Mama Letty is dying and her only daughter is relocating her family to be there for the final days. But there has been a rift between them and her teenage daughter, Avery, is determined to open up the old wounds and try to heal them.
Lots of intense teenage emotion in this one. Avery feels everything so immediately and so deeply, initially only reacting to the world based on how it looks from her view. Through the story we see her evolve, her desire to know more about her grandmother’s history, why her mother feels the way she does about her insular small town and realize how lucky she is to have the freedom to be who she is and freely express her emotions. For a very long time generational trauma and violence was not something that was acknowledged, it was felt and buried. We see that with Lettie who turned to drinking to hide her pain and Avery’s mother who just compartmentalized. As Avery goes from woke DC where she is an out lesbian, mixed race but white passing to small town Georgia, she can better understand the history of her Black family. She integrated and adapted but ultimately challenged those around her and was able to get nice resolution for most of the people around her. The ending gave us a small reality check though in that progress is often small and occurs more at a personal level than a systematic one.
If you can deal with a little teenage whining and drama to start, this one has a beautiful character arc and many lessons.
Thanks to LibroFM via their ALC program for gifted access to this one. All opinions above are my own.
Are you the type to try to heal old family wounds or would you prefer to ignore them?
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