• r e c o m m e n d a t i o n •

"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. But we didn't." - Brit Bennett.

Two teenagers fall in love but don't know how to name it and before they do, they fall apart only to meet years later as adults. Like rubber bands, they come back together after being pulled apart. But adulthood comes with its own set of consequences and responsibilities. You may think that the story is about mopey teenagers who fret about inconsequential things but Bennett doesn't let you feel that way. Because The Mothers isn't just a story about love being found and then lost but it's also about friendships, motherhood and the absence of it. I knew from the very first chapter that Bennett has an incredible talent, one that stirs a mountain of feelings within the readers. Every metaphor she used was simply mind-blowing. The Mothers is the sort of book that may appear to be normal but once read, is simply impossible to not be moved by it.

Nadia loses her mother as a teenager and so she grows up being motherless. With a father floating in his pool of sadness, she meets Luke who is the son of a pastor. A teenage love that's quick to fall out with Nadia moving away for college. While she focuses on studies and lives a life away from her town, Luke finds contentment in Nadia's best friend Aubrey. The two girls couldn't be any different from each other but that's what brought them together. Nadia refuses to come back to what was once her mother's house, refuses to see her father who still hasn't overcome his loss but Aubrey's wedding forces her to come home. Things are the same but aren't really the same. As she rekindles her relationship with her father, she notices how love that wasn't completely ripped apart years ago, is still lodged deep within her heart. The Mothers, the church women narrate the story which is quite unique. They talk about men, mothers who didn't really play their part as one, about love and mistakes.

This novel makes you feel a whirlwind of emotions. It makes you unable to put down the book even for a minute. Bennett writes like this is not her first but her twentieth novel, such is the power of her words. I honestly can't imagine how a story as simple as this is capable enough to carry so much of sentimentality. This is the kind of a book that shows how incredible writing can turn even the simplest of stories into magnificent ones. I recommend this.