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Motherest
Marrying the sharp insights of Jenny Offill with the dark humor of Maria Semple, MOTHEREST is an inventive and moving coming-of-age novel that captures the pain of fractured family life, the heat of new love, and the particular magic of the female friendship -- all through the lens of a fraying daughter-mother bond.
It's the early 1990s, and Agnes is running out of people she can count on. A new college student, she is caught between the broken home she leaves behind and the wilderness of campus life. What she needs most is her mother, who has seemingly disappeared, and her brother, who left the family tragically a few years prior.
As Agnes falls into new romance, mines female friendships for intimacy, and struggles to find her footing, she writes letters to her mother, both to conjure a closeness they never had and to try to translate her experiences to herself. When she finds out she is pregnant, Agnes begins to contend with what it means to be a mother and, in some ways, what it means to be your own mother.
It's the early 1990s, and Agnes is running out of people she can count on. A new college student, she is caught between the broken home she leaves behind and the wilderness of campus life. What she needs most is her mother, who has seemingly disappeared, and her brother, who left the family tragically a few years prior.
As Agnes falls into new romance, mines female friendships for intimacy, and struggles to find her footing, she writes letters to her mother, both to conjure a closeness they never had and to try to translate her experiences to herself. When she finds out she is pregnant, Agnes begins to contend with what it means to be a mother and, in some ways, what it means to be your own mother.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 1, 2017
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September 6, 2017
Click here to watch a video review of this book on my channel, From Beginning to Bookend.
Agnes is a young woman haunted by the secret lives of everyone around her. Perhaps that’s because she harbors so many secrets of her own – an absent mother, a brother tragically removed from the family, and the seed of a sexual dalliance blooming in her belly. As the uncertainty of her future weighs on Agnes’ mind, she leans on her father and female friends for support, but the person she really wants is her mother. Facing the prospect of becoming a mother herself, Agnes contemplates motherhood, life, and her future through letters written to her mother.
Dear Mom,
[. . .] Lately I’ve been thinking about my whole life in terms of having grown up at the end of a cul-de-sac. I’m beginning to wonder if there’s a certain “not a thru street” psychology to my time here. Everyone seems busy planning their futures, whereas I honestly can’t even imagine tomorrow. I think I like the sense of safety that only a dead end can offer.
Motherest is structured with a unique blend of Agnes’ first-person, present tense narrative, often followed by letters Agnes writes to her mother – letters that give account of events that already transpired. With this arrangement, Iskandrian has found an epistolary sweet-spot, giving readers a fresh story with abundant showing, balanced by intimate letters comprised of telling.
Agnes’ letters act as a metaphorical confession booth in which she admits to her drunken nights and sexual longings, her observations and darkest thoughts.
It’s crazy to think that every day of life puts us closer to death. I mean, it’s life that kills us. Living is a slow suicide. Time is the pills we take, the calories we refuse to eat. Choosing to stay alive or choosing to die – in the end, the only thing that separates them is a handful of years and the questions we ask that never get answered.
In the present-tense accounts of her day-to-day life Agnes is equally insightful, conveying her pragmatism with a narrative voice that is sharp and fresh, morose yet honest.
I think about my house. Everything in it belongs to someone or is an expression of someone. So the house is everyone, all of us, but most of are no longer in it. What does that make it? A collage? A ghost?
Things don’t, as everyone is fond of saying, “happen for a reason.” What a cruel way to console someone – removing all agency while creating an elaborate game of seek-and-find for the mourner to play for the rest of her days.
Faced with difficult decisions about her body and her future, Agnes’ thoughts primarily concern motherhood: what it means to be a mother; what role(s) a mother plays in a person’s life; how being part of another’s body is something all people have in common, until the moment when each of us is cut off from the warm haven from which we were born.
All of us, for better or worse, are linked to our own mothers and to the ways we were raised. We all need to decide what we want to bring to our own mothering experiences and what we’d prefer to leave behind.
Iskandrian hits readers with a few curveballs before Agnes’ story concludes. Though Motherest is a delightful exploration of the relationship between mothers and daughters, the ending – while complete – is a little too neat and tidy.
Motherest is a promising debut from a new literary voice.
Agnes is a young woman haunted by the secret lives of everyone around her. Perhaps that’s because she harbors so many secrets of her own – an absent mother, a brother tragically removed from the family, and the seed of a sexual dalliance blooming in her belly. As the uncertainty of her future weighs on Agnes’ mind, she leans on her father and female friends for support, but the person she really wants is her mother. Facing the prospect of becoming a mother herself, Agnes contemplates motherhood, life, and her future through letters written to her mother.
Dear Mom,
[. . .] Lately I’ve been thinking about my whole life in terms of having grown up at the end of a cul-de-sac. I’m beginning to wonder if there’s a certain “not a thru street” psychology to my time here. Everyone seems busy planning their futures, whereas I honestly can’t even imagine tomorrow. I think I like the sense of safety that only a dead end can offer.
Motherest is structured with a unique blend of Agnes’ first-person, present tense narrative, often followed by letters Agnes writes to her mother – letters that give account of events that already transpired. With this arrangement, Iskandrian has found an epistolary sweet-spot, giving readers a fresh story with abundant showing, balanced by intimate letters comprised of telling.
Agnes’ letters act as a metaphorical confession booth in which she admits to her drunken nights and sexual longings, her observations and darkest thoughts.
It’s crazy to think that every day of life puts us closer to death. I mean, it’s life that kills us. Living is a slow suicide. Time is the pills we take, the calories we refuse to eat. Choosing to stay alive or choosing to die – in the end, the only thing that separates them is a handful of years and the questions we ask that never get answered.
In the present-tense accounts of her day-to-day life Agnes is equally insightful, conveying her pragmatism with a narrative voice that is sharp and fresh, morose yet honest.
I think about my house. Everything in it belongs to someone or is an expression of someone. So the house is everyone, all of us, but most of are no longer in it. What does that make it? A collage? A ghost?
Things don’t, as everyone is fond of saying, “happen for a reason.” What a cruel way to console someone – removing all agency while creating an elaborate game of seek-and-find for the mourner to play for the rest of her days.
Faced with difficult decisions about her body and her future, Agnes’ thoughts primarily concern motherhood: what it means to be a mother; what role(s) a mother plays in a person’s life; how being part of another’s body is something all people have in common, until the moment when each of us is cut off from the warm haven from which we were born.
All of us, for better or worse, are linked to our own mothers and to the ways we were raised. We all need to decide what we want to bring to our own mothering experiences and what we’d prefer to leave behind.
