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What A Mother's Love Don't Teach You

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This is a good debut novel. The chapters are very short. The narrative is told from many perspectives. The characters are all flawed. This is such a powerful book

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A great read with so many descriptors which makes you feel like you are in Jamaica! Complex and sometimes harrowing but hard to put down and thoroughly enjoyable.

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Wonderful, complex story with multiple points of view from interesting characters. Really loved the use of language here. Rich exploration of motherhood and life in Jamaica. Highly recommended!

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Dinah got pregnant very young and decided that it was for the best that she gave her baby to the rich couple that she worked for so that they could give him a better life. 18 years later a couple returns to Jamaica with their son Apollo who Dinah is convinced is her ‘son-son’. Apollo is then going through his own discovery of finding his roots and where he came from vs where he is meant to be in life.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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What A Mothers Love Don’t Teach You is a brilliant debut novel. Set in Jamaica in the 1980s the lead protagonists are Dinah, a woman who gave up her “son-son” when he was a baby to an American couple who never remained in touch, and Apollo, allegedly that son returned to the island as an 18 year old for the summer.

It’s a brilliant story with multiple points of view that build depth to the characters and the plot. Through Dinah’s heartbreak at the loss of her son, and Regina, we see the challenges of poverty for women in Jamaican society.

Through British and Damian and others in the Jamaican community we see the impact of poverty, the expectation of manhood and criminality as a fait accompli.

And through Apollo and his family we see the privilege of wealth and power, along with social political insights into Jamaica’s recent history that I knew nothing of and want to explore more.

The patois used for some protagonists gives the novel greater authenticity and depth and I really enjoyed it.

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"What a Mother's Love Don't Teach You" is a location-specific story. Set in Jamaica, it explores the subjects of familial bonds, motherhood, identity, as well as the intersections of corruption, poverty and violence. Sharma Taylor certainly knows how to paint a complex picture using her words. Kingston as she wrote it pulsates with life and evokes all the senses.

The multiplicity of voices adds complexity to the story, not necessarily making it easier for the reader to uncover what's true and what isn't. It's up to the reader to decide whose version of events to believe in. This definitely makes "What a Mother's Love Don't Teach You" a compelling read.

However, at times I found myself getting lost in the number of storylines and some of the characters' backstories felt forced into the story. Even though they were meant to serve as explanations of their motives, it didn't feel as natural or necessary.

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Eighteen year old Apollo and his parents go on an extended trip to Jamaica where his father has some business to conclude. Not long after their arrival, they encounter Dinah who is convinced that Apollo is the son she gave away to an American couple eighteen years ago. And so begins a tale of love, greed, poverty, class, identity and belonging.

Set In Lazarus Gardens , a ghetto in Kingston, What a Mother's Love Don't Teach You brings together a cast of characters including; a beautiful young woman who is trying to everything to get out of the ghetto, a buddying musician, a drug lord, corrupt politicians and police officers, and an American businessman and his wife. Told from the point of view of alternating characters, in patois and sometimes in standard English, the recurring themes explored are, the relationship between mothers and their sons, life on the different sides of the class divide, and identity and belonging.

The use of language and the differing perspectives really help you to understand the characters and their motivations. I initially struggled with the patois but once I got used to it, I found that it added to the authenticity of the narrative. Moreover, the descriptive language brought both the characters and Lazarus Gardens to life. As I read, I could vividly visualise the women hanging out their clothes to dry, the children playing on the street and the street hawkers selling their good in between traffic.

Although I did not find any of the characters are likeable, except perhaps Dinah, I understood why people like Regina, British, Streggo and Damian turned out the way they have. I like the fact that the author doesn't pass judgement on the decisions that characters make, she just tells their story.

I really enjoyed reading the book. Aside from a third of the way through where the pace slowed down somewhat, I was engaged throughout and was keen to know what would happen next. So much so that I read the second half in one seating. I was intrigued about Apollo's true identity, how things would unfold with Regina and British, and with Dinah and Celeste in their battle for their sons.

The one thing that I found frustrating is that story was told from too many perspectives. I mean did we really need to know the backstory of the neighbour walking the dog on the fateful night?

Otherwise, it was an engaging complex tale of crime, poverty, class, wealth, corruption. It is a good exploration of the lives of people at the lower end of the class structure, the communities in which they live, their motivations and what they'll do to survive.

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A vibrant tale, I enjoyed the wide cast of characters and the intertwined narratives. The author really conjured up the sights and sounds of the Jamaica you don't get to hear about.

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Told in short chapters from different characters’ point of view, varying for some characters between direct first-person speech in patois (not hard to understand once you get into it) and third-person reporting, this fast-paced and unputdownable novel gives us a blistering view into 1980s Jamaican socio-politics. Areas are controlled by “Dons” who work on behalf of a political party to make sure the people of the area vote for that party; by care and paying medical bills; by intimidation; by coercion; by rape and murder. So the interesting story of Dinah and is-he-her-son? Apollo plays out to this background, the other people in the yard in which Dinah and her mother live just as implicated in that background as the big men who control things.

Apollo is a rich and privileged boy with a Black mother and White stepfather, doing an internship at a law firm while the family stays in Jamaica, tracking down Dinah in Lazarus Gardens after she claims him as her son and is sacked as a result, then near-fatally drawn by her young neighbours, budding musician Damian and the attractive Regina, who he sees as honest and authentic where, because of their own circumstances, they are very much not so. They are all drawn beautifully; we also get the police chief, the MP of the area and a random resident of the high-end community Apollo’s family is living in. People know their history and have their pride.

although as she tries to educate him, Apollo’s no good with a drum beat or a dance and is nonplussed by the cow horn she gives him that belonged to her great-grandmother: “This used to be yuh ancestor dem tongue! Dem use it to carry new of rebellion.” Apollo is clumsy and book-educated but not street-smart, telling Dinah not to eat her “slave diet” (that is all she can afford) and telling her about activists when her life there is about the struggle to survive at all.

There’s violence in the book – quite a lot of it – although in all but one passage where British, the psychopath Don of the area mulls on exactly how he will kill Apollo it is not gratuitous (and that pushes the plot forward and shows his character). The blurb DOES warn of this but it’s easy to pass over in favour of what looks like the main plot. It’s such a well-done book, though, I found, that I accepted the violence as part of the story: compulsive reading and with memorable characters. Even if someone behaves poorly, you can completely see why they are compelled to do that. The author is not afraid to put them through the wringer, and while lessons are learned and people grow, there is a sort of hard black humour to the traps the characters still find themselves in, little redemption available and the ending left open in many ways. This is a debut novel and, as other reviewers have said, formidable. I will definitely read what Taylor does next.

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Set in Jamaica, Dinah had to give up her baby 18 years ago - and now that baby, Apollo, is back!
The story is told in multiple voices, some in patois, and is a complex, compelling tale. The writing’s brilliant and flows beautifully, dealing with themes of love, race, family, loss, violence, corruption and politics.
I couldn’t put it down. I devoured it. A powerful debut novel.
Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. All views are my own.

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This novel didn’t quite hit the mark for me. Taylor’s scene setting is top notch and her use of spelling and patois really helps immerse you into Jamaica and as Apollo was looking for, the real Jamaica beyond the holiday brochures.
That said there was for me too much plot and not enough cohesion. Even in part 4 we are learning back stories that explains certain characters behaviour that we could have done with finding out sooner and some offshoot storylines just weren’t needed at all and made the narrative more confusing. I think the novel would have been perfect had the story been about Apollo, his parents, Dinah, Damian and Gina with other plot lines used only to provide motivation for example why Damian did what he did.
While I did feel a fair bit of affection for Dinah and Apollo by the end of the book I don’t think they will linger in my thoughts once I start reading another book and I feel indifference towards characters that I really should have had strong feelings about one way or another.
In the end I am glad I read this novel and I will read future books by Sharma Taylor but it’s a 3.5 ⭐️ for me.

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This was a mixed bag for me. The novel has a really strong sense of place and brought Jamaica to life with multisensory, rich, vivid detail. The history, politics, crime and corruption were interesting and fleshed out further details about the island.

However, I felt that there were too many characters and because of this we did not land with any of them for long enough for me to feel attached to them. The only one I really cared for was Dinah but even then she still felt a little unreachable.

The plot pacing felt too quick, and whilst the novel was padded out with copious description and exploration of the issues of Jamaica, the bare bones of the story tripped through too lightly and lacked depth. This made me lose my attachment to the fate of the characters.

