A review by cjwitch
Mother Country by Etaf Rum

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A beautiful and powerful story a young Palestinian American woman writes to her mother, confronting the shame and fear that she learned in childhood and how she came to understand her mother through her own experiences with marriage and motherhood. This story is about a woman trying to live a better life than her mother was able to live, and to be a better mother to her children so that her children could live a better life in turn. It's about trauma and courage and striving to forever do better by the next generation. 

This was heavy and sad, as the unnamed narrator first runs from and then confronts the traumas that had been passed down to her, but by the end there was a note of hope and love finally understood.
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