Iskandrian hits readers with a few curveballs before Agnes’ story concludes. Though Motherest is a delightful exploration of the relationship between mothers and daughters, the ending – while complete – is a little too neat and tidy.
Motherest is a promising debut from a new literary voice.
May 29, 2024
Motherest is an inventive and moving coming-of-age novel that captures the pain of fractured family life, the heat of new love, and the particular magic of the female friendship-all through the jagged lens of a fraying daughter-mother bond.
That is to say: very character driven with virtually no plot, just like I love ‘em.
Speaking of, here's a list of things that enraptured me about this forthcoming novel:
• it involves, to quote the author, mothers and daughters, letters and visions, and a sort of steady stream of existential despair. (Aka my favorite things.)
• each chapter was ended with a letter addressed to her mom. And since the chapters are quite short, it made for a swift read.
• deadpan delivery. I laughed out loud more than I was anticipating, which was an entirely welcoming feeling.
“Mary”—she speaks more loudly now—“you remember what Uncle Bill’s idea of a good time was, don’t you? Bill being my husband,” she addresses the room. “Excuse me, my dead husband. Thirty minutes on the toilet with a Q-tip in each ear. May he rest in peace.”
Aunt Teeny was something else...
• specific as hell writing style that captures those perfect little moments.
Take for instance this next exchange between Agnes and her college roommate, Surprise (yes, that's really her name):
“Surprise asked me, “Is it okay if we don’t talk in the morning? Like not even ‘hey’ or ‘have a good day’?” Then she told me a story about how her dad used to drive her to school, and he’d have on talk radio, and he’d ask her little questions, and one day she sort of blew up, snapped off the radio, and told him that she wasn’t awake yet, and she just wanted it to be quiet. They drove in silence for the next two years, but she said she felt so guilt-ridden that they might as well have been talking. “It was so loud inside my head, you know?”
I love how real this novel feels. Like, I can actually picture this scene (and many others) so vividly in head.
Or this little moment with a crush that is #relatable:
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
I keep walking. He slows down a little as if to chat, and I move faster. I want to turn around so badly that walking feels like pushing through the heaviest revolving door in the world, but I keep going.”
I'm impressed with the specificity.
• superb characterization for the main character. From lonely, morbid and frightened eighteen-year-old to independent, loving and loved nineteen-year-old.
• it's a quiet kind of novel that tackles issues such as abandonment, sibling relationships, suicide, anorexia (briefly), fierce and easy female friendships, pregnancy scares, sexism, motherhood, and so much more.
• Oh, and it's important to note that this is set around the year 1994, which I didn't realize until I was halfway through.
But what seems to happen almost regularly with character-driven novels for me is that my interest begins to wane the more we get into the story. And for the life of me I cannot guess why. It's not as if something drastically changed or someone new got introduced that I didn't like... But I just seemed to slowly but steadily lose my focus while reading the first 100 pages. Maybe it didn't help that this book didn't have an foreseeable plot, so my interest depended a lot on the characters. And with Agnes not being the best at captivating my attention after about a 100 pages into it, I was left lost at what to do.
In the end, I was sucked back into this story when something unexpected happened to the main character. It was fascinating for me to, in a sense, join Agnes on such a personal journey. Also, since I hadn't read about the aforementioned topic (desperately trying to avoid spoilers here) being discussed so openly, thoroughly and intimately in a novel before, it made for an even more compelling. I genuinely felt like I was right there holding her hand while spouting encouraging things. This kid needed a mom friend in her life asap.
“I want a friend. I miss everyone I’ve ever known. I miss Tea Rose and Surprise and Joan. I miss that part of my life that happened not so long ago but that already feels ancient, older than my childhood, and I do miss my childhood also, or at least the childhood co-created by my memory. I want someone who will always stay and never die and never leave and never turn into a ghost.”
So I was damn grateful when Agnes found the right support system for her.
“Maybe this is how groups like this work. You feel better about yourself because other people’s problems seem worse. You stop thinking, for a few minutes, about your own shit, because someone else’s is more lurid, more interesting. Maybe the expectation isn’t healing, but rather gaining perspective. Your problems don’t get solved. They get placed.”
Not only support groups, books and tv shows too. I find it intoxicating when I get caught up on other people’s problems and forget about my own.
All I can say is that with having watched the newestGrey's Anatomy episode (which consequently became my all time favorite episode -13X10), I was loving this part of the book even more.
And I would also go out and say that this book was a revelation for me. I was expecting it to go one way and when it didn't, I was pleasantly taken by surprise. Motherest ended up being such a meaningful and emotional read. And I'm eternally grateful that it didn't go down the road I had paved in my head. Instead, the journey it did take, full of ups and down, made me feel genuinely proud of having “known” Agnes. Getting to see her coming of age and dealing with whatever life threw her way, left me feeling like a proud mother watching her baby take their first steps.
“How can mothers not feel superhuman?”
This novel is also achingly real. I felt everything the main character went through. The angst and tears and betrayal and hope... I went through it all. And I applaud the author for creating such a realistic atmosphere. It's been a hot minute since I've been this engrossed with a novel, but it's almost impossible not to think of it every waking minute. So now I'm more than eager for any forthcoming works by Kristen Iskandrian.
P.S. I cried, hard but quietly at that ending; the last sentence.
However, with all the many, many positives, I do want to mention that I had issues with the way the ending was so rapidly concluded and left with a few loose ends.
ARC kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication: August 1st 2017
Note: I'm an Amazon Affiliate. If you're interested in buying Motherest, just click on the image below to go through my link. I'll make a small commission!
Support creators you love. Buy a Coffee for nat (bookspoils) with Ko-fi.com/bookspoils
That is to say: very character driven with virtually no plot, just like I love ‘em.
Speaking of, here's a list of things that enraptured me about this forthcoming novel:
• it involves, to quote the author, mothers and daughters, letters and visions, and a sort of steady stream of existential despair. (Aka my favorite things.)
• each chapter was ended with a letter addressed to her mom. And since the chapters are quite short, it made for a swift read.
• deadpan delivery. I laughed out loud more than I was anticipating, which was an entirely welcoming feeling.
“Mary”—she speaks more loudly now—“you remember what Uncle Bill’s idea of a good time was, don’t you? Bill being my husband,” she addresses the room. “Excuse me, my dead husband. Thirty minutes on the toilet with a Q-tip in each ear. May he rest in peace.”
