What I Want to Talk About is What My Mother and I Don't Talk About

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC I was given of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This one had me at hello. Partially due to the hype surrounding it (it has been hyped as one of the books you can't miss this year), but also because there are very few relationships as fraught as the relationship between mother and child. As Michele Filgate writes in her beautiful, gut wrenching opening essay: "Our mothers are our first homes, and that's why we're always trying to return to them." Sure, some of the homes in this essay are dilapidated, drafty places that offer little comfort, but if that's not fodder for the essay, what is?

Like any anthology, there are some essays in this collection that standout a bit more than others and, for me, the brightest star in this collection was "Thesmophoria," an essay written by Melissa Febos about a daughter who continuously pulls away from her hippie mother, despite her mom's unconditional love and support. This essay stood out to because the content was compelling, but the author didn't rely on her salacious background; instead, she used a rich form of mythology weaving to create something poignant and new. Now, I will admit, I'm a big fan of the braided essay in general and mythology, as well, so this one was an easy to sell to me, but any time you have an essay that mentions the author's heroin addiction without the author relying on gritty details to make her case, I'm impressed.

Another standout for me was the second essay, "My Mother's (Gate)Keeper." I liked it because it felt so familiar without being familiar at all. I have never had a set of married parents, so I can't relate to the writer's parents dynamic of enmeshment at all, but somehow it felt so relatable to me as a reader. It was authentic and fun. Even though Cathi Hanauer was talking about saerious issues (the way her father's controlling nature has damaged her ability to have a personal relationship with her mom), you can feel her affection for her father and her own ability to poke fun at her family. It feels warm rather than dramatic and was very readable.

In terms of the weak essays, there weren't really in. Sure, there were a few that weren't as compelling to me, personally, but none of them were bad essays. They were really interesting and they highlighted a variety of voices and issues. I think this is an important collection and I would recommend it to anyone.