2017 reads – Simone and Her Books

I approached this book believing that it’d be vignettes of different mothers and their daily lives. However, it is so much more than that. The Mothers here are a group of church women who congregate outside of regular sermon hours to pray, chat, and mostly gossip about everyone in their small town in San Diego. They’re the narrators of the story, but this story isn’t really theirs to tell.

Trigger warning: This book has themes around suicide, grief, abortion, and infidelity.

Synopsis (from Goodreads.com)

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.

Rating: 4/5 mothers

My thoughts

This book was quite a short read! Coming in under 300 pages, you’ll be able to read this over a weekend. The story is eloquent and I feel like a lot of it is wrapped in metaphor.

I was a little bit confused in the beginning of the story because it starts off in the first person POV and then switches to the third. Later I realized that the book is being told in the perspective of the mothers who pray in Upper Room, a church they all attend.

The book is obviously about mothers, but it’s also about the maternal instinct in us all. Regardless of your gender and how you identify as such, we all carry around the caretaker in us. That need to cover someone in a blanket when they’re sleeping on the couch. That want to make snacks for friends who are coming over for game night. The desire to make someone else happy instead of yourself.

If you’re not a mother, then you might be a child. Many of the characters throughout the novel took turns being the one who needed the mother. It’s funny that they all needed mothers yet they were met with their real mothers, all of their current options are not that great.

Except for Nadia. Nadia isn’t a mother, but she doesn’t regard herself as the child. She was going to be a mother, but then decided to get an abortion. Every time Nadia is faced with a situation where she needed to be a mother or carry that maternal instinct, I think she failed to keep herself and her needs out of the picture. It’s not for a lack of trying, but some people are more innate to the instinct. It also explains how she ended up in the end. In some situations, you just need to be your own mother.

The beginning of the year is supposed to be the most successful part because everyone’s got the motivation to exceed their own expectations. It’s usually in February when everyone drops their resolutions and returns to their former state.

But I always have to be the exception to the rule. ALWAYS. I have to defy the understood norm because I have problems with authority. That being said, it turns out I was only able to read three books for all of January.

Three.

Honestly, I was hoping to read more than four, but I was on vacation for more than half the month. What is with vacations and me just wanting to be a vegetable on the couch? Aren’t you supposed to read more when you’re on vacation? I ended up reading less and on top of it struggled throughout the entire time to read.

However, I need to stop beating myself up. I always give myself a hard time for not reading enough when I’m reading more than most people. Perhaps I needed to decompress from my regular life since I haven’t had a vacation since last July. Perhaps my brain just went on auto-reboot and it took me that long to get back on the track of things. Whatever it was, it’s passed and I think I can battle out the rest of February.

Reading and writing this blog has really opened me up to types of hobbies I really enjoy. I love sharing with you all my bookish thoughts and I hope you like them. Here’s my pitiful list from January.

Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller

Ingrid Coleman writes letters to her husband, Gil, about the truth of their marriage, but instead of giving them to him, she hides them in the thousands of books he has collected over the years. When Ingrid has written her final letter she disappears from a Dorset beach, leaving behind her beautiful but dilapidated house by the sea, her husband, and her two daughters, Flora and Nan.

Twelve years later, Gil thinks he sees Ingrid from a bookshop window, but he’s getting older and this unlikely sighting is chalked up to senility. Flora, who has never believed her mother drowned, returns home to care for her father and to try to finally discover what happened to Ingrid. But what Flora doesn’t realize is that the answers to her questions are hidden in the books that surround her. Scandalous and whip-smart, Swimming Lessons holds the Coleman family up to the light, exposing the mysterious truths of a passionate and troubled marriage.

Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins

Hopeless romantic Isla has had a crush on introspective cartoonist Josh since their first year at the School of America in Paris. And after a chance encounter in Manhattan over the summer, romance might be closer than Isla imagined. But as they begin their senior year back in France, Isla and Josh are forced to confront the challenges every young couple must face, including family drama, uncertainty about their college futures, and the very real possibility of being apart.

Featuring cameos from fan-favorites Anna, Étienne, Lola, and Cricket, this sweet and sexy story of true love—set against the stunning backdrops of New York City, Paris, and Barcelona—is a swoonworthy conclusion to Stephanie Perkins’s beloved series.

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story.

Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us.

The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?