Aunt Teeny was something else...
• specific as hell writing style that captures those perfect little moments.
Take for instance this next exchange between Agnes and her college roommate, Surprise (yes, that's really her name):
“Surprise asked me, “Is it okay if we don’t talk in the morning? Like not even ‘hey’ or ‘have a good day’?” Then she told me a story about how her dad used to drive her to school, and he’d have on talk radio, and he’d ask her little questions, and one day she sort of blew up, snapped off the radio, and told him that she wasn’t awake yet, and she just wanted it to be quiet. They drove in silence for the next two years, but she said she felt so guilt-ridden that they might as well have been talking. “It was so loud inside my head, you know?”
I love how real this novel feels. Like, I can actually picture this scene (and many others) so vividly in head.
Or this little moment with a crush that is #relatable:
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
I keep walking. He slows down a little as if to chat, and I move faster. I want to turn around so badly that walking feels like pushing through the heaviest revolving door in the world, but I keep going.”
I'm impressed with the specificity.
• superb characterization for the main character. From lonely, morbid and frightened eighteen-year-old to independent, loving and loved nineteen-year-old.
• it's a quiet kind of novel that tackles issues such as abandonment, sibling relationships, suicide, anorexia (briefly), fierce and easy female friendships, pregnancy scares, sexism, motherhood, and so much more.
• Oh, and it's important to note that this is set around the year 1994, which I didn't realize until I was halfway through.
But what seems to happen almost regularly with character-driven novels for me is that my interest begins to wane the more we get into the story. And for the life of me I cannot guess why. It's not as if something drastically changed or someone new got introduced that I didn't like... But I just seemed to slowly but steadily lose my focus while reading the first 100 pages. Maybe it didn't help that this book didn't have an foreseeable plot, so my interest depended a lot on the characters. And with Agnes not being the best at captivating my attention after about a 100 pages into it, I was left lost at what to do.
In the end, I was sucked back into this story when something unexpected happened to the main character. It was fascinating for me to, in a sense, join Agnes on such a personal journey. Also, since I hadn't read about the aforementioned topic (desperately trying to avoid spoilers here) being discussed so openly, thoroughly and intimately in a novel before, it made for an even more compelling. I genuinely felt like I was right there holding her hand while spouting encouraging things. This kid needed a mom friend in her life asap.
“I want a friend. I miss everyone I’ve ever known. I miss Tea Rose and Surprise and Joan. I miss that part of my life that happened not so long ago but that already feels ancient, older than my childhood, and I do miss my childhood also, or at least the childhood co-created by my memory. I want someone who will always stay and never die and never leave and never turn into a ghost.”
So I was damn grateful when Agnes found the right support system for her.
“Maybe this is how groups like this work. You feel better about yourself because other people’s problems seem worse. You stop thinking, for a few minutes, about your own shit, because someone else’s is more lurid, more interesting. Maybe the expectation isn’t healing, but rather gaining perspective. Your problems don’t get solved. They get placed.”
Not only support groups, books and tv shows too. I find it intoxicating when I get caught up on other people’s problems and forget about my own.
All I can say is that with having watched the newestGrey's Anatomy episode (which consequently became my all time favorite episode -13X10), I was loving this part of the book even more.
And I would also go out and say that this book was a revelation for me. I was expecting it to go one way and when it didn't, I was pleasantly taken by surprise. Motherest ended up being such a meaningful and emotional read. And I'm eternally grateful that it didn't go down the road I had paved in my head. Instead, the journey it did take, full of ups and down, made me feel genuinely proud of having “known” Agnes. Getting to see her coming of age and dealing with whatever life threw her way, left me feeling like a proud mother watching her baby take their first steps.
“How can mothers not feel superhuman?”
This novel is also achingly real. I felt everything the main character went through. The angst and tears and betrayal and hope... I went through it all. And I applaud the author for creating such a realistic atmosphere. It's been a hot minute since I've been this engrossed with a novel, but it's almost impossible not to think of it every waking minute. So now I'm more than eager for any forthcoming works by Kristen Iskandrian.
P.S. I cried, hard but quietly at that ending; the last sentence.
However, with all the many, many positives, I do want to mention that I had issues with the way the ending was so rapidly concluded and left with a few loose ends.
ARC kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication: August 1st 2017
Note: I'm an Amazon Affiliate. If you're interested in buying Motherest, just click on the image below to go through my link. I'll make a small commission!
Support creators you love. Buy a Coffee for nat (bookspoils) with Ko-fi.com/bookspoils
August 12, 2021
Though it is a little slow moving, Motherest is also an impressive debut, that quietly considers motherhood, what it means to be a parent, and also what it means to be a child becoming an adult. This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking book, even if the plot is actually very simple. I felt it really highlighted that, in many ways, the small things in life, really are the big things. It reminded me a little of Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt, which was exceptional. I look forward to seeing what Kristen Iskandrian comes up with next!
Find my book reviews and more at http://www.princessandpen.com
Find my book reviews and more at http://www.princessandpen.com
September 6, 2017
***3 STARS***
I didn't see that one coming.
The title, the cover, the blurb and everything thing else I saw about this book didn't prepare for what I read. It was so much more than I ever imagined.
This book opens up your eyes to how a teenage girl sees herself and how her mother's presence and absence defines her in her everyday life.
Angus is a beautiful and talented eighteen year old girl who is set off on a journey into a new life as a freshman in college. Angus is also broken and is trying her best to put herself back together enough to function in day to day life.
The author captivates the reader in a series of present time experiences, journal entries and letters to tell the story of Angus. Angus broke my heart. Her shear lack of self-worth was so difficult to read without crying. She reminded me of so many girls today who come from broken homes and can't seem to figure out how they are to go about and conquer life.
This is a beautiful coming of age story that I recommend for any person who may question their place in the world. I recommend this story for those who just need an example of how to grew and heal after being knocked down for so long.
I didn't see that one coming.
The title, the cover, the blurb and everything thing else I saw about this book didn't prepare for what I read. It was so much more than I ever imagined.
This book opens up your eyes to how a teenage girl sees herself and how her mother's presence and absence defines her in her everyday life.
Angus is a beautiful and talented eighteen year old girl who is set off on a journey into a new life as a freshman in college. Angus is also broken and is trying her best to put herself back together enough to function in day to day life.
The author captivates the reader in a series of present time experiences, journal entries and letters to tell the story of Angus. Angus broke my heart. Her shear lack of self-worth was so difficult to read without crying. She reminded me of so many girls today who come from broken homes and can't seem to figure out how they are to go about and conquer life.
