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philippakmoore's review against another edition
5.0
This is a wonderful book - lyrical, tender and deeply moving. I was absolutely spellbound by it. Poetic, compelling, heartbreaking yet hopeful, it’s beautifully written and I am quite in awe of Victoria Bennett’s strength and resilience, and her determination to create something beautiful out of life’s inevitable grief and harshness. And her young son sounds like the most adorable, wise little boy.
Each chapter is named for a wild plant, or medicinal weed, its stories and healing properties, and then what follows is a recollection from Bennett's life, either in the present where she, her husband and son are trying to make a wild apothecary garden in the yard of their council estate house and having to manage her son's diabetes, the prejudice and bureaucracy one has to endure when one is dependent on the welfare system, and her elderly mother's recent terminal diagnosis; or at various points in the past where Bennett reflects on loves, losses and times of change and growth that were the seeds of the life she is now living. "In the broken ground of grief, I just wanted to see what could grow," she says in her author's note.
There are so many wonderful sentences and images in this book. These are a few of my favourites:
"Plant the seed. Find the small thing worth the gift of your hope. Whatever else comes, trust that it will grow, even if you do not see it flower."
"Life and death have no balance sheet, or fair-promise to keep. It is not luck, good or bad. It is as simple as this: sometimes, terrible things happen."
"In this one act, he has learnt that society has one rule for those who have wealth, and another those who do not."
"I did not know where I could belong. In that lonely space, I dared to ask the question: what if the thing that makes us a weed in someone else's perfect garden is the very gift that makes us shine?"
All My Wild Mothers is a deeply moving meditation on what it means to be resilient in a world that can be very unfair and what it means to carve out a space for beauty and cultivate a love of and reverence for nature when we live in a world that is all about "progress", wealth accumulation, regulations and profits.
I cannot recommend this book more highly to everyone but particularly to gardeners, mothers, poets, nature lovers and to those seeking a gentler yet wilder path.
Thank you to the author, Two Roads/John Murray Press and Netgalley for an ARC.
Each chapter is named for a wild plant, or medicinal weed, its stories and healing properties, and then what follows is a recollection from Bennett's life, either in the present where she, her husband and son are trying to make a wild apothecary garden in the yard of their council estate house and having to manage her son's diabetes, the prejudice and bureaucracy one has to endure when one is dependent on the welfare system, and her elderly mother's recent terminal diagnosis; or at various points in the past where Bennett reflects on loves, losses and times of change and growth that were the seeds of the life she is now living. "In the broken ground of grief, I just wanted to see what could grow," she says in her author's note.
There are so many wonderful sentences and images in this book. These are a few of my favourites:
"Plant the seed. Find the small thing worth the gift of your hope. Whatever else comes, trust that it will grow, even if you do not see it flower."
"Life and death have no balance sheet, or fair-promise to keep. It is not luck, good or bad. It is as simple as this: sometimes, terrible things happen."
"In this one act, he has learnt that society has one rule for those who have wealth, and another those who do not."
"I did not know where I could belong. In that lonely space, I dared to ask the question: what if the thing that makes us a weed in someone else's perfect garden is the very gift that makes us shine?"
All My Wild Mothers is a deeply moving meditation on what it means to be resilient in a world that can be very unfair and what it means to carve out a space for beauty and cultivate a love of and reverence for nature when we live in a world that is all about "progress", wealth accumulation, regulations and profits.
I cannot recommend this book more highly to everyone but particularly to gardeners, mothers, poets, nature lovers and to those seeking a gentler yet wilder path.
Thank you to the author, Two Roads/John Murray Press and Netgalley for an ARC.
cazxxx's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.0
carlat22's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.0
Beautifully written. A lot of this book will stay with me, but I didn't find it an easy read as there was so much pain and grief throughout. The author's son, as a small boy, shone in the book.
mimster's review against another edition
4.25
Excellent - I read it from the library but will buy my own to lend…
kizzia's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
This memoir is at once hard and heart-breaking, beautiful and uplifting. The way the chapters were each prefaced by a specific plant, with folklore and herblore and a special resinance with the part of Victoria’s story that followed was an absolutely fantastic way to structure the book. I found in these pages life lessons that I, too, had received (in different ways) some I’d learnt, some I was learning and some that I hadn’t recognised until I saw them here. It was moving and heartfelt and contained such strong spirit of place and people that there were parts I felt in my soul as I read.
It left me with a sense of wonder, of magic, and of sisterhood that I hadn’t thought possible to get from paper and ink and it is another book that I know I will be returning to again and again. I also really appreciated the list of books in the back, offering a place to start your own apothecary library should you have been inspired to do so.
It left me with a sense of wonder, of magic, and of sisterhood that I hadn’t thought possible to get from paper and ink and it is another book that I know I will be returning to again and again. I also really appreciated the list of books in the back, offering a place to start your own apothecary library should you have been inspired to do so.
ema11's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
This book is one of those books that will stay will be long after the last page has been turned. At times it is incredibly sad, and explores challenging stories of grief and heartbreak. But Bennett constantly weaves light into the dark, joy into the grief and finds new life when all seems lost. This book is about creating a wild apothecary garden, witches, magic and nature, but I also felt myself connecting to the deeper themes of motherhood, resilience and growth. Bennett shows us that while there is no perfect happy life, if we plant and nurture the seeds we do have, we can be rewarded by the process and the harvest.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Miscarriage, and Grief
Moderate: Sexual assault, Classism, and Medical content
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