A review by jill_reads
The Mothers by Brit Bennett

4.0

I quite enjoyed the flighty character narration in this, where it oscillated between the perspectives of different characters without much clear delineation or reason, that was interesting and enjoyable. Also, there are these brief chunks of prose that are so searing and insightful and evocative that I couldn’t help but underline them (which I don’t normally feel compelled to do with novels)… but overall the story fell a little flat for me. As if the author lost a bit of steam by the end and couldn’t think of how to wrap things up. And I’m torn a bit, because the desire for neat and satisfying endings is directly in contrast with the reality of how life is often. So, in some ways, maybe this is realistic to life by having no particularly satisfying endings, but on the other hand it felt weird to not get final thoughts and closure from any of the characters in the end (in my opinion). I can’t help but feel as if it simply felt a bit unfinished, which was disappointing. I’d be interested to read some other books by the author, as I do think Bennett is a very talented writer, and ultimately I think the little blips of incredible writing amidst the sort of ordinary book were emotionally moving enough to bring this to 4 stars for me.