A review by abbie_
The Abandoners: Of Mothers and Monsters by Begoña Gómez Urzaiz

informative reflective fast-paced

3.75

I discovered this book via NPR’s best books of 2024 list, someone put them altogether in a TSG challenge and I decided it was a great idea to join a 364-book challenge that I’ll probably never complete. But it did at least lead me to this very interesting collection of essays by Spanish author Begoña Gómez Urzaiz which all explore mothers, real and fictional, who for one reason or another, leave their children. Leaving children is something fathers do all the time and it’s an accepted part of western society. They leave to work, or they just leave full stop, and mothers raise children. The only time it’s acceptable for a mother to leave her children is when abuse is involved, and even then there remains stigma. The women in this book mostly leave their children to pursue careers or dreams, and society makes its disapproval of this choice known. It offers interesting mini bios of figures from arts, and also some interesting perspectives that I was aware of but that I never really articulated. Such as how women, even those who don’t have children, often find themselves discussing them with other women at social or work functions, while men wouldn’t generally discuss kids.

Just one of those books that challenges the way you think, particularly around internalised prejudices we may still hold around mothers.