Reviews

Like you fell off your island and there was no one there to catch you…

Yvonne Bailey-Smith debut novel follows the life of Erna Mullings from her life growing up on Jamaica and leaving to go England to live with her mother. Erna Mullings spends majority of her life growing up in rural Jamaica with her grandmother, grandfather and her four siblings. Her mother decided to leave her children back in Jamaica so she could go make a better life for them in England and then send for them… I know, you’ve read this story before, right? (Spoiler alert: you haven’t!)

Being the eldest means Erna basically helps her Grandmother and Grandfather in raising her siblings. She’s got to focus on school and being a part time mother to her siblings. One day her siblings are suddenly taken away by their father and Erna is left with her grandparents who are getting older and slower with each year. Erna does not have a relationship with her mother or her father but after the sudden death of her grandmother she is sent to England to be reunited with her siblings and her mother. Nothing could prepare Erna for being in a new country, being around a mother who never showed her warmth and reunited with her siblings who don’t really remembers her. Erna must now take the mother role again… but how will that change with her being in England?

First let me say, this is a very engaging read once you get pass the first 3 chapters. I felt the opening wasn’t as strong as it could but it really picked up. With that said, I also feel like the book could have been 50-70 pages shorter. At some points the book felt overly written and I found myself going… MOVE IT ALONG!!!! Outside of that, Erna is a character you cheer for from beginning to end. You want her to win!

I felt the author did such a beautiful job of capturing Granddaughter and Grandmother relationships and she truly made me miss my Granny. I felt she had a strong grasp of the Grandmother and Erna as a character and she executed flawlessly. This book is for anyone who maintains a great relationship with her Grandmother and love seeing it on the pages.

This is a coming of age, we meet Erna from she is nine or then and the story goes into her late twenties. So much happens within that time, her grandmother dies, she leaves the only home she’s ever known, she lives with a mother she’s got no connection to, and she finds out her father raped her mother and that’s how she was born. Yes! So much trauma is there… so much!

One of my biggest peeves was how the mother’s rape was glossed over. It actually infuriated me. I also felt the author didn’t explore with any tenderness or nuance what is like for Erna to find out about the rape and then meet her father who have about 30 children… I mean… what?

I know it sounds like I didn’t enjoy the book… I did. I also will read what the author writes next. I just wish she had a stronger editor who would have pinpoint areas that needed to be explored more or maybe even left out…

Overall a very solid debut novel, yes, its got a lot of issues but I know I will not forget Erna for now.

jenelles's review against another edition

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4.0

I absolutely enjoyed it, I loved how much I cling to Erna and I felt her pain with the loss of Melba (grandmother) and I understood why she had to go back to Sippa before he passed and I just felt like it was so ironic that again she was at her father’s house when her grandfather was about to transition.

The sun-stories of Violet, Patsy and Delphine broke my heart so much and it’s always so interesting to me how mental health was dealt with in the earlier years vs. now (not much has changed tbh) we still don’t take it as seriously as we should.

Overall: A solid read and I enjoyed every bit of it.