Review: The Mothers, Brit Bennett

“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 unriped secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season.”

Affecting novel about the choices we make in our youth that stay with us for a life time. Nadia Turner is a young woman, grieving for her mother, while growing up in a tightly-knit, conservative town dominated by a church community. Its judgmental voice is brilliantly rendered by The Mothers – a collective group of elders who cannot respect the freedom and individuality Nadia seeks and the steps she takes to achieve her goal. But this novel is never simplistic; we also witness their wisdom and the warmth that Nadia seeks within their fold. Packed with deep themes and pertinent observations, the prose offers moments of great beauty.