Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.4 AVERAGE
4.4 AVERAGE
What We Carry is a memoir of the author's relationship with her mother. As a second generation immigrant, Maya Lang always idealized her hardworking, intelligent mother who was a psychiatrist, but when Maya gave birth to a daughter and needed her mother most, her mother became unavailable.
Whenever it comes to mother-daughter relationship, it's complicated. In What We Carry, we read how Mary Lang reconciles the different versions her mother: the version from her childhood, the version she became aware after she grew up, and the version her mother gradually became after the onset of Alzheimer disease. Being a mother herself and caring for her aging mother, this memoir is also a journey of self-discovery.
This is a book about love, acceptance and letting go. It's written in terse sentences and in present tense. It reads like memory flashes.
Quotes:
"We must not judge....we can not know the weight of other woman's burden, whatever a woman decides, it is not easy."
"Does the demand for motherhood ever cease?"
Whenever it comes to mother-daughter relationship, it's complicated. In What We Carry, we read how Mary Lang reconciles the different versions her mother: the version from her childhood, the version she became aware after she grew up, and the version her mother gradually became after the onset of Alzheimer disease. Being a mother herself and caring for her aging mother, this memoir is also a journey of self-discovery.
This is a book about love, acceptance and letting go. It's written in terse sentences and in present tense. It reads like memory flashes.
Quotes:
"We must not judge....we can not know the weight of other woman's burden, whatever a woman decides, it is not easy."
"Does the demand for motherhood ever cease?"
"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."
Maya Shanbhag Lang always idolized her mother, a brilliant physician who immigrated from India to the U.S. But then a change in her mother’s temperament led to an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. As she took on her mother and young daughter’s care, Lang learned that despite their closeness, there was much to learn about her mother’s past.
This memoir is so emotionally powerful, and written so well. Lang's story is heartbreaking and hope-making at once, and her reflections on motherhood and daughterhood will take your breath away. Having a parent with dementia is such a painful topic that I struggled to pick this one up, but once I did, I couldn't put it down.
Thanks to NetGalley and Dial Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Maya Shanbhag Lang always idolized her mother, a brilliant physician who immigrated from India to the U.S. But then a change in her mother’s temperament led to an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. As she took on her mother and young daughter’s care, Lang learned that despite their closeness, there was much to learn about her mother’s past.
This memoir is so emotionally powerful, and written so well. Lang's story is heartbreaking and hope-making at once, and her reflections on motherhood and daughterhood will take your breath away. Having a parent with dementia is such a painful topic that I struggled to pick this one up, but once I did, I couldn't put it down.
Thanks to NetGalley and Dial Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.