This is a beautiful coming of age story that I recommend for any person who may question their place in the world. I recommend this story for those who just need an example of how to grew and heal after being knocked down for so long.
July 6, 2017
via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
'My mother caught me rummaging in her nightstand, she said, You must never look in there again. She said, Certain things are private. Do you know what private means? I did, but I told her I didn’t, which was maybe what my version of private meant. From then on I understood my mother to be private, in how she kept herself to herself, and in how, in my mind, she belonged only to me.'
This novel is beautiful and my heart sank over and over. The expectations of motherhood, the needs of children, the dysfunction of so many homes- that alien feeling Agnes feels away at college trying to be like those other peppy, sunny girls, the ones likely from loving fun families. It is the 1990’s, Agnes mother has disappeared, but where… just up and went away like a bird, goodbye. Agnes pens letters to her throughout the novel, first at college when she should have a mother to confide in but is stuck with only letters she has nowhere to send then later when she is pregnant. Her ‘unavailable mother’, leaving her an empty gaping wound, feeling sorry for her father sadly waiting all alone in an empty house, feeling half resentful of his sorrow and responsible for him. But she cannot go home, to that vacuum of silence, the place where all that’s felt is absence of the two other people who should be there. First her brother left the family, and in many ways it feels mysterious, why? Why and how? How to understand it? How it was the start of the ruin of her family and the door opening for her mother to leave as well.
Despite the punishing feeling of the disappearance, Agnes goes to classes, and finds love. This is such a sad family story, beautifully written, I highlighted so many passages. Agnes is so very lost and has nothing to hold her up, just herself. Love isn’t always salvation, but the young need it so badly when they’re adrift, as anchor. “I guess the body is a ruinous place or it is a comfort. I go to Tea Rose like going to church, or therapy, or the ocean, and I just surrender there, floating, bobbing. Is this love, or is this oblivion, or are they the same thing.” But love is fickle, Tea Rose is young, can he be expected to be present when everyone else has left? Agnes is cracking, slipping, the past can’t be purged regardless of where you go, it shadows every happy moment. She meets Joan, a refuge of sorts from the campus, from her budding and waning love. But she knows, “Ruin doesn’t ask permission.” While she’d love to have a taste of Joan’s life, a baby complicates everything.
When she gets pregnant she keeps it to herself for a while, even from the only person truly left she can run to, her father. She can’t stay in college if she keeps it, but she can’t go home, she can’t go back to that end point. What other choice is there? As she is without a mother, when she needs one most, she learns to take care of herself, and the baby inside of her. It’s time to let go, to stop crying out for her mother, stop thinking about Tea Rose, and create a new life. It’s not long before she will have a child in her arms, one that maybe she can create a true bond with, rather than a pitiful, fantasy of a relationship she has through letters with her own. But she is going to slip, she is going to sink before she can find her inner strength.
It’s a difficult book to write a review for because it’s an internal journey into Agnes’s life, mind, and pain. I devoured this, it’s more literary fiction to me, and I loved it. I think there are moments in all mother/daughter relationships where you’re left out, or absent yourself. Not to this extreme, but still. Being a mother is a blessing but terrifying too, more so if you haven’t had that warm closeness with your own. It is too easy to fail, how do you know how to mother if all you can see is how not to be? If your example was cold distance, walls that can’t be breached and worse, the boy you loved isn’t available either… well this is one complicated mess.
It’s a window into a different sort of college story too, not the usual finding yourself and thriving. It’s feeling different still, lost, lonely and the things you thought were amazing about yourself dulled by others that are better. It’s a raw journey for Agnes. It’s a baby story awash with a mixture of grief, fear and hope. What a novel!
Publication Date: August 1, 2017
Twelve Books
'My mother caught me rummaging in her nightstand, she said, You must never look in there again. She said, Certain things are private. Do you know what private means? I did, but I told her I didn’t, which was maybe what my version of private meant. From then on I understood my mother to be private, in how she kept herself to herself, and in how, in my mind, she belonged only to me.'
This novel is beautiful and my heart sank over and over. The expectations of motherhood, the needs of children, the dysfunction of so many homes- that alien feeling Agnes feels away at college trying to be like those other peppy, sunny girls, the ones likely from loving fun families. It is the 1990’s, Agnes mother has disappeared, but where… just up and went away like a bird, goodbye. Agnes pens letters to her throughout the novel, first at college when she should have a mother to confide in but is stuck with only letters she has nowhere to send then later when she is pregnant. Her ‘unavailable mother’, leaving her an empty gaping wound, feeling sorry for her father sadly waiting all alone in an empty house, feeling half resentful of his sorrow and responsible for him. But she cannot go home, to that vacuum of silence, the place where all that’s felt is absence of the two other people who should be there. First her brother left the family, and in many ways it feels mysterious, why? Why and how? How to understand it? How it was the start of the ruin of her family and the door opening for her mother to leave as well.
Despite the punishing feeling of the disappearance, Agnes goes to classes, and finds love. This is such a sad family story, beautifully written, I highlighted so many passages. Agnes is so very lost and has nothing to hold her up, just herself. Love isn’t always salvation, but the young need it so badly when they’re adrift, as anchor. “I guess the body is a ruinous place or it is a comfort. I go to Tea Rose like going to church, or therapy, or the ocean, and I just surrender there, floating, bobbing. Is this love, or is this oblivion, or are they the same thing.” But love is fickle, Tea Rose is young, can he be expected to be present when everyone else has left? Agnes is cracking, slipping, the past can’t be purged regardless of where you go, it shadows every happy moment. She meets Joan, a refuge of sorts from the campus, from her budding and waning love. But she knows, “Ruin doesn’t ask permission.” While she’d love to have a taste of Joan’s life, a baby complicates everything.
When she gets pregnant she keeps it to herself for a while, even from the only person truly left she can run to, her father. She can’t stay in college if she keeps it, but she can’t go home, she can’t go back to that end point. What other choice is there? As she is without a mother, when she needs one most, she learns to take care of herself, and the baby inside of her. It’s time to let go, to stop crying out for her mother, stop thinking about Tea Rose, and create a new life. It’s not long before she will have a child in her arms, one that maybe she can create a true bond with, rather than a pitiful, fantasy of a relationship she has through letters with her own. But she is going to slip, she is going to sink before she can find her inner strength.
