An engaging story that you will want to know the ending!
What A Mother’s Love Don’t Teach You is Sharma Taylor’d debut novel that explores regret, motherhood, love, violence, and trust. We meet Dinah who gave away her baby to a couple she was working for. In giving up her son, the couple promised to write and keep her abreast of his progress, that did not happen. Over a decade later, Dinah is working for another couple and who shows up but her son and his adoptive parents- except her son does not know of her and the couple refuses to acknowledge. Dinah begins her first fight to have her son know her but in trying to know him, he falls into unlikely company that may have very disastrous effects.
If you’ve Kei Miller’s Augustown and appreciate how he tells a story then you will enjoy this. I really appreciated that the author told the story from many perspectives because it felt very engaging. I felt the story started very strong but really dragged in the middle. If I am being honest- the book never haffi suh long- a solid 150 pages could have been cut and this is where I ask my age old question, “where is the editor?” Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the storytelling I felt the author took too long to get to the climax and the ending felt a little rush. I did enjoy the historical look at Jamaica and I wanted more that that. Overall a solid debut- looking forward to what the author writes next.
