Las Mamis: Favorite Latino Authors Remember Their Mothers Book

Our book club chose this book and I was really surprised at how much I connected with the stories. I dont have a relationship with my mother as so i was a bit anxious about reading others connections with their mamis. Each short story was beautiful and varied. The book surpassed my expectations in the variety of mother/child bonds. Now that I have had my first child the book served as a model of what our relationship could be like.

I especially connected with the one author whose mother died when she was 2, she talks about how she can feel that void in her life and even the lack of motherly prescience has shaped her life. It is a great collection of stories about all of our first relationship and the joys and shortcomings that are inevitable in a relationship.

I'm going to be blatantly frank about this...the introduction/preface to this collection of autobiographical essays on mothers was a lot more heart-wrenching than the rest of it. On the one hand this makes me kind of sad as I was looking for something a lot more tearful, but then I probably should have just picked up a copy Chicken Soup for the Soul. On the other hand, I did appreciate the great frankness and guts these authors had in telling/recounting the ways their mothers impacted their lives. And as I made my way through each of these stories, I realized I myself had no idea where to begin.

A lot of the writing seemed to be strained or read like a writing exercise, where you until you have no more thoughts coming to you. And that makes sense, a mother and child relationship is the first relationship you ever have and therefore one of the most intimate painful, inspirational, headache inducing, and loving relationships you'll ever have.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for something a bit therapeutic or for a beach bum book. But if you're looking for something that gonna have you reaching for the tissue box, just pick a copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul - Mom edition.