MotherKind: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries)

Most of the women in this audio sound like children and the children sound like Disney characters. It is a marvelous piece of writing but the audio leaves much to be desired.

I had a really hard time with this book and almost gave up on it more than once. While I liked the characters and the scenario well enough, most of the book seemed repetitive and really dragged for me. I feel like the story could have been told in half the time and been better. The author does give us a pretty in depth look at the characters, but in the end, I didn't care much about them or their story.

I didn't find this novel to be the easiest thing to read that I've picked up in the last few months -- but, that being said, I felt that the beauty of the language compelled me to finish it, once I had begun.Jayne Anne Phillips has taken on a monumental task in writing this book. She has reduced the events and emotions of life-changing events -- the birth of a child, the agony and ecstasy of breastfeeding, and the at-home hospice care of a dying mother -- into words, onto the printed page. Her observations and meditations of these events are illuminating and moving. The seemingly everyday events in the lives of her characters take on a luminosity usually only bestowed by painters on their subjects. Things we take for granted -- a walk down the street to the market, a confidence shared with a friend, the touch of a mother's hand -- all take on an importance that is magnified. This magnification is not a falsification -- it is an opportunity for us to realize the importance of small things, an importance too often overlooked in our busy lives. This novel, then, becomes a study in priorities.I had a hard time getting past the first 100 pages or so -- and I think, in retrospect, I can attribute this to the author's pursuit of the 'mundane' details in everyday living. When I finally accustomed myself to the style she employed, I was able to relax more, take my time, and relish her creation.As far as other works I've read by Phillips, I must say that I enjoyed her novel SHELTER a bit more -- but her talent is genuine and accomplished, and I look forward to reading other works.Lastly, I have to say that this is a book that should be read by more male readers -- its subject (mother-daughter relations and the birth/breastfeeding experience) might tend to cause it to be classified as 'women's fiction', but that would be doing it a disservice. It would also cause it to be passed over by men who could use the lessons it teaches in order to allow them to better relate to their female counterparts. Understanding and empathy can go a long way in strengthening a relationship -- and we could all use a little more understanding, especially between the sexes.

Even just after reading this book, I am really mixed on how much I liked it! The basic plot premise was a very interesting one---dealing with a mother's dying in the same year you are dealing with being a mother for the first time. Some characters were well drawn, especially the young stepsons and the main character Kate. It's hard to have believable children in a good, but Jonah and Sam were really well done. The parts of the book that were written in a fairly straightforward well were also very good---what it is like to start out with nursing, how it feels to wake up over and over to care for a demanding baby, etc. However, the style of this book is quite odd and not one I like. Each chapter starts with a long flashback in italics--remembering a visit to Kate's mother when she was first diagnosed with cancer and when Kate was telling her she was pregnant. The parts of the story told in the present are told in a circular way---you never find out the whole story of an incident until it's told over and over, with a bit more revealed each time. Minor happenings in Kate's life (especially a few shopping trips) are described in minute detail---I think these parts are supposed to reveal more than is said on the surface, but for me sometimes they didn't. Also, the book has several minor characters that to me muddle the story and don't add much---the babysitter Amy, her sister Hannah, the neighbor Camille, several home health aides at the end---all these people have interesting stories, but there are just too many of them for me to care about all of them! All this being said, I did finish the book and cared about the ending, and I think the story was a good one to have told---as I am sure there are other's in Kate's situation, and in fact I had a friend who went through something very similar. I guess a potential reader would have to decide how much the distracting elements would bother them!

Phillips' writing just flows easily from one chapter to the next. In this semi-autobiographical novel, Phillips illustrates the bond between a mother and daughter from birth to death, and the various ways in which all women become nurturers. Kate discovers she's pregnant shortly after her own mother, Katherine, is diagnosed with a serious illness. Katherine leaves her home in Pennsylvania and moves in with Kate and her boyfriend in Boston. Kate's life is turned upside down as she becomes her mother's caretaker, a stepmother to two boys, then gives birth to her own child and needs some care of her own. Through flashbacks, we meet all of the female caretakers that come in and out of the women's lives--the young woman who comes in to prepare meals until the new mother gets back on her feet, the babysitter, the next-door neighbor who offers her own brand of nurturing, and the visiting nurses who help her mother through the last painful days of her life. My only complaint is that the male characters are minor characters with no substance. Obviously, Phillips had her reasons for writing them that way, but as someone who was nursed back to health by a husband after a serious illness, it bugged me that all of the nurturers in the book are women. Aside from that, it was a good read.