Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
I wanted to give this book four stars but I gave it three bc it’s excellent writing and it pulls you in emotionally. However, it’s not a complete story. I was left with more questions than answers. Is this book about Hattie? If so, there’s a nice resolution for Hattie. But if the book is about her kids, then there’s no resolution. So many stories end on cliffhangers and we never return back to the characters to see how their story turn out. I’m not satisfied with how it ended bc too many questions are left unanswered.
I liked the writing in this book - the author is obviously very talented. The book is divided into almost short stories, each one focusing on a different family member of Hattie's. I liked some of the vignettes better than others. Some of the stories were really sad, but painted a vivid picture of what growing up poor in Philadelphia would be like.
Depressing. No hope. If you want to read a book where there is absolutely nothing uplifting, this will be perfect for you. Just horrible. I kept thinking somehow it was going somewhere. Surely it would all tie together. Nope. All disjointed. Paints a picture of a struggling miserable women and her many broken children. Can not recommend.
The connection between the stories of all of Hattie's children is her struggles: with a husband and a marriage that are both less than she expected, with baby after baby whose needs are all endless and unavoidable, with a life in the North that doesn't live up to her dreams. Hers is a life of unending sacrifice and dreariness, which in turn affects each of her children in different ways, as we see in each interconnected story. But all of them suffer from a lack of maternal love; she has no time or inclination to love them in the ways they need because she is too busy trying to survive. Life has failed and disappointed her and she fails and disappoints each of them, too. In the end, as an old woman, she realizes where her failings lie, and she is powerless to change any of them. I found this book powerfully sad; while the writing is very evocative, it is pervaded by a sense of hopelessness. But even so, Hattie's tribes persist and survive.
Open-ended, yet the story seems complete.
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is a story of family, promise and generational habits. It begins during The Great Migration in 1923 when Hattie flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia. The young fifteen-year-old marries August and begins a life, she hopes, to be better. Two years later, they start a family, with the firstborns being named Philadelphia and Jubilee. "...names of promise and of hope, reaching-forward names, not looking back ones." Unfortunately, the first of many tragedies strike. Hattie watches helplessly as her seven-month-old twins died in the order they were born: first Philadelphia, then Jubilee.
Hattie gives birth to nine more children and raises them with not an ounce of tenderness. Hattie's parenting style is to prepare her children for the harsh difficult world. Life is not kind, so why should she be kind? The next chapters focus on Floyd, Six, Ruthie, Ella, Alice, Billups, Franklin, Bell and Cassie. The last tribe is Sala, Hattie's granddaughter. We can only hope that by now, Hattie gets it and will show tenderness.
Full review on www.literarymarie.com
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is a story of family, promise and generational habits. It begins during The Great Migration in 1923 when Hattie flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia. The young fifteen-year-old marries August and begins a life, she hopes, to be better. Two years later, they start a family, with the firstborns being named Philadelphia and Jubilee. "...names of promise and of hope, reaching-forward names, not looking back ones." Unfortunately, the first of many tragedies strike. Hattie watches helplessly as her seven-month-old twins died in the order they were born: first Philadelphia, then Jubilee.
Hattie gives birth to nine more children and raises them with not an ounce of tenderness. Hattie's parenting style is to prepare her children for the harsh difficult world. Life is not kind, so why should she be kind? The next chapters focus on Floyd, Six, Ruthie, Ella, Alice, Billups, Franklin, Bell and Cassie. The last tribe is Sala, Hattie's granddaughter. We can only hope that by now, Hattie gets it and will show tenderness.
Full review on www.literarymarie.com
First let me say, the audiobook performance was amazing. The story itself is engrossing but imperfect. Mathis falls into melodrama and strains the credulity of the reader with the sheer amount of tragedy that befalls one woman. I also felt like Mathis relied too heavily on the quasi-short story format to mask some of the problems in character development. Despite this I was drawn into the story and the life of Hattie and her children.
I loved the writing. It reminded me of Olive Kittridge in that each chapter is about a different child of Hattie's. But unlike Olive Kittridge which tells a larger story of Olive, this doesn't tell a larger story of Hattie or her tribes. Like many of the reviewers on Good Reads - I was hoping for more connectivity between the stories / characters and more into the Twelve Tribes concept and The Great Migration. I did enjoy reading the book as the writing is really strong - I just want something more. Something that makes me long to get home from work to read and be with the characters - something...
Character development was lacking - very powerful ending if you didn't fall asleep in the middle
I grabbed this one because of Oprah...I mean, she typically has good taste in novels -- though I don't always LOVE them like she does.
I didn't know much about this one going into it (I have a bad habit of NOT reading a book's description, I just dive in), so I didn't have any kind of expectation other than Oprah liked it. I did expect it to have some kind of story and that it lacked. It's more connected stories about Hattie and her children than the typical family saga. There's no action that drives the story forward. You get glimpses into Hattie's family over many decades and I enjoyed that aspect much more in the early chapters, but wanted a bit more of a story later on. By the later chapters everything just became more sad...but it started pretty sad so I guess I shouldn't have expected any kind of glimpse of hope.
It was a good read, well-written, but not oh-my-goodness brilliant.
I didn't know much about this one going into it (I have a bad habit of NOT reading a book's description, I just dive in), so I didn't have any kind of expectation other than Oprah liked it. I did expect it to have some kind of story and that it lacked. It's more connected stories about Hattie and her children than the typical family saga. There's no action that drives the story forward. You get glimpses into Hattie's family over many decades and I enjoyed that aspect much more in the early chapters, but wanted a bit more of a story later on. By the later chapters everything just became more sad...but it started pretty sad so I guess I shouldn't have expected any kind of glimpse of hope.
It was a good read, well-written, but not oh-my-goodness brilliant.