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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
I love this book much. Hattie's love for her family coupled with her almost inability to show them her love impacted everyone for generations. No one was left unscathed. This is a book about generational trauma, about how personal choices made in fleeting moments can affect the outcome of your life, and the family bonds that tie us all. I am definitely going to revisit this book multiple times and look forward to reading more of this author's works.
This is almost like a book of short stories, rather than a novel in the traditional sense, with the mother, Hattie, being the connecting thread throughout. The author successfully developed each character within only a few pages, while revealing more and more of Hattie's personality at the same time. I thought Mathis ably depicted some of the dysfunctional behaviours that can be found in many families. The book is not exactly depressing, but it certainly isn't a happy story, just like real life.
Mathis evokes the greats of 20th Century African American literature in her novel that tells of Hattie and her family. The story doesn't move forward in the linear progression that you'd expect, shifting from one person's voice to the next, from one decade to the next. Mathis weaves a complicated Great Migration narrative, a nice contrast to the oversimplified paragraph or two blurb you might have read about in your high school history textbook. Themes of poverty, fidelity (or infidelity), faith and family are ever present, but they aren't tired. You aren't going to find a character to fall in love with, but you might find a few to hate. Personally, I think they can be just as much fun to get to know. These are complicated folk leading difficult lives, usually doing their best, sometimes failing miserably, but I enjoyed the rich texture of their lives. There are moments in the prose that made me reach for a pencil to underline a poignant or beautiful passage, and that's awfully rare these days. There is plenty more to unpack here with the biblical allusions, but there is no need for me to do it for you in a review.
If you like Toni Morrison, you'll enjoy Mathis' debut novel. Shoot, compared to Morrison, this is downright lighthearted fare.
If you like Toni Morrison, you'll enjoy Mathis' debut novel. Shoot, compared to Morrison, this is downright lighthearted fare.
While reading Mathis' work, I came to the conclusion that it is less of a novel, but more of a collection of sad, depressing tales of a family's tragedies. Set in Philadelphia a generation after the Great Migration, Hattie's life is torn at a young age by the deaths of her newborn twins (not a spoiler - it happens in the first chapter and you 'know' it after the first paragraph). She has more children, but that event colors the rest of her, her husband, and her children's lives. Each chapter focuses on a different son or daughter and how his or her life is just one dreary, violent, alcohol, or drug filled lonely one. There is one small hope, but it's a long time coming.
Taken as short stories, it's just as I wrote above. Taken as a whole, and after having read it several weeks ago, I now have a different perspective. The experiences of the families who moved North to escape Jim Crow and other atrocities in the South have rarely been written about so well. Instead of focusing on one person, this novel examines each family member from his or her perspective. Sad? Yes. Tragic? Yes. True? Also, a definite Yes. However, just as there was a small spark of hope in each and every family's souls who were searching for a New Life - a Better Life from the oppressive South, there is also hope in this family, albeit small and snuffed out over and over again. In the end, yes, there are injuries, heartbreak, addiction, aching loneliness, a feeling of never belonging, and even death - but that same small spark continues to live into another generation. And another. And we are privy to this family's journey, and as readers, we, too, have hope for this family, this tribe, that it will not only survive, but thrive.
Taken as short stories, it's just as I wrote above. Taken as a whole, and after having read it several weeks ago, I now have a different perspective. The experiences of the families who moved North to escape Jim Crow and other atrocities in the South have rarely been written about so well. Instead of focusing on one person, this novel examines each family member from his or her perspective. Sad? Yes. Tragic? Yes. True? Also, a definite Yes. However, just as there was a small spark of hope in each and every family's souls who were searching for a New Life - a Better Life from the oppressive South, there is also hope in this family, albeit small and snuffed out over and over again. In the end, yes, there are injuries, heartbreak, addiction, aching loneliness, a feeling of never belonging, and even death - but that same small spark continues to live into another generation. And another. And we are privy to this family's journey, and as readers, we, too, have hope for this family, this tribe, that it will not only survive, but thrive.
I really enjoyed this book, depressing as all get out but you expect that from an Oprah's Book Club Book. Beautifully written with a cast of unforgettable characters.
Couldn't get through it. Gave it a fighting chance, but I found it quite boring and didn't end up finishing it. Couldn't keep my attention.
This book started out so promising. It had everything that I thought was going to suck me in and take me away, right from the first chapter I thought...oh yes I am going to like this!!!... sadly I ended up angry. How on earth could all of Hattie's kids turn out so disastrous??? SERIOUSLY!??! kids don't ALL come out that messed up unless there is some really bad abuse. The father loved them even though he didn't provide a lot of money. He wasn't abusive!?!? He didn't drink, he didn't beat their mother. He loved them and sang to them and was more like a buddy than a father... wow. Makes complete sense the girls ended up all being crazy... not a little crazy either. As for Hattie. So she was a bit bitter. WHO wasn't after having all those kids and constantly having to care for them.
UGH it just makes me angry!!! It made no sense that her kids grew up that way unless they were really feeble minded and weak spirited and had no back bones at all. So what their mother was disappointed in the (not cruel, not abusive, not even a drinker, husband who she loved having sex with) That isn't abuse. She gave her kids a wooping when they were bad... well WHO didn't back then.
Because this is an Oprah pick everyone is going to rave about it. To me it is just another OOOO wooo is me, book and I kept waiting to read where all the Woooo came from. Big disappointment.
UGH it just makes me angry!!! It made no sense that her kids grew up that way unless they were really feeble minded and weak spirited and had no back bones at all. So what their mother was disappointed in the (not cruel, not abusive, not even a drinker, husband who she loved having sex with) That isn't abuse. She gave her kids a wooping when they were bad... well WHO didn't back then.
Because this is an Oprah pick everyone is going to rave about it. To me it is just another OOOO wooo is me, book and I kept waiting to read where all the Woooo came from. Big disappointment.
So disturbing. Yet such a part of our nations history.
This book felt like many interconnected short stories. All of them were good, but I felt a lack of follow-through. For me, the book fell short, leaving me feel like something were missing. There was a lot of roaming around (in a sense), but nothing really happened. I was disappointed.
I enjoyed this book although not thoroughly. I wanted more character development for each child of Hattie.