"A dazzling debut novel from an exciting new voice, The Mothers is a surprising story about young love, a big secret in a small community--and the things that ultimately haunt us most. Set within a contemporary black community in Southern California, Brit Bennett's mesmerizing first novel is an emotionally perceptive story about community, love, and ambition. It begins with a secret. "All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we'd taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season." It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting …
"A dazzling debut novel from an exciting new voice, The Mothers is a surprising story about young love, a big secret in a small community--and the things that ultimately haunt us most. Set within a contemporary black community in Southern California, Brit Bennett's mesmerizing first novel is an emotionally perceptive story about community, love, and ambition. It begins with a secret. "All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we'd taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season." It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance--and the subsequent cover-up--will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. As Nadia hides her secret from everyone, including Aubrey, her God-fearing best friend, the years move quickly. Soon, Nadia, Luke, and Aubrey are full-fledged adults and still living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully maneuver, and dogged by the constant, nagging question: What if they had chosen differently? The possibilities of the road not taken are a relentless haunt. In entrancing, lyrical prose, The Mothers asks whether a "what if" can be more powerful than an experience itself. If, as time passes, we must always live in servitude to the decisions of our younger selves, to the communities that have parented us, and to the decisions we make that shape our lives forever"--
It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken beauty. Mourning her mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. It's not serious-- until the pregnancy. As years move by, Nadia, Luke, and her friend Aubrey are living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully maneuver, and dogged by the constant, nagging question: What if they had chosen differently?
I found The Mothers after watching a Barnes and Noble Tik Tok suggesting it in a collection of books to use while processing and challenging the Dobbs decision and the fall of Roe.
Thus, when I read it, I expected a narrative that would provided an unveiled, prochoice moral. The Mothers is so much more complex than that.
Bennett's debut novel is packed with dense, textured, realistic characters that leap off the page. A complex love triangle between Nadia Turner, Luke Sheppard, and Aubrey Evans weaves in and out of a tale that does include abortion, but also features black contemporary life, religion, class, and so much more.
I loved this book for many reasons though the biggest one is that it's told from several different perspectives and that cultivated empathy with all the characters.
There was a lot that I liked about this book. I enjoyed the developing and changing relationships between Nadia, Aubrey, and Luke. The other characters in the book added a lot but didn't take over in any way. I thought the writing was very good and I loved that, unlike most mainstream books I've read, being Black was the norm and the only time the race of an individual was mentioned it was to introduce a white character. It was refreshing.
I wish the book had ended differently and I wish the narrator of the audio book had sounded more natural for the parts of Nadia and Aubrey. The dialogue in those sections was great but the narrative was stiff and the words were over-enunciated.
I certainly enjoyed the story and would even think about reading it again at some point, but with my eyes.
