choice: herself or her child. Neither choice brings praise, both condemnation. But there is no answer, until you are the mother wading in the river. Lang finds a way to choose both herself, her child, and her mother, in a beautiful memoir that I can’t wait to recommend to everyone I know.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley
What begins as a self-reflected motherhood becomes an externalized motherhood, becoming mother to a mother, and discovering that mothers are not perfect. This might not be a shock to most people, but it was to Lang, who discovers things about her mother that fundamentally alter everything she knew about how her mother survived, planned, and lived her day-to-day life in her years after immigrating to the United States from India. In reckoning with those new truths, Lang faces the lies that shaped her into the person she is today, and the consequences, both positive and negative, that those stories had on her life.
Throughout, however, she is resistant to judge harshly her own mother, recognizing how harshly mothers are judged in general, a point driven home by the occasional repetition of an old tale her mother had told her about a mother wading across a river with her baby. When the water becomes too deep, the mother has to make a choice: herself or her child. Neither choice brings praise, both condemnation. But there is no answer, until you are the mother wading in the river. Lang finds a way to choose both herself, her child, and her mother, in a beautiful memoir that I can’t wait to recommend to everyone I know.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Poetic description on family relationships and the importance of stories
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
informative
sad
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Moderate: Chronic illness, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content
emotional
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced