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Mother Mother

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Mother Mother
Jessica O’Dwyer


The mothers at the core of Jessica O’Dwyer’s novel love their children. As in all families, mistakes are made, good intentions go bad, tantrums are thrown. But these mothers are strong and fierce and determined to do their best for their child. The story follows Julie and Mark, a San Francisco couple who adopt an infant from Guatemala and, in a parallel story, Rosalba, as she grows to womanhood in a rural Guatemalan village. Their stories take you into the stylish but back-biting contemporary art world of San Francisco and into the corrupt and violent but naturally beautiful countryside of Guatemala.

When Julie and Mark decide to adopt a baby from Guatemala, their decision is based in practicality. It is relatively affordable, compared to some options; children there are in need; an agent takes care of all the paperwork. Unfortunately, theirs is one of the cases that become ensnarled in government red tape and corruption. The baby they fell in love with, supported financially and visited as often as they could, is five years old when he officially becomes their son and can move with them to their home in San Francisco. This five-year process takes a toll - Julie’s job suffers, her relationship with her sister grows awkward and her marriage shows some cracks. But it also makes Julie even more resolute to get this child and make a home. Once safe in the U.S., the adjustment and issues are huge. Among those issues is the reality of an ethnically mixed family, which changes their lives forever and in ways not anticipated. Julie finds support in online sites, meeting other adoptive families, utilizing resources for families with Guatemalan children and working to grow with her son.

In a tiny rural village in Guatemala, the newborn Rosalba is discovered, the only survivor of a brutal retaliatory massacre. She is not so much adopted as absorbed into a family from a nearby village. She is unaware that her parents are not her birth parents and accepts her place in the household - maybe working a little harder than her brothers and sisters, maybe required to take on the most back breaking work, but it is not an unhappy place for her. She grows into a good and kind person and even though her education is meager, she excels in whatever she gets. When the opportunity to work as a maid for a rich family in the nearest city arises, Rosalba is selected for the job. If anything, here she works even harder, but she is able to send money to help her family and she grows to like the job and the comfortable environment with this new family. But Rosalba is naive and a bit of flattery and one mistake changes her life.

There are fathers in this story, but there is no doubt that this story is about mothers, in all their blundering glory. Mother Mother is a gripping journey and delivers an emotional punch you will not soon forget.

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This felt like a lot of white guilt written by a decent writer. I didn’t hate the plot except for it’s basically a fictionalized version of the author’s life? Okay, sure.

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A heartbreaking but touching story about adoption. It tells the story of two mothers whose love for their son is so great they are forced to go to many lengths to protect him.

The experience that Julie and Mark go through to adopt their son was so moving, I desperately wanted things to go their way. It also showed the reality of adopting a child who is struggling to adapt to his new surroundings and recognise his own emotions.

My heart was heavy hearing the story of Rosalba and the story of her life growing up and I was saddened by the events that lead to her giving up Juan. It's an unimaginable and very scary situation for a young woman to be in.

Although this book is fiction I believe that many parts of it are realistic for families who have been on both sides of the adoption process and for this reason the story stayed with me.

My only disappointment in this story is that we didn't get to follow the families for longer.

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A heart wrenching novel about the two side of an adoption. The story goes back and forth between the Guatemalan mother of a young boy, and the North American family that adopts him.
This story is well written and keeps one reading. Having grown up in Guatemala, and still having ties there made me appreciate the research she did on Guatemala, and of the armed conflict which ripped through the country for many years.
This story takes us on a long journey for the adoptive family as they try to get their child out after five years of paperwork which was already in the works, and on top of that a looming shutdown of adoptions in the country. This story keeps you wanting to find out what happens, to both sides of the adoption process.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Apprentice House Press for a copy of this book.

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What a lovely read. The trials and tribulations of a mixed race adoption from war torn Guatamala. Julie's family prioritising over her work, eventually, through tough times and a marriage breakdown wins in the end❤️ Jessica is a brilliant author and put me through a gambit of emotions, I was in bits at the end.

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Mother Mother is the story of Julie, who, with her husband Mark, adopts a child from Guatemala.

This isn’t a topic I’ve read much about so I found the story very interesting, especially after reading that the author herself has two sons from Guatemala. The process and experience that Julie and Mark went through seemed very realistic.

I liked a lot about this book. I liked Julie and found her incredibly well-realised and sympathetic. I also enjoyed that the story wasn’t just about her being a mother, but her life too. I found a lot of the other characters quite one-dimensional, especially Mark, Clare and Julie’s boss.

