Will I love Las Madres?

Las Madres is a story that centers around a horrible tragedy and two devastating hurricanes in Puerto Rico. But for me, what it captured so perfectly was the familiar experience of being a part of an impermeable collective, where even the deepest grievances and secrets do not need to be shared to be felt, where love is fierce and unyielding, and where nothing happens without the community being involved.

Photo albums of my early childhood are filled with photos of me and a sea of cousins, mostly at the beach where I grew up. I think our moms took… show more.

I was reading the book electronically, and the “percent remaining” count on my reader showed that I still had a number of pages to go, when suddenly I realized I was in the very last scene. When that realization hit me, I actually said, “Oh no, oh no,” out loud because I just wasn’t ready to be done with these women.

Las Madres follows five women on a journey to Puerto Rico, unwittingly into the jaws of Hurricane Maria, but also leaps across time to show us the losses and loves that led them there.

The mothers, daughters, proxy… show more.