Review of Mothers Keeper

[Sarah Schmidt]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Mothers Keeper" by JN Reid.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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The book, Mother’s Keeper, written by J. N. Reid, is a nonlinear retelling of the lives of several women caught in a cycle of abuse, vengeance, and mental instability. Cora Pitt gave birth to three daughters: Jade, Heather, and Susan. With an early history of psychotic tendencies marring her every action, it is no surprise when she takes to attacking the girls from early on, in every way possible. Broken by their mother’s vicious and vindictive ways, the three girls carry with them the trauma of their past, responding to this pain in different ways.

There was so much to pick apart in this book. Generational curses, trauma scars, the cycle of abuse, karma, people’s individual and shared responses to abuse, and so much more. Instead of dealing with just the immediate, central characters, Reid takes the liberty of going back to a certain character’s mother, and their mother’s mother, to give some context into how each was raised. At first, I was put off by the new characters being introduced at seemingly every succeeding chapter, but once you keep up and understand where the plot direction is leading, it becomes easy to stay on track.

Periodic shifts in the timeline took place between 2029 and the mid- to late-twentieth century. I had no issue with the flashback scenes, as this is used skillfully in the unveiling of the characters’ backstories and the actions they took. What I found problematic was that some years were grouped together, so you’d have to make a guess as to when, specifically, the story restarted.

Mother’s Keeper isn’t heavy on the dialogue. This isn’t to say that conversations were non-existent; rather, it told a story of mostly mental reasonings, going in-depth into the psyche of the characters to illustrate their thought processes and personalities. This layout makes it seem as though you’re reliving the past as the characters remember it, not bogged down by conversations that weren’t key to the story.

While this book boasted quite an impressive narrative, possessing vivid descriptions that made the comparatively infrequent instances of dialogue seem not so necessary, it didn’t accomplish this without suffering from numerous errors. This is the main reason that I believe that this book has not been professionally edited and why I chose to rate it one star short of a perfect rating.

This novel deserves a high rating of three out of four stars. This book contains explicitly mature content, taking the forms of profanity, mentions of rape, and child, sexual, mental, and physical abuse. This warrants an adult-aged audience. The story also teaches significant lessons in hair-raising settings, so readers interested in psychological thrillers should probably add this to their reading lists.

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Mothers Keeper
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[Amy Luman]

It’s hard not to blame the mother since she had such sever mental problems, and I’m guessing that those gave her no reason in the eyes of her daughters. The flashbacks really interest me.

[Herculaas N]

This is a very good review. Abuse is such a pain experience that is still very alife in most families life's in today's society.
I definitely want to read this book.

[Micah_1]

I feel like the mother is not to blame. I really enjoyed your review.

[Chiwelite Obioma Mgbeoji]

The topics and themes that the book covers are a lot of interesting and realistic themes. I would love to see how Cora's daughters turn out. Thanks for the review.