I personally didn’t find the parts in Guatemala as engaging, and towards the end found the book a bit over sentimental, but I am pretty resistant to anything overly sentimental so I think a lot of other people would enjoy this.

This is an interesting read on a topic I hadn’t explored before and I think a lot of people would enjoy it. It’s both an easy read and well-written and would appeal to a lot of people as it makes the topic very realistic and accessible.

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I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Julie, an American, adopts a child from Guatemala. Her resilience during the delays and love for a child she barely knows is inspiring and heartbreaking. The ending is both wonderful and terrible. I admire Julie's selflessness, but I hate that Juan will learn truths that may be emotionally damaging.

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Holy smokes. I’ve never felt so moved by a book. This story was captivating from the start, even though I admittedly had no idea where it was taking me. There were quite a few random plot twists that led nowhere, but they had a bigger purpose. You have to put your read-between-the-lines hat to cut through the subtlety, because she wastes no time explaining the small stuff. What we think of as literary forks become part of the entire adoption struggle. You don’t know where things are headed before they happen, but right when it felt like a DNF I knew to push through. I’m so glad I did. I wish we saw more character development for some of the characters, but it’s about the mother’s journey foremost. This one will stay with me for a while.

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Mother Mother by Jessica O’Dwyer begins with the emotional, bureaucratic, and logistical obstacle course that Julie Cowan, a museum curator, and her husband, Mark, a pathologist, navigate while adopting their toddler son from Guatemala. This page turner novel does a masterful job of portraying the joy of becoming parents and the difficult adjustments on marriage and careers. I liked Julie and felt as if I was thrown off balance right along with her as unexpected events unfolded.

Although Julie and Mark are as prepared as any adoptive parents could be, they are tested by both the love and anger Juan throws at them, the reaction of friends, families and strangers to being white parents with a brown son, trying to keep up with their careers, and the effort needed to keep their marriage intact. A second narrative, that of Juan’s birth mother in Guatemala, is well integrated into the novel and contributes to the suspense and rich complexity of this story. I highly recommend this intriguing book.

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It is a fascinating story of adoption, it is the first book I've read that brings the birth mother and adoptive's mother story together. The writing was enjoyable and made for a pleasant read, some phrases I 'liked'
"She was empty. Rowan was gone" - This took me from 0-100 as I have a little understanding of how she feels and it moved me to tears.
Another favorite line "The smell of corn alcohol and old clothes came in like a second person"
Also, "Boys like that grew up to run the world, or atleast run the country and every business in it" thanks for recognizing white man privilege

However, there are a few things that have affected the rating I gave it.
One, the cover - it doesn't do the book justice, if I saw it in a store, I would not pick it up.
Two, the stereotypes - I understand that the author is writing from her point of view - a white woman, One'd hope it won't but it really shows. For example, I absolutely disliked the fact that a pre-teen/young teen is described in such a sexualized manner having 'curves' and the size of her breasts, could have closed the book there and then. I took more notice of it because we know that black children are usually sexualized early on and adult characteristics assigned to them. Also the descriptions were so stereotypical, powerful legs and strong shoulders? really? are black girls & women not allowed to be dainty at all?
In a book that can describe people as peach I wasn't expecting that skin would be described as black, whose skin is actually black?

Although my connection with the main character was limited, what happened to her was totally unnecessary and I hope the culprit gets his just desserts. I hope for a happy ending for her, birth mother and their son.

Recommended!

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I don't know if I ever wanted something to happen in a book more than I wanted Juan to finally be able to live with Julie and Mark! Your heart aches for everyone involved in the difficult transnational adoption process, which I learned so much about, as the author herself is an adoptive mom. I loved how Juan (later Jack)'s birth mother's story was woven into the narrative of Julie and Mark's much more privileged California life, and how the story does not shy away from discussing the difficult truths about white privilege, adoption, poverty, etc.

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This is a book about motherhood and loving your child fiercely. Julie's story of emerging parenthood was engaging and endearing from start to finish. Jessica O'Dwyer carefully wove together the tale of two mothers, one mother who adopted a child from Guatemala, and a parallel story of a mother in Guatemala. Both mothers told stories about their journey to motherhood and their hopes and challenges along the way. Without giving anything away, I will say that you won't want to put this book down. You'll want to know how Julie and Jack fare on their road to becoming a family, and how Rosalba's family fares on their journey.

