Julia’s builder, on whom she develops a crush and flirts with awkwardly despite his indifference (and inflated invoicing). Anne drives a people carrier which she is using for a carpool, which Julia unsuccessfully tries to join. Liz is angry with Lee, the father of her child, for cohabiting with a woman called Debbie-Louise, only 3 weeks after she believes he started his relationship with her. Amanda, who is having marriage problems, confides in Kevin that once a month she has sex with a soldier, Bobby, who is based at Aldershot Garrison, because her husband Johnny enjoys watching her have sex with another man. An argument at a party between Liz, Julia, Anne and Amanda is ended abruptly by Kevin telling them that Amanda is having threesomes with a soldier.

Cultural cannibals, she liked to call them, people so in love with another culture that they wanted to become a part of it. Expats in Paris who said things like My soul is French and really believed them, deeply. When it came to India, that desire for ingestion took the form of a devotion to faux-Hindu wisdom, declamations in praise of the “spiritualism” and “simplicity” of the people, and the burning of a great deal of incense. I enjoyed the story and the writing although the character of Rachel seemed a bit immature and whiny and not always likeable. I had fun watching Swarti takes risks to break through her cultural norms to give herself a better life. While I enjoyed having a 'tour' through Mumbai, I didn't get as deep a sense of the city as I would have liked, but I think that might be harder to do with contemporary fiction over historical fiction. Despite this, I still enjoyed 'exploring' the city with Rachel. I appreciate that the author uses her experience to write this story as that always adds another level to my enjoyment as well.

The narration moves between Rachel and Swati's perspectives, giving readers a chance to grasp the cultural expectations of each and to sympathize with both of them. Neither character is "the good guy." Both have difficulty listening to views other than her own, and both are apt to see the other's actions as directed at her. Rachel's fantasy of easing into an exciting new life is challenged. She finds herself looking for other ex-pats, but then becomes uncomfortable with what she finds, realizing many of the biases she sees in them are her own as well. Meanwhile, Swati is obsessed with teaching Racel the "right" way to live in India, despite the fact that the culture she's forcing on Rachel is the very culture she was fleeing when she left her husband. I'd recommend this book to everyone but as it's pure art and some may or might not understand the concept of the book!

It is easy to be afraid. Everyone stays where they are because they do not know what will happen to them when they go to a new place. But they are still the same. They can do more than they think.” I liked the ending? I liked that Swati and Rachel went on to live independently and remained friends, but this is pretty much the only part of the book I enjoyed.Das ist das Bild, das die Menschen in Cape Cod von Jay und seiner Familie haben. Aber dieses Bild entspricht nicht der Realität. Als sich Jay und seine Geschwister am Sterbebett des Vaters treffen, zerbricht es. Selbst wenn Jay nicht seine Version von seiner Jugend erzählt hätte, hätte man am Umgang der Geschwister untereinander gesehen dass es ganz anders war, als die Leute es gesehen haben. Mother is an incredible cheapskate. On the other hand, she expects the best. Jay brings her a pineapple as a bribe at one point, which actually works as she's delighted. The opening quote has to do with her reminiscence of Fred's enrolling her in the Fruit of the Month Club. So, what she really meant was more along the lines of “I expect a nice piece of fruit!” But since these four years began, this is the first time I read a Brazilian poet writing in English and by extension also in Brazilian Portuguese - something I feel deserved more attention, because I first though the author was Portuguese and not Brazilian. There’s a different, even so slightly, between these two languages and that should be pointed out -, and doing so beautifully. Another thing I love about writers who have English as their secondary language (instead of their primary), it’s how they bleed - or switch, per se - into their mother-tongue while writing, while expressing themselves. I believe my first encounter with such a method was while reading Ocean Vuong’s poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds, where he makes some remarks in Vietnamese instead of English. And I LOVED that. As someone whose mother-tongue isn’t English, I feel a different sort of connection while reading someone express themselves in something other than English. I understood that so deeply. So that might be one of the reasons why I loved this poetry collection so much. To those in her Cape Cod town, Mother is an exemplar of piety, frugality, and hard work. To her husband and seven children, she is the selfish, petty tyrant of Mother Land. She excels at playing her offspring against each other. Her favorite, Angela, died in childbirth; only Angela really understands her, she tells the others. The others include the officious lawyer, Fred; the uproarious professor, Floyd; a pair of inseparable sisters whose devotion to Mother has consumed their lives; and JP, the narrator, a successful writer whose work she disparages. As she lives well past the age of 100, her brood struggles with and among themselves to shed her viselike hold on them.

Favorite Quotes: The history of tyranny was the history of a damaged childhood - the child with power, of idiotic excesses and spite, which accounted for the irrationality and the violence. Political outrages and purges began as tantrums and ended as edicts.While Rachel would define herself as a modern, western, woman with the ability to stand up for herself, she comes to find that she can learn from Swati. And Swati makes changes in her own life based in part on how she views her daughter in law and son’s relationship. Amanda’s mum, who has a similarly acerbic personality. Amanda cuts ties with her in the 2022 Christmas special, having realised their relationship is toxic. The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and cinema-derived rhetoric up the ante continuously, and stunningly. One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year. Mother Land is a pleasant story of self-discovery and friendship with plenty of twists and intrigue to keep the reader engaged.” — Washington Independent Review of Books It’s a tough act to pull off, but Franqui pulls it off. I loved the way the relationship developed between Rachel and Swati. And that’s what is the heart of the book.

The problem with moving was that it made you alien. Everyone was a stranger, and you were the invader, the outsider, the one desperate to achieve closeness with others.”A busy working mum with a remarkable capacity for partying. Julia is initially jealous of Meg's ability to juggle, but Meg becomes good friends with the trio. She is diagnosed with breast cancer in the third series, but later is diagnosed cancer-free. But it’s also a phenomenally strange novel, maybe one of the most repetitive I’ve ever read, with words (indirection, teasing, frugal), accusations and anecdotes recurring to the point of fatigue. Is this an echo of the nature of family life, of our ability to nurse grudges and fuel hobbyhorses, or just writerly indiscipline? Is Theroux evoking a son’s obsessive quest for his mother’s love, or is he fantastically unaware of her as a person who exists outside of him? Mother Land, despite its author’s fondness for an anthropological stance, does not allow us to see: but perhaps it never could. Heartfelt and honest, Ananda Lima’s debut poetry collection Mother/land is at once a song of motherhood, a lament for home, and a meditation on the immigrant struggle to find true belonging in the U.S. As an immigrant from Brazil and parent of an American-born son, Lima uses her poems to reflect on both grief over her personal experiences and the fierce, self-sacrificial love for her child that brought her through those difficulties. A strange book, it made me feel slightly uneasy - like listening in to a conversation I shouldn’t have been privy to.