Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

It’s not that Rita Williams-Garcia’s P.S. Be Eleven is a meh book, because it’s not; it’s just that I can’t decide how I feel about it. On the one hand, it’s a compelling story that brings its time period alive, and what’s not to love about that? On the other hand, it’s a hard story, and Delphine’s correspondence with her mother didn’t–quite–work for me. Cecile has been a terrible mother, truly, and even knowing her backstory can’t change that. Her choice of writing style in her letters seemed to me at first to be utterly pretentious, and I only made my peace with it by thinking of her as a sort of autistic savant. Whether she is that or is meant only to be a product of her difficult early years I don’t know, but this mother has trouble accepting motherly wisdom and insight from someone who has chosen not to mother her children and then speaks disparagingly of the woman who has. (Not that Big Ma is perfect, by any means, but she showed up and mothered.) As for the rest of the book–there is beauty, but it’s a hard beauty. Hard things happen to Delphine and her sisters, and while their father’s decisions do work in historical context, the parent in me wanted to smack him more than once. My favorite development was the subtle changes in the sisters’ relationship, which are worth experiencing.

Basically, at the end of the day, it’s a good book; I’m going to put its sequel on hold after finishing this review. It’s not, however, a lighthearted read–or a perfect one.

Do with that what you will.