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Mother Mother is a riveting story of the lives of a middle class adoptive mother in the US and a poor indigenous Guatemalan birth mother. I kept turning the pages long after bedtime because I cared about these two women; I wanted to know what would happen next, their sources of joy and insecurity as well as the more mundane details of their daily lives. And Jessica O’Dwyer delivered that to me page after page.

It is an ambitious and textured story that isn’t afraid to look at the imperfections in people and society; it does so with fairness and empathy. The description of the armed conflict and its impact on Rosalba, her family, her village, and the next generation gave me new perspectives on Guatemalan society that are still rippling in my mind weeks after reading the book.

An excellent read just for me, but even better as a prompt for group discussion.

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Jessica O'Dwyer's follow-up book to her memoir Mamalita, Mother Mother does not disappoint. Although it is fiction, much of what she writes about in regards to international adoption in Guatemala and the Guatemalan civil war is very much real. Told in two narratives, an American woman who desires to become a mother through international adoption and a birth mother, who makes the difficult decision to place her son adoption. Mrs. O'Dwyer covers complex topics such as infertility, adoption, institutionalized care, adoptee trauma, rehoming, family, motherhood, rape, adoption coercion and fraud, white privilege, and balancing motherhood and career ambitions just to name a few. The ending of the book is incredible and leaves you crying at the end. A must-read for any adoptive parent!

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"Mother Mother" is a story primarily told from the point of view of Julie, a happily married woman desperate to be a mother. Failed pregnancies have led her to the complicated world of international adoption, and her tale of finding and adopting her son is intriguing.
I loved this book. I have to say, I didn't want it to end. There was so much I didn't know about international adoption and I learned a lot from this book. The writing was concise and engaging.
Any criticisms I have really pale in comparison to how much I enjoyed this novel, but since nothing is perfect, here are my (again, admittedly minor) cons:
1. The husband was really blah. I think, taking the book as a whole and what happened toward the end, that this was intentional. But I was frustrated with his character because it felt like he was just a supporting role, he didn't have much personality except to circle Julie like a satellite and he didn't seem to have much to say about any of the choices she was making for their family.
2. There were a few mentions of how the area they were living in was very lily-white, no diversity, etc. I have a really hard time believing that suburban San Francisco is really that homogenous.
3. In addition to Julie's story, there was an alternating narration going on from Guatemala. I didn't think it really added much to the overall plot line. It skipped around too much in time for my taste, and the framework of the "testimonial" could have been better explained at the outset.
Many thanks to NetGalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review.

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This novel dealt with themes of adoption, miscarriage and relationships in a fantastic and realistic manner. You feel the levels of pain and frustration from the key characters throughout, and this ensures that you are fully taken into the story, and feel real emotion for the times they are going through. It was an unexpected gem and I will be passing this on to all of my friends on release!

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I adored this book. This author opened my eyes to conflict and history within Guatemala that I never knew existed. The author did an amazing job at capturing the raw emotion if the characters and took me on a journey that was entirely bittersweet. I’d recommend this book to anyone who likes a touch of real life from the books they read, and that will pull back the curtain on a topic one may not be as familiar with. One of my favorite reads so far this year!

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One of my top books of the year! Mother Mother is a touching & painful look at overseas adoption & the struggles tied to becoming a mother.

The story unfolds in two points of view. Julie, a successful gallery curator who, after years of infertility, embarks on the adoption process with her husband, Mark. Their road to become parents is littered with heartbreak & deceit. After years of trying, they finally bring Juan, a beautiful young Guatemalan boy home to California. What follows is a challenging beginning as a family that will leave you in tears.

There is also Rosalba, Juan’s biological mother, a Ixil Mayan woman who recounts her life story to us in detail. From her violent beginnings to giving her child up to where she stands today.

A beautifully written story!

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An intriguing novel about international adoption. A fictional story, but some parts could easily be true. A husband and wife go through the adoption process in Guatemala, but because of a ruthless government and rules that make no sense, it takes five years before they are able to bring home their son. The family of three goes through ups and downs and during it all the idea of their son's birth mother weighs heavily.

The ending of this adoption story is beautiful and truly gave me chills. The writing is engaging until the very end.

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Mother Mother is a wonderful read that outlines the process of adopting a Guatemalan child by an American couple. Told from both the viewpoint of the adoptive mother and the birth mother, it is truly heartwarming and emotional. The lengths the adoptive family must go through along with the struggles of the birth mother. Many other aspects are covered too. Career aspirations and challenges, family and marital relationships, experiences of other adoptive families. There is something in this novel for everyone. Highly recommended! I struggled to put it down as I had to know what came next.

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