The Mothers

Start anywhere in The Mothers by Brit Bennett. Filed under Literature & Fiction. Speed and chapter jumps sit above the description.

 NEW YORK TIMES Crowd-pleaser  “Bittersweet, sexy, morally fraught.” ( The New York Times Audiobook Review ) “Luminous… engrossing and poignant, this is one not to miss.” ( People , Pick of the Week)  “First-rate… a book that feels alive on the page.” ( The Washington Post ) The beloved New York Times widely enjoyed novel about young love and a big secret in a small community, from the author of The Vanishing Half .  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, 17-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother’s recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor’s son. Luke Sheppard is 21, 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 moving than an experience itself. If, as time passes, we must always live in servitude t

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