It’s a difficult book to write a review for because it’s an internal journey into Agnes’s life, mind, and pain. I devoured this, it’s more literary fiction to me, and I loved it. I think there are moments in all mother/daughter relationships where you’re left out, or absent yourself. Not to this extreme, but still. Being a mother is a blessing but terrifying too, more so if you haven’t had that warm closeness with your own. It is too easy to fail, how do you know how to mother if all you can see is how not to be? If your example was cold distance, walls that can’t be breached and worse, the boy you loved isn’t available either… well this is one complicated mess.
It’s a window into a different sort of college story too, not the usual finding yourself and thriving. It’s feeling different still, lost, lonely and the things you thought were amazing about yourself dulled by others that are better. It’s a raw journey for Agnes. It’s a baby story awash with a mixture of grief, fear and hope. What a novel!
Publication Date: August 1, 2017
Twelve Books
June 24, 2019
I finished this novel a week ago, and I can't get it out of my mind. I can't believe this is a debut novel. Kristen Iskandrian made feel so many different emotions. Agnes (the protagonist) is such a gentle and complicated soul. I just loved her. You can feel her ache for her mother who disappeared after she started college. I loved reading about her conflicted relationship with her dead brother, Simon. I really liked Agnes' dad. He was like a HUGE gaping wound, but he was sweet, too. Not enough people have read or written reviews for this incredible novel. "Motherest" takes place in the early '90s. My favorite decade! I highly recommend it. Enjoy!
January 20, 2018
I have no intention of writing a novel for adults but if I did this would be the book I would be attempting to write. I love quirky-voiced narrators, books set in universities in the 90s and the epistolary form and this has all three! And what I love most of all is books that explore loneliness and mother-daughter relationships and this is one of the best of them. I feel like Iskandrian wrote this book just for me.
August 12, 2017
4 out of 5 stars.
“I want a friend. I miss everyone I’ve ever known. I miss Tea Rose and Surprise and Joan. I miss that part of my life that happened not so long ago but that already feels ancient, older than my childhood, and I do miss my childhood also, or at least the childhood co-created by my memory. I want someone who will always stay and never die and never leave and never turn into a ghost.”
I'm definitely surprised by Motherest. It was an impulse buy, simply because I liked the cover, and thought the blurb seemed fairly interesting. However, I got a lot more than I bargained for and this ended up being an excellent read.
Motherest is a coming-of-age novel that follows a girl named Agnes in the early 1990s as a new college student. Agnes finds herself torn between the home she had just left, filled with memories of her brother and the mother she never really had. Eventually, Agnes finds out she's pregnant. Continuing to write letters to her mother to try and find the closeness they never had, Agnes tries to figure out what it means to be a mother to her own child and what it meant to be your own mother.
I don't read many coming-of-age novels, but this one has set the bar pretty high. I could relate to Agnes in a lot of ways: especially the lack of relationship she had with her mother and the need for one she knows she can never have. It was amazing to see her journey in figuring out her life and who she is. Heartbreaking, but still amazing.
I have a hard time with a lot of character driven novels, mainly because I end up not liking a majority of the characters. That wasn't the case here, though. I loved all of them, especially Agnes. They were all so fleshed-out and interesting, and I managed to fly through the 288 pages in no time.
This book, and these characters, felt so real to me. I had no issues connecting with Agnes and felt her pain and heartbreak, and absolutely loved watching her grow into the person she ended up being. This book was lovely and I'm so glad I gave it a chance.
“I want a friend. I miss everyone I’ve ever known. I miss Tea Rose and Surprise and Joan. I miss that part of my life that happened not so long ago but that already feels ancient, older than my childhood, and I do miss my childhood also, or at least the childhood co-created by my memory. I want someone who will always stay and never die and never leave and never turn into a ghost.”
I'm definitely surprised by Motherest. It was an impulse buy, simply because I liked the cover, and thought the blurb seemed fairly interesting. However, I got a lot more than I bargained for and this ended up being an excellent read.
Motherest is a coming-of-age novel that follows a girl named Agnes in the early 1990s as a new college student. Agnes finds herself torn between the home she had just left, filled with memories of her brother and the mother she never really had. Eventually, Agnes finds out she's pregnant. Continuing to write letters to her mother to try and find the closeness they never had, Agnes tries to figure out what it means to be a mother to her own child and what it meant to be your own mother.
I don't read many coming-of-age novels, but this one has set the bar pretty high. I could relate to Agnes in a lot of ways: especially the lack of relationship she had with her mother and the need for one she knows she can never have. It was amazing to see her journey in figuring out her life and who she is. Heartbreaking, but still amazing.
I have a hard time with a lot of character driven novels, mainly because I end up not liking a majority of the characters. That wasn't the case here, though. I loved all of them, especially Agnes. They were all so fleshed-out and interesting, and I managed to fly through the 288 pages in no time.
This book, and these characters, felt so real to me. I had no issues connecting with Agnes and felt her pain and heartbreak, and absolutely loved watching her grow into the person she ended up being. This book was lovely and I'm so glad I gave it a chance.
October 18, 2017
1.5
This book was a good companion, it was very interesting and gave me a good laugh at first but then half way through, it became TOO slow paced and just boring. What drove me to finish the book was curiosity about what happened to the mother, unfortunately I didn't get an answer, just a vague explanation.
This book was a good companion, it was very interesting and gave me a good laugh at first but then half way through, it became TOO slow paced and just boring. What drove me to finish the book was curiosity about what happened to the mother, unfortunately I didn't get an answer, just a vague explanation.
March 20, 2017
Taut and tender, MOTHEREST one-ups the messy teenage page-turner, finding real human truths in its story of a vanished mother and a struggling daughter a source for the sourceless longing of growing up.
Read
December 16, 20173-4*s
For decidedly good reasons, nineteen- year-old Agnes is in a near constant state of crisis. The novel is very well-written, but it just wasn't where I wanted to be. For this reason, I don't think it would be fair for me to round-up or down. I might add, that not one soul was considerate enough to articulate my feelings for me, and provide me with a review to poach. Sheesh, very disheartening!!!!
For decidedly good reasons, nineteen- year-old Agnes is in a near constant state of crisis. The novel is very well-written, but it just wasn't where I wanted to be. For this reason, I don't think it would be fair for me to round-up or down. I might add, that not one soul was considerate enough to articulate my feelings for me, and provide me with a review to poach. Sheesh, very disheartening!!!!
December 28, 2017
My kinda book.
It has such a great narrative voice that the story is kinda incidental. But, in case you're interested, it's a 90s college tale that features a missing mom, a dead brother and a boyfriend called Tea Rose.