This novel was ambitious in its attempts to give a 3-dimensional insight into Jamaica and it's people, but didn't quite succeed in weaving this through compelling story.

This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

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This novel is so engaging from the start that it gets you so hooked!

What a mothers love don’t teach you is a novel based in Jamaica. We meet Dinah who fell pregnant at the age of 18 and gave her son away to her rich employers for him to have a better life. The couple moved to the US after the adoption, however 18 years later they return with their son. Dinah is now working for another couple and on one particular day her previous employers show up with their son and she has no doubt that this is the son she gave up 18 years ago. They refuse to acknowledge Dinah as his biological mother and continuously convince their son that they do not know Dinah. Dinah fights for a relationship with her son, however by doing so he finds himself in the wrong circle which may put everyone who loves him in harms way.

I loved that the author told the story from the different characters perspective as it made the story feel much more engaging. The story flowed very well, however it did feel like it took longer than needed to get to the plot twist.

The story was enjoyable to read and went in many different directions which you wouldn’t expect. The story telling was superb! Although, I did feel like there were some things missing as once I finished I had a lot of questions.

Overall, this was a great debut novel.

This novel is a story of motherhood, loss, forgiveness, family trauma, class, poverty, power, race and politics.

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"What a Mother's Love Don't Teach You" is an immensely powerful novel set in 1980s Kingston. The novel begins with the character of Dinah who gave up her baby son when she was eighteen so that he could have a better life in the US - and eighteen years later becomes convinced that Apollo, a young man who has travelled with his parents to Jamaica, is her son. However, Taylor's focus widens to include a wide range of characters to whom Dinah and Apollo are connected, including criminal overlords and gang members, police officers, and corrupt politicians, in order to evoke a rich sense of time and place. There is also a brilliantly polyphonic range of voices in the novel; at first I found the mixing of first and third-person perspectives somewhat jarring but this grew on me as the novel progressed.

Taylor builds an increasingly gripping plot involving violence and retribution, but Dinah and Apollo's bond remains at the heart of the novel, and is movingly echoed in other parent-child bonds as well as children longing for absent parents and vice versa. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC of this wonderful novel to review.

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Sharma Taylor's debut novel has a simple premise: a mother gives up her son for adoption, and ten years later he comes back with his adoptive parents. What could easily have become a weepy novel about motherhood and family trauma is transformed into something more brilliant by its backdrop and execution.

The setting is Jamaica in the 1980s, and Taylor's novel, which shifts perspective through short chapters between a cast of characters - the mother, the son, the local gang leader, and more - with some of it written in Jamaican patois - to reveal a truly kaleidoscope portrait of a society in flux, of characters struggling to survive and making the most of what they have. It is a formidable debut, full of heart, and thoroughly recommended. She is a name to watch.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC.

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Wow, what a book. What A Mother's Love Don't Teach You is an amazing debut novel which confidently handles multiple points of view characters, told in first, second and third narration. If it sounds like this would cause confusion, it really doesn't. All the voices are so unique, and the stories told so different, that it has the effect of telling the same story from everyone involved.

What A Mother's Love Don't Teach You is a story of motherhood, loss, life cycles, mistakes and forgiveness. It is a beautifully poignant tale of characters who will stay with you long after you have finished the last satisfying page.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this wonderful novel.

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Such a powerful moving story. At eighteen years old, Dinah gave away her baby son to the rich couple she worked for before they left Jamaica. They never returned. She never forgot him. Eighteen years later, a young man comes from the US to Kingston. From the moment she sees him, Dinah never doubts - this is her son. What happens next will make everyone question what they know and where they belong.
I would highly recommend this book to… anyone and everyone! This book will stay with you long after you've finished it, and in the most fabulous way!

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Not what i expected at all.
I really enjoyed the dynamic between all the characters, especially the stark reality of the people that live in Lazarus Gardens compared to the rich from the hills.
It took only a few pages to get used to the Jamaican lingo, but at random times through the book i did catch myself having to read over some conversations again to truly grasp what is being said and happening in the scene.
Will be thinking about some of the characters for a long time.

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This was such a powerful read, I was completely beguiled and I couldn't put it down, nor did I want too. It was both heart-wrenching and heart-warming and hopeful. I really enjoyed it.

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