A review by jayisreading
The Mothers by Brit Bennett

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

This was a well-written story that, unfortunately, wasn’t for me. I can recognize the great prose and themes in this novel, which I thought Bennett crafted with great care. I think it’s safe to say that I just wasn’t the target audience. I didn’t find the book dull—the main characters really spoke for themselves and had a lot going for them—but I wasn’t especially invested in what was happening either.

Something that I’ve also been trying to parse out but don’t have the words for was the discourse around abortion in this novel. I could have misinterpreted something, but I got the impression that Bennett was taking a rather critical approach to abortion that seemed to weigh down on one of the protagonists, Nadia, significantly. I don’t know if this is a result of the setting (a Black community with strong Christian affiliations), but I really wasn’t sure what to make of it.

All-in-all, an interesting enough book that I think will resonate with some (especially for those interested in books engaging with motherhood and relationships); I just wasn’t one of those people.
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