It has such a great narrative voice that the story is kinda incidental. But, in case you're interested, it's a 90s college tale that features a missing mom, a dead brother and a boyfriend called Tea Rose.
July 27, 2017
Wow. This really hit me. Review to come!!
September 23, 2017
I'm in weeping love with this book about girlhood, motherhood, grief, loneliness, love.
The book opens with Agnes, the main protagonist of the story, describing her first year of college by writing letters to her absent mother. Next, the story takes a turn while continuing to explore other aspects of womanhood, motherhood, female friendship, and family dynamics.
The tone of the book is understated but sharply perceptive, dark but sometimes wickedly funny, readable but at the same time experimental. I loved it!
The book reminded me of writing by Jenny Offill, Lydia Davis, and Brit Bennett.
The book opens with Agnes, the main protagonist of the story, describing her first year of college by writing letters to her absent mother. Next, the story takes a turn while continuing to explore other aspects of womanhood, motherhood, female friendship, and family dynamics.
The tone of the book is understated but sharply perceptive, dark but sometimes wickedly funny, readable but at the same time experimental. I loved it!
The book reminded me of writing by Jenny Offill, Lydia Davis, and Brit Bennett.
February 17, 2018
loved it! a beautifully written, intimate story about growing up, about needing a mother - and about becoming one, about an inner journey of a college girl whose mother has disappeared and who misses her and is writing letters for her.
i loved the way the story is told twice, once related, and once through letters for the absent mother - and, later, for the not-yet born baby.
a great read, wise, sad, funny... highly recommended!
i loved the way the story is told twice, once related, and once through letters for the absent mother - and, later, for the not-yet born baby.
a great read, wise, sad, funny... highly recommended!
August 18, 2017
Teen-aged girls aren't often given credit for their strength, but Iskandrian's character Agnes shows just how much resilience girls have. Her intelligence, insight, and strength of character create an almost microscopic lens that reveals the nuance of the world she inhabits. The prose is beautiful, vivid, and engaging.
September 1, 2017
Poignant and nuanced. Great voice.
October 8, 2017
I cried when I finished this book. It didn’t end how I wanted it to end, and so much was left unresolved. I wanted to hear that Agnes felt everything I did about being a new mother and that everything got better. I’m mad about how she dealt with becoming pregnant. But I also related to this so much. Having this unnerving feeling that everything is slightly off and you’re the only one that feels it. Or feeling slightly adjacent to people rather than in their world. And I wanted her relationship with her mother to be fixed. All of those concerns have to do with the characters and their very human flaws rather than the writing, character development, or plot line. I wish I could be friends with Agnes. That’s all. The end.
September 10, 2017
A story told through the eyes of Agnes. She's in college, her first year and a lot has happened to her recently. Her older brother committed suicide and a couple years later, just after she leaves for college her mother takes off.
Set in the 90's we follow Agnes as she experiences her pain of having a mother who leaves and also how she navigates growing up. Basically it sucks. It's hard.
She meets a boy though and they fall in love. The boy, nicknamed Tea Rose goes to England for the school break and when he comes back he's fallen in love with someone else.
What he doesn't know is that Agnes is pregnant.
And the story continues.
I liked it a lot in the beginning, the writing was clear and easy with the slightest hint of the protagonist being somewhat eccentric but not too much.
But something happened as the story unfolded. The ending was satisfying but a couple chapters before the ending were lacking.
But it's a debut.
I look forward to more from her. Definite promise.
Recommended for people looking for something to fill in the gap between a long awaited book.
Set in the 90's we follow Agnes as she experiences her pain of having a mother who leaves and also how she navigates growing up. Basically it sucks. It's hard.
She meets a boy though and they fall in love. The boy, nicknamed Tea Rose goes to England for the school break and when he comes back he's fallen in love with someone else.
What he doesn't know is that Agnes is pregnant.
And the story continues.
I liked it a lot in the beginning, the writing was clear and easy with the slightest hint of the protagonist being somewhat eccentric but not too much.
But something happened as the story unfolded. The ending was satisfying but a couple chapters before the ending were lacking.
But it's a debut.
I look forward to more from her. Definite promise.
Recommended for people looking for something to fill in the gap between a long awaited book.
August 21, 2017
It's almost eerie how much I could relate to here. Poignant and funny and insightful and there's nothing I would change about this one.
August 2, 2017
Dear readers,
I've never been good at closing letters, always falling off either too conventionally ("Sincerely") or in a way that betrays my (often unrequited) over-fondness for the letter's recipient (inappropriate "Love"s, "Peace"s, "Fondly"s). In Kristen Iskandrian's Motherest, nineteen-year-old Agnes writes letters to her mother, letters that describe the unique loneliness of experiencing her first year of college while knowing that the house in which she grew up is no longer inhabited by her family but instead by her father and phantoms of her newly absent mother and older brother. Agnes doesn't mail these letters. She doesn't know where her mother is. Agnes does transcribe the challenges of freshman year, her numbness and not-numbness, the secret memories it all conjures, what she needs her mother to know. Agnes finishes each letter with an apt/hilarious/heartbreaking closing, the kinds of writing that make you say "Oh!" out loud and mean every different thing that that exclamation can mean simultaneously. One of my favorites:
See what I mean??
In her debut, Iskandrian addresses motherhood/pregnancy/relationships/families/growing-up with the honesty/rawness/awe/intimacy I've only encountered in reading Jenny Offill and Maggie Nelson and in talking things over with friends. While reading her narration and letters, I've gotten Agnes's voice--her wry but warm humor and careful observations-- stuck in my head. And I'm not sad about it.
I'm learning,
Laura
I've never been good at closing letters, always falling off either too conventionally ("Sincerely") or in a way that betrays my (often unrequited) over-fondness for the letter's recipient (inappropriate "Love"s, "Peace"s, "Fondly"s). In Kristen Iskandrian's Motherest, nineteen-year-old Agnes writes letters to her mother, letters that describe the unique loneliness of experiencing her first year of college while knowing that the house in which she grew up is no longer inhabited by her family but instead by her father and phantoms of her newly absent mother and older brother. Agnes doesn't mail these letters. She doesn't know where her mother is. Agnes does transcribe the challenges of freshman year, her numbness and not-numbness, the secret memories it all conjures, what she needs her mother to know. Agnes finishes each letter with an apt/hilarious/heartbreaking closing, the kinds of writing that make you say "Oh!" out loud and mean every different thing that that exclamation can mean simultaneously. One of my favorites:
Now that I'm here [home] and you're not here, I do actually feel like I can do and not do whatever I want. And as someone who's sort of fond of consequences and punishment, you should know it's pretty torturous. Also tortuous, a word I just learned that means 'winding' or 'twisted.'
