Scan barcode
A review by carlwhite
My Grandmother's Braid by Alina Bronsky
2.0
I just really didn't get on with this at all. I appreciate what it's trying to do - create a caricature (the grandmother) to show how generational and familial trauma spreads out in all directions - but I just found the book itself hard to read.
The first half is a slog: it is *relentless* in the grandmother's verbal abuse of Maxi, our first-person child narrator. It's exhausting. The second half is a bit more interesting (and is why this is two stars rather than one) as Maxi develops more autonomy, but I found the book's attempts to make us pity or sympathise with the grandmother towards the end incredibly annoying - even borderline insulting to me as a reader. She's irredeemable, and the book tries to trick you into thinking that she is.
Not a horrible book by any means, just...hard work.
The first half is a slog: it is *relentless* in the grandmother's verbal abuse of Maxi, our first-person child narrator. It's exhausting. The second half is a bit more interesting (and is why this is two stars rather than one) as Maxi develops more autonomy, but I found the book's attempts to make us pity or sympathise with the grandmother towards the end incredibly annoying - even borderline insulting to me as a reader. She's irredeemable, and the book tries to trick you into thinking that she is.
Not a horrible book by any means, just...hard work.