Autobiography of My Mother
- ISBN13: 9780452274662
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
After her mother dies at birth, Xuela is left by her father with his laundress for the next seven years in a home where she feels no love or affection, so when she moves in with her father’s friends, the LaBattes, she finds pleasure however she can. Reprint. NYT. Amazon.com Review
“My mother died at the moment I was born, and so for my whole life there was nothing standing between myself and eternity,” writes Jamaica Kincaid in this disturbing, c… More >>
Even that single star is more than this book is worth. My Engligh professor assigned this book to me during my sophomore year of college (along with Nectar in a Sieve, a far better, though not terrific book), and what little I remember of it was that it was just awful (and offal). Her writing is repetitive and choppy, perhaps descriptive but disgustingly so. Do we really need to know the “wetness between [her] legs”, or that she cooked her menstrual fluid into some poor soul’s dinner? I couldn’t stand the book. If you want quality, read something by Neil Gaiman, or Stephen King (his descriptions of a girl coming of age in Carrie are much better than this book). Drop the book, throw it, burn it, whatever. It’s just not worth reading. How many trees did we lose to its production (and, more importantly, how many talented young writers were rejected because this woman was published). It’s just a book not worth reading about a story not worth telling.
Rating: 1 / 5
What’s the point here? It was never fully explicated, and the narrator does not inspire enough interest to carry this woefully inadequate plot – and I use that word loosely. Jamaica Kincaid needs to go back to domestic work
Rating: 1 / 5
This has got to be one of the most depressing books I have ever read. Not depressing in the sense that the tone of the book was depressing (which it was), but depressing in the sense that it was such poor quality. This was the first book I “attempted” to read by the author, since I couldn’t waste my time trying to finish it. I am pretty sure I won’t be reading any other books by Jamaica Kincade.
Rating: 1 / 5
I had hoped to read a colorful story about life in the Caribbean, and was not expecting the story to be happy and uplifting. However, I was disappointed to discover that the most prevalent topics in the book were the character’s bodily smells, excretions, and sex life. I was left wondering what these aspects of the book had to do with the character’s mother.
Rating: 1 / 5
This is the story of an unhappy woman who refuses to see or seek out any joy in her life. The overall feeling of the story is negative and depressing.
Rating: 2 / 5