To be honest, I thought MOTHERS AND OTHER STRANGERS was a
thriller. At
least that is the feeling I got from the book's blurb. The
first thing the blurb says about the book is:
"My father proposed to my mother at gunpoint when she was
nineteen, and knowing that she was already pregnant with
a dead man's child, she accepted." Wow, that is what I
call a captivating line. I just had to read this book!
Alas, this book is not a thriller. It's about a woman
finding herself, learning more about the past, and
finding peace.
MOTHERS AND OTHER STRANGERS by Gina Sorell is about Elsie's
search to
find who she really is and who her mother was. For Elsie,
life has never been easy with a narcissistic mother who
was more interested in the sect she joined when Elsie was
young than being a mother. Elsie practically raised
herself and is now almost forty years old. She is newly
divorced and has just buried her mother. Perhaps now she
will finally find out the truth about her past, about her
father, and why her mother never really was
interested in Elsie.
MOTHERS AND OTHER STRANGERS may have been far from a
thriller, but that doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy the
book. Vice versa, to be honest. I found it refreshing to
read about a woman that has to unravel the past in order
to move forward. I did think the story would spend more
time in Africa than it did. Instead, there were a lot of
flashbacks to Elsie's past to show the reader her life
and traumatic experiences, but I enjoyed that. I enjoyed
getting to know Elsie and learning more about the sect that
her mother had joined and that seemed so important to
her. And, at the end, I kind of understood Elsie's
mother, well, I understood her motive after learning the
truth about her past. To really understand is perhaps a
bit far-fetched. It's the kind of book that made me wish
I could read a couple of more chapters after the book was
finished to see how Elsie's life would turn out now that
she finally knows it all.
MOTHERS AND OTHER STRANGERS is a beautifully written book
and I'm looking forward to reading more from Gina Sorell
in the future. This is the perfect book to read if you are
looking for a book about a woman's quest to find the
truth about her family.
"My father proposed to my mother at gunpoint when she was
nineteen, and knowing that she was already pregnant with a
dead man’s child, she accepted."
Thus begins this riveting story of a woman's quest to
understand her recently deceased mother, a glamorous, cruel
narcissist who left her only child, Elsie, an inheritance of
debts and mysteries. While coping with threats that she
suspects are coming from the cult-like spiritual program her
mother belonged to, Elsie works to unravel the message her
dying mother left for her, a quest that ultimately takes her
to the South African family homestead she never knew existed.
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy