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mmmbooqz's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
There’s an amount of trauma in this that is beautifully written, true, and painfully inescapable.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Rape, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, and Suicidal thoughts
midnightmarauder's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
The Women of Brewster Place highlights the stories of many different women who come together unintentionally due to their shared grief over the things they've gone through in their lives.
There's Mattie Michael: a woman who had a baby out of wedlock and thought she could raise him well on love alone. He ends upkilling a man in a bar, forcing Mattie to put up her house as collateral for his bail, and he jumps bail, leaving her high and dry.
Then Etta Mae Johnson: Mattie's best friend who has only ever known how touse a man for all he's got, and when he can't give her anymore, he's gone. She soon realizes that living this type of life causes her pain; no matter how hard she tries to ignore that fact.
Following, Kiswana: a radical woman who fully embraces her black heritage and moves to Brewster Place for the purpose of finding the community she feels she lacked growing up.
Cora Lee: a lover of babies since childhood, whose obsession gets a bit too large and causes her tohave eight children by the end of the book .
And finally, Theresa and Lorraine: a lesbian couple who often fight about whether or not they're different from everyone else, solely on the count of their sexuality.
All of these women come from backgrounds that are not nearly similar to each other. But, they all come to Brewster Place to run, essentially, from the issues of their past. It is seen as a clean slate from the beatings, trauma, and pain that they experienced in those times.
Each story fits together like a puzzle piece as you read along, and I personally found myself captivated by these women's strengths. It gives a reminder that pain can often bring people together, and that isn't always in a bad way.
There's Mattie Michael: a woman who had a baby out of wedlock and thought she could raise him well on love alone. He ends up
Then Etta Mae Johnson: Mattie's best friend who has only ever known how to
Following, Kiswana: a radical woman who fully embraces her black heritage and moves to Brewster Place for the purpose of finding the community she feels she lacked growing up.
Cora Lee: a lover of babies since childhood, whose obsession gets a bit too large and causes her to
And finally, Theresa and Lorraine: a lesbian couple who often fight about whether or not they're different from everyone else, solely on the count of their sexuality.
All of these women come from backgrounds that are not nearly similar to each other. But, they all come to Brewster Place to run, essentially, from the issues of their past. It is seen as a clean slate from the beatings, trauma, and pain that they experienced in those times.
Each story fits together like a puzzle piece as you read along, and I personally found myself captivated by these women's strengths. It gives a reminder that pain can often bring people together, and that isn't always in a bad way.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Rape, Addiction, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Alcoholism, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Grief, and Lesbophobia
Moderate: Physical abuse
Minor: Vomit, Death of parent, Abortion, Child death, and Religious bigotry
isaarusilor's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Violence, Rape, Sexual assault, and Racism
Moderate: Sexism, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia
stayshomeandreads's review against another edition
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Homophobia, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Child death and Abortion
tictactoney's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
Gorgeous writing. The first story - Mattie's - was hands down my favorite.
The ending is hard. It hurts. Characters are growing and the community is beginning to thrive and then....it's all horrifically violated.
The ending is hard. It hurts. Characters are growing and the community is beginning to thrive and then....it's all horrifically violated.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence
elderlingfool's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
This book tells the story of the women that live in Brewster Place, a poor black neighborhood. Each chapter tells the story of one woman and they might appear in each other’s chapters. This book is about the strength of black women and the prejudices they face, but also about friendship and solidarity among each other. I must warn that there are a lot of trashy men in this book and I got angry quite a lot.
In the first story we follow Mattie Michael, which was known as a “good girl” until she gets pregnant from her one time with a guy named Butch, known to be a womanizer, and is forced to leave her parents’ house. The story tells about Mattie’s struggles and the prejudices she faces as a single mother. This is one of the sweetest and most recurring characters in the book.
The second story is about Etta that is trying to settle down and marry, but her reputation of sleeping with every man follows her; the story of Kiswana Browne is about an heartfelt conversation with her mother where the civil rights movement is addressed and this one is probably my favorite; Ciel has to deal with a husband that keeps leaving her and coming back into her life; Cora Lee has a lot of children and her story is about her struggles raising them while facing the prejudice of other people about her situation; the last story is about Theresa and Lorraine, a lesbian couple struggling with their homophobic neighbors while trying to deal differently with the situation, which causes conflict in their relationship.
At the end there is this dreamlike chapter where there is a display of anger by all of these women. The book starts and ends with a brief description of what Brewster Place is and what it represents, which makes it look a bit magical.
The book is very well constructed and I really liked it, but the chapter of “The Two” was especially hard to read for me because of the homophobic content and the rape scene that happens in it. It was the most graphic and violent chapter and I had some trouble getting through it. I feel like all of the other women had some sort of support, but these lesbian characters are left by themselves and I am not sure how to take that.
I am still curious to try other novels by this author. Linden Hills is a place that kept being mentioned and I know that there is a book with that name so I am curious to see if some of these characters pop up in there. I will just skip “The Men of Brewster Place” since I’ve heard that that is about the perspective of the men in this novel and honestly I don’t care for it because they were terrible and there are no excuses for what they did.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence
Moderate: Rape and Homophobia
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