Tortuously,
Agnes (Iskandrian 45)
See what I mean??
In her debut, Iskandrian addresses motherhood/pregnancy/relationships/families/growing-up with the honesty/rawness/awe/intimacy I've only encountered in reading Jenny Offill and Maggie Nelson and in talking things over with friends. While reading her narration and letters, I've gotten Agnes's voice--her wry but warm humor and careful observations-- stuck in my head. And I'm not sad about it.
I'm learning,
Laura
July 25, 2017
A book that deals with pregnancy and maternity, and that in this regard fits into an ideal narrative strand along with Elisa Albert's After Birth, Sarah Manguso’s Ongoingness and, in a more marginal way, Jenny Offill's Dept. Of Speculation and Amelia Gray's Isadora. Here Kristen Iskandrian tries to identify the laws that rule the chemistry of human passions, what it means to be sons and daughters, what it means to become parents, what it means the loss of someone you loved, and what it means to create a new feeling for someone that the fate suddenly throw in your life. A delightful treatise on human frailties and the human need to love and be loved.
March 16, 2020
This book reminds me so much of the 2007 film Juno in a lot of ways. We have an edgy teen who maybe falls in love a little too fast, gets a little too reckless, ends ups a little too pregnant. While Juno excels in funny one-liners and the true akwardness of our youth, Motherest is superb in it's visceral imagery and feel of a strained relationship between mother and her (soon-to-be-mother) daughter.
Agnes is just living life day by day really, uncertain of herself or the people around her. College is just another place to roam, filled with a number of various girls that will leave more of an impact on her than she knows. There she meets the infamous Tea Rose, a Nirvana obsessed heart-throb who no doubt rocks doc martens and heavy jackets all year, and down the rabbit hole she goes.
I really loved how emotionally driven this was. It was written so beautifully, like Agnes was really there re-counting her life with me, telling me her fears, the people she holds dear, as well as pieces of her she's still trying to understand herself. She's the definition of spunky, even if she's anxious, and a lot of times she's at odds with herself because those two traits constantly overlap. The characters were all so great, each a unique part of her story, but with their own as well, and not just ornaments to Agnes' life.
So many killer passages about familial relationships and growing up, but my favorite had to be:
"How peculiar, how intimacy has nothing to do with time. How you can feel bonded to someone in a matter of moments, if that person allows it. How you can spend years with someone--I look at Dad's profile--and only ever remain adjacent."
The only thing that stopped this from being 5 stars was the fact that there was so many loose ends. I wanted to know about Agnes' gal friends, the whole lot of them! Also felt there was a vaguness with the mother's issues. However, that small stuff aside, this was an incredible read. Agnes is a character I won't forget.
Agnes is just living life day by day really, uncertain of herself or the people around her. College is just another place to roam, filled with a number of various girls that will leave more of an impact on her than she knows. There she meets the infamous Tea Rose, a Nirvana obsessed heart-throb who no doubt rocks doc martens and heavy jackets all year, and down the rabbit hole she goes.
I really loved how emotionally driven this was. It was written so beautifully, like Agnes was really there re-counting her life with me, telling me her fears, the people she holds dear, as well as pieces of her she's still trying to understand herself. She's the definition of spunky, even if she's anxious, and a lot of times she's at odds with herself because those two traits constantly overlap. The characters were all so great, each a unique part of her story, but with their own as well, and not just ornaments to Agnes' life.
So many killer passages about familial relationships and growing up, but my favorite had to be:
"How peculiar, how intimacy has nothing to do with time. How you can feel bonded to someone in a matter of moments, if that person allows it. How you can spend years with someone--I look at Dad's profile--and only ever remain adjacent."
The only thing that stopped this from being 5 stars was the fact that there was so many loose ends. I wanted to know about Agnes' gal friends, the whole lot of them! Also felt there was a vaguness with the mother's issues. However, that small stuff aside, this was an incredible read. Agnes is a character I won't forget.
January 11, 2018
Motherest was more lackluster than I expected given the poignant and fertile (no pun intended) potential of maternal abandonment as fodder for a novel.
Agnes is your typical aimless college student, winking at cute boys, having casual sex, and, oops, getting pregnant. For a while, she postpones making any decision and is in hardcore denial, hoping that the situation will resolve itself without her having to take any action. Eventually, it is too late to do anything other than have the child. In between all this, Agnes is coming to terms with the fact that her own mother is incommunicado and has abandoned her family, unable (and possibly unwilling) to cope with the aftermath of Agnes' brother's suicide. For me as a reader, I'm much less interested in the musings of a naive college student than I am in the complexities of character of someone whose ambivalence about motherhood is rivaled only by her unwillingness to provide any kind of emotional support to her family during a crisis. This could also be me being old and crotchety and forgetful of my own college experience and unwilling to revisit another, but I really think that there were a lot of deep character flaws and dysfunction that could have been further explored rather than exclusive focusing on the whole "pregnancy is uncomfortable" angle. I guess if you're in the thick of reaching certain adolescent milestones, this story might speak to you a very realistic and relatable dilemma, but, for this old broad, it didn't pack the same emotional wallop. "Sorry not sorry," to put it in the parlance of our times.
The book gets two stars from me for some funny, deadpan remarks that clearly could only come from the mouth of someone too conflicted and scared about pregnancy to be anything other than honest.
Agnes is your typical aimless college student, winking at cute boys, having casual sex, and, oops, getting pregnant. For a while, she postpones making any decision and is in hardcore denial, hoping that the situation will resolve itself without her having to take any action. Eventually, it is too late to do anything other than have the child. In between all this, Agnes is coming to terms with the fact that her own mother is incommunicado and has abandoned her family, unable (and possibly unwilling) to cope with the aftermath of Agnes' brother's suicide. For me as a reader, I'm much less interested in the musings of a naive college student than I am in the complexities of character of someone whose ambivalence about motherhood is rivaled only by her unwillingness to provide any kind of emotional support to her family during a crisis. This could also be me being old and crotchety and forgetful of my own college experience and unwilling to revisit another, but I really think that there were a lot of deep character flaws and dysfunction that could have been further explored rather than exclusive focusing on the whole "pregnancy is uncomfortable" angle. I guess if you're in the thick of reaching certain adolescent milestones, this story might speak to you a very realistic and relatable dilemma, but, for this old broad, it didn't pack the same emotional wallop. "Sorry not sorry," to put it in the parlance of our times.
