Play Book Tag discussion

I wanted to like this book so much more than I did. I'm not sure if it was the short-story-ness of it (not my preferred style of writing), or the dysfunctional family drawing away from the themes I thought I was going to see. The book is written in 12 short stories of Hattie's children, with the underlying themes of motherhood and family bringing it back to one overarching story. Some of the stories were great! It started out as a maybe 5-star read for me. I loved Floyd, Ruthie, and Ella's stories. But perhaps I loved these stories because they had the most parallels and relations to Hattie's original life. I kept wanting the characters to relate back to each other, or for the ending to have some sort of well..ending. I was left unfinished and that frustrated me.

This was touted as Oprah's Book Club 2.0 pick- following themes of African-American migration, from leaving the south to find 'better' lives. Perhaps I'd find a study on family dynamics and survival throughout an era. Unfortunately, I felt like it had 12 disjointed stories of suffering. I understand that this entire era was generally depressing, so it's already a topic that many people won't 'like'. But I understand why the author portrayed this image, and didn't stray away from it.

The writing itself was great. I think it was also enhanced by a great audio- although I don't know why there were 3 narrators on the audio. Her flow of consciousness and descriptions are fabulous, and she does a great job setting and painting the scene. I can definitely see why some people love this. Unfortunately all of this can't bring my star rating higher than a 3. There's too much going on, not enough detail on each character, and the unsettling finish of a book with no ending was just too much for me to handle.

It was a 3-star read for me as well. While I recognized Mathis's writing ability (and would be willing to read another book by her), I didn't think she quite hit the mark in this one.

My Review HERE