Status Updates From What My Mother and I Don't ...

I want to read every one of these writers books.

My relationship with my mum feels fairly healthy after reading this. But all that does is make me sad for all the people who can’t really talk openly with their mothers.

Damn this stuff if deep, painful and nothing like the greeting card type platitudes you’re used when referring to the women who birthed us.

El mismo día en que descubro «Heavy. An American memoir» y me quedo fascinada con su autor, Kiese Laymon (que hasta entonces desconocía), me toca leer un relato en este libro escrito por él mismo... ¿Casualidad o serendipia?

Just wow.

"Silence is what fills the gap between my mother and me. All of the things we haven’t said to each other, because it’s too painful to articulate."

Ok

+30

Oh yes there’s some good stuff here

Very good. Oh yes.

So many absolutely true words.

Much pain and more hope in these mother-child relationships.

Some of these essays are so powerful

Difficult reading - triggering. Proceed with caution.

meh

The first two essays in here blew me away, I can’t wait to see what’s next

Wow

Stories are mixed quality. My favorite so far is the “Are You Listening?” piece by Andre Aciman about his mother’s deafness.

"I am very lucky that early and unknowingly, I found books instead of any other drug."

"Our stories are our greatest currency. What one person is willing to share with another is a test of intimacy, a gift that's given."

So far, pretty good.

Absolutely phenomenal collection so far.

Each essay is written so beautifully; however, some are better than others at keeping my attention.

Oh. My. Goodness. This book is so compelling and so vulnerable. I’m listening to the audiobook feeling all the feels and the pain and the trauma and the love of the essayists in this compilation.

"What I lacked was empathy for her. I was so interested in my own feelings about her that I couldn't leave room for her feelings or for what she wanted out of life. I couldn't leave a space for her to be a person. I think, ultimately, other people aren't real until they're suffering or gone."

First story was good. Didn’t really like the writing of the second one.

“Storytelling is a fight against forgetting, against loss and even mortality. Every time a story is told about someone who’s dead, it’s a resurrection. Every time a story is told about the past, we are doubly alive.”

“Mothers are idealized as protectors: a person who is caring and giving and who builds a person up rather than knocking them down. But very few of us can say that our mothers check all of these boxes. In many ways, a mother is set up to fail.”

There are some really great essays in here. But there are a few that I can't really connect with or see their connection to the theme of the collection.

Whew some of these stories are triggering...