The book gets two stars from me for some funny, deadpan remarks that clearly could only come from the mouth of someone too conflicted and scared about pregnancy to be anything other than honest.
June 19, 2018
The premise of the book is intriguing: a young woman goes off to college and her mother has disappeared, something that she has done before but never for this long, and never with any explanation. The book follows the girl, Agnes, during her first year of college, and how she wrestles with her mother's absence and then with her own impending motherhood when she becomes pregnant. For all the mothers and all the children in the world, I don't think I have read another book written in first-person from the perspective of a pregnant woman, which is interesting in and of itself. The book was very well-written and believable, and I really liked Agnes, the main character. Unexpectedly, it is really her relationship with her father that transforms during the book, since he is the one remaining at home to see her through this rough time. I won't say what the ending was, but I was also very pleased with it, and thought it was realistic and served some justice. I also really liked how she refers to her boyfriend by her made-up name of "Tea Rose" the entire time and never gives him an actual name, and the supporting characters - Surprise, Joan, and Alicia - were really well-done as well. This book reminded me of "I Am Charlotte Simmons," by Tom Wolfe, except this is written from a very feminine perspective and from the point of view of someone who has actually experienced being a female college student in the nineties, not from the perspective of an older observer poking fun of the culture. This book does have some humorous moments, though, and also dealt with suicide in a very human way. I really enjoyed it and look forward to more from this author. Highly recommend.
January 23, 2018
As soon as I began reading, I knew I'd love this book. I wasn't wrong. Agnes' voice -- earnest, questioning, blunt, yearning -- struck something in me. I connected so much with the shallow details of her life - her New England education, her Doc Martens, her need to connect - & so little with the deeper particulars - her absent mother, the older brother she lost to suicide, her ever-present but painfully uncertain father; it was almost like glimpsing an alternate reality. Almost. The epistolary format makes for quick & easy reading. The text outside of the letters is clever; it alternates between being frank & poetic. I thought that my interest in the story might've decreased once she left school but it didn't. It was interesting that Agnes chose not to learn the sex of her baby; I wonder if the author did this to give herself time to decide if it'd feel more narratively true for Agnes to have a daughter or a son. I approved of the way that Iskandrian dealt with the return of Agnes' mother, and the emotional reaction & real actions that Agnes takes as a result. My one complaint is with Agnes' boyfriend's "name": "Tea Rose." Really? The conceit itself is fine -- not giving him a true name emphasizes how unimportant he is to the heart of the story, & it gives him a slightly "unreal" quality, which reflects how Agnes feels about him. But it sounded extremely unnatural & false in my head. Since we've already established that Agnes & I are kindred, I don't think *she* would have felt comfortable calling him that, either. ;)
September 6, 2017
Motherest is the kind of book that messes you up while reading it, but in a good way. The novel recounts nineteen year old Agnes's first year in college, a year in which she is learning to cope with her mother's disappearance and her older brother's suicide while going to class, writing papers, attempting to make friends and generally fit in. It's a fraught story, full of beautiful observances, loneliness and longing.
Here are some great lines:
"I guess the body is a ruinous place or it is a comfort. I go to Tea Rose like going to church, or therapy, or the ocean, and I just surrender there, floating, bobbing. Is this love, or is this oblivion, or are they the same thing."
"Nobody wants anything ruined. But ruin still happens. Ruin does not seek permission. How could he not have known this, him of all people? Did he believe in the idea of the chosen few, that some people were destined to be happy and would be, no matter what befell them, and some people would never be? Or that some people have predetermined abilities to control disaster, to save themselves from too much pain, and some people do not? Did he say goodbye to himself before he did it, look at his own face in the mirror?"
Here are some great lines:
"I guess the body is a ruinous place or it is a comfort. I go to Tea Rose like going to church, or therapy, or the ocean, and I just surrender there, floating, bobbing. Is this love, or is this oblivion, or are they the same thing."
"Nobody wants anything ruined. But ruin still happens. Ruin does not seek permission. How could he not have known this, him of all people? Did he believe in the idea of the chosen few, that some people were destined to be happy and would be, no matter what befell them, and some people would never be? Or that some people have predetermined abilities to control disaster, to save themselves from too much pain, and some people do not? Did he say goodbye to himself before he did it, look at his own face in the mirror?"
February 13, 2025
Motherest offers a thoughtful contemplation on what it means to be a mother and what it means to be a daughter. Agnes's letter is to her mother are at times sad, at times funny, at times very painful. The portions of the chapters where she moves through her life are well written and create an engaging story on their own, but the letters allow for a deeper delve into Agnes's feelings. Iskandrian shows the horror of pregnancy in a way most books wouldn't dare.
Where the book fell flat for me was the end. For the majority of the book, we are not allowed much insight into Simon's death, Agnes's father's feelings, or the reason why Agnes's mother left. We get very little insight into the family dynamic as it was before, and Agnes does not make much of an effort to interact with her father until right before her labor. The ending felt extremely rushed, and although it provided insight into what life was likely like prior to her mother leaving, I don't feel that the reason for her decision was adequately set up.
Where the book fell flat for me was the end. For the majority of the book, we are not allowed much insight into Simon's death, Agnes's father's feelings, or the reason why Agnes's mother left. We get very little insight into the family dynamic as it was before, and Agnes does not make much of an effort to interact with her father until right before her labor. The ending felt extremely rushed, and although it provided insight into what life was likely like prior to her mother leaving, I don't feel that the reason for her decision was adequately set up.
June 2, 2021
This is a finely wrought literary novel -- though an accessible one -- that takes us into the deeply honest, not always pretty thoughts (and failures to think) of a young college woman who gets pregnant the same year her mother has disappeared from her life. It has some of the quality of memoir, maybe because much of it is so vividly described even while the other characters exist at a distance that occasionally takes on the quality of a nightmare or at least a depression. Recommended if you admire good writing and are interested in the topic of being mothered (or not mothered or badly mothered).
November 28, 2018
I am alarmed to discover that I left feedback for this on Netgalley, but did not review it. I requested it because I liked the cover, and was surprised by just how immediately engrossing it was -- a character-driven coming-of-age story that captures an emotional disconnect between mother and daughter in a way that I could hardly have imagined seeing in print. It's a really lovely book for anyone who has ever felt lonely or disconnected.
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