HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

The Mothers: A Novel by Brit Bennett
Loading...

The Mothers: A Novel (edition 2016)

by Brit Bennett (Author)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1,963958,321 (3.77)94
Fiction. Literature. HTML:NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 

??Bittersweet, sexy, morally fraught.? ??The New York Times Book Review
"Fantastic? a book that feels alive on the page." ??The Washington Post
From the New York-Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half, the beloved novel about young love and a big secret in a small community. 

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 sha
… (more)
Member:apodispub
Title:The Mothers: A Novel
Authors:Brit Bennett (Author)
Info:Riverhead Books (2016), Edition: First Edition Limited Issue, 288 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:***1/2
Tags:literary fiction, 2017 read, 2016

Work Information

The Mothers by Brit Bennett

Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 94 mentions

English (93)  Hungarian (1)  All languages (94)
Showing 1-5 of 93 (next | show all)
The Mothers is all things mothers – absent mothers, blind mothers, protective mothers, unmothers, mothers-to-be, substitute mothers, the mothers - and the ripple effect their actions or inactions have on other people’s lives, the consequences of silences, secrets and lies and the developing relationships between Nadia, Luke and Aubrey. Set in a closely-knit Christian community in sunny California this easy-to-read book handles difficult subject matter – racism, abortion, suicide, grievous bodily harm, sexual abuse - with great care. A really good read. And the Vanishing Half is just as good if not better! ( )
  geraldine_croft | Mar 22, 2024 |
"Upper Room had encircled the wailing mother and held her up, soundlessly, because hard deaths resist words. A soft death can be swallowed with Called home to be with the Lord or We'll see her again in glory, but hard deaths get caught in the teeth like gristle."

That's a mere aside about a non-character in this novel, however it does a fine job of summing up the essential thing to know about this debut from an obviously talented writer. Two lives are absent from this story, and their hard absences shape these characters in difficult ways. They pull together and push apart, love and hurt one another, in the wakes. ( )
  lelandleslie | Feb 24, 2024 |
No revelations here. Would like "the mothers" to have been better developed since they were the title of the book! Writing style wasn't exceptionable.. ( )
  jemisonreads | Jan 22, 2024 |
I liked this pace better than that in the The Vanishing Half, but the end of this felt sort of rushed and I felt some of the relationships were underdeveloped. Overall a great read! ( )
  victorier | Aug 23, 2023 |
3/5 ( )
  jarrettbrown | Jul 4, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 93 (next | show all)
no reviews | add a review
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
For Mom, Dad, Brianna, and Jynna
First words
We didn't believe when we first heard because you know how church folk can gossip.
Quotations
Could you be nostalgic for a friendship that wasn't over yet or did the fact that you were nostalgic mean that it already was?
The weight of what has been lost is always heavier than what remains.
She wanted this baby and that was the difference: magic you wanted was a miracle, magic you didn't want was a haunting.
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English

None

Fiction. Literature. HTML:NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 

??Bittersweet, sexy, morally fraught.? ??The New York Times Book Review
"Fantastic? a book that feels alive on the page." ??The Washington Post
From the New York-Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half, the beloved novel about young love and a big secret in a small community. 

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 sha

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.77)
0.5 2
1 8
1.5
2 27
2.5 5
3 100
3.5 32
4 204
4.5 31
5 80

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 203,239,140 books! | Top bar: Always visible