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The Twelve Tribes of Hattie Oprah Book Club 20 Ayana Mathis Books

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The Twelve Tribes of Hattie Oprah Book Club 20 Ayana Mathis Books

hated the ending.


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The Twelve Tribes of Hattie Oprah Book Club 20 Ayana Mathis Books Reviews

Many of the critiques in the comments revolve around the jumping around of personalities/narrators, the consistent sadness and lack of joy, and also that often they felt incomplete.
Honestly, this is what made the book so compelling for me. It lacked superficiality. Many things in our lives go unresolved and leave us with an empty space that we carry with us for the rest of our lives. Some voids can't be filled despite our best efforts. We looked to others to fill these voids and often our disappointment is furthered. I appreciated that rawness in the book. Every chapter had something that moved me to tears because the book was far from superficial. It was a depiction of the many things that hurt us in our childhood that can go unresolved for generations and generations. So many things come around and it's hurtful when we see these things recur again in our children and even grandchildren. It's an honest story that many people can relate too because a domino effect is a real thing.
Liked the characters, but didn't really get to know them or know if their situations turned out okay. I like the way this author writes, but this book seemed like it didn't quite fit together, like it wasn't finished or information was missing or something. We meet several of Hattie's kids and they all seem to have some serious issues but I don't get why. Hattie seemed like a good mother. Not very affectionate, but the kids seemed to be taken care of and not abused by their parents in any way. I don't get why her children were all in such a bad way. Something is missing in the story to make that connection. I liked the characters though and wanted very much to get to know them better. And the idea I got from the end of the book was confusing. What is the message there? When you feel confused and maybe defeated or don't know where to turn, don't turn to God? I mean, I presume that Hattie wants to be more hands on with this grandchild so that she doesn't turn out the way her children did, but I didn't understand why she did what she did in the church. Or maybe I do get it, but I'm not sure if that is the message the author wanted to convey.
This book about Hattie and her Tribe has great resonance for me. I grew up in Philly, and have family who migrated there from SC in the 1920's for the same reasons that Hattie did. I know about the power of the neighborhoods, and the block, in shaping and nurturing you. Hattie, guarded, defensive, alone, and isolated, was disconnected from her community because of money and her husband's lower class. Though she was of the "right," class and color for Germantown, she'd married "down," and was disconnected from her neighbors. Interestingly her children are so affected that they end up in the very neighborhoods that Germantowners scorned South, West, and North Philly. Hattie's story is about the way that pain in one generation is passed to the next, and the next, and so on. Her father is brutally, senselessly murdered, and the family escapes to Philadelphia, only to have her mother, then twins die, all before she is even 18. She becomes deeply depressed and her children experience her depression as rejection and are in turn never able to fully accept and know who they really are. Some reviewers have complained that the book wasn't happy or uplifting, and I guess that they missed the point. It's about how your early experiences shape you, and how your children are then also shaped. One measure of a book for me is how much I can relate to the characters, and I not only related to them, I felt I knew them, had lived next door to them, went to church with them. They were the family everyone talked about, and in turn, pitied or scorned. Did they have happy endings? No. But that's the point of the story.
It was a struggle for Hattie to put herself together after losing her twins. Losing her babies was a partial disintegration of herself. She could not move beyond her grief, even when she had more children.
I believe she loved the children born after the twins, but chronic depression affected her in a way that was detrimental to their upbringing. Her husband August’s instability added to her depression.
Although August was unreliable as a husband and father, he had no difficulty expressing a little tenderness to his children. Yet August was a soft man who lacked character. He was too easy, too carefree, a spendthrift who enjoyed the bars, women and good times.
In essence, August was egocentric.
I loved Hattie’s character. I saw her as a strong woman, yet her grief kept her tethered to a man that caused a great deal of her emotional disability. She could not lift herself out of the mire from him.
Her brief affair with Lawrence showed her lack of direction. However, Lawrence made her feel good, made her laugh and gave her hope. But Lawrence’s compulsion would have spiraled out of control. Lawrence would have sent Hattie into a tailspin of profound depression. Lawrence could not offer her permanence and stability.
Hattie and August’s dysfunction and instability affected the children as adults. Their adult children had their own destructive behaviors and demons to deal with.
I enjoyed the book because I could imagine (Hattie’s sister) Pearl’s desperation for a child. I could imagine Hattie’s loss and the effects of depression on her psyche.
The writing was poignant, touched my heart, and made my eyes moisten at times. That in itself is a feat for a writer.
I would have liked the book to end with Bell, who I found destructive. I will not say more than that.
The only error I found was Lawrence’s discussion of Robert Kennedy in Bell’s chapter (1975). Robert Kennedy died June 6, 1968.
Errors happen in editing and in historical facts. No one knows this more than I do.
I suggest you read the book. It is a great read.
hated the ending.