Helpful Score: 8
I agree with the reviewer above me...the relentless misery of each person in this novel really affected my enjoyment of the book. While the writing was beautiful and I think Ms. Mathis is very talented, I just wished something nice would happen to someone...anyone! It's a law of averages that a good thing needs to happen every once in a while - and I would have loved to have seen it here. I also agree that it frustrated me terribly to have to abruptly leave one person's story and move on to another's without ever knowing how everything actually "turned out". You became invested in each character's misery and wanted to know if they were able to overcome their situation and how if affected them and the ones around them, but you just never know. I did like the author's lovely literary voice, but wish the material was more cohesive and had a glimmer of happiness here and there. I think if she'd tied up some loose ends and gave her creations some joy somewhere, she would have had a real winner with this book.
Helpful Score: 6
Review first published on my blog: http://memoriesfrombooks.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-twelve-tribes-of-hattie.html
Hattie Shepard is a child of the South. At age fifteen in 1923, Hattie leaves Georgia to seek a better life in Pennsylvania. She marries a man named August with hopes for a bright future. Unfortunately, that does not come to pass. In addition, her firstborn twins pass away because of a lack of medicine. Hattie goes on to have nine more children and works hard to instill in them the discipline and strength she feels are necessary to survive in a challenging world.
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, as the title suggests, follows the stories of Hattie and, turn by turn, her children. To some extent, reading each section is like reading an independent story. The characters carry over from one to the other. However, the focus of each is so definitely one character that the commonality between them seems less relevant.
Unfortunately, because of this structure, I found myself not being able to really vest in any of the characters or develop that sense of emotional connection. By the time I started to feel a connection, the section ended and I felt like I moved on to a brand new story.
Each of the individual stories in and of itself is sad and depressing. So, at the end, I am left with a set of depressing stories - not really something I want to spend time with. I am glad to be done and ready to move on.
Hattie Shepard is a child of the South. At age fifteen in 1923, Hattie leaves Georgia to seek a better life in Pennsylvania. She marries a man named August with hopes for a bright future. Unfortunately, that does not come to pass. In addition, her firstborn twins pass away because of a lack of medicine. Hattie goes on to have nine more children and works hard to instill in them the discipline and strength she feels are necessary to survive in a challenging world.
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, as the title suggests, follows the stories of Hattie and, turn by turn, her children. To some extent, reading each section is like reading an independent story. The characters carry over from one to the other. However, the focus of each is so definitely one character that the commonality between them seems less relevant.
Unfortunately, because of this structure, I found myself not being able to really vest in any of the characters or develop that sense of emotional connection. By the time I started to feel a connection, the section ended and I felt like I moved on to a brand new story.
Each of the individual stories in and of itself is sad and depressing. So, at the end, I am left with a set of depressing stories - not really something I want to spend time with. I am glad to be done and ready to move on.
Helpful Score: 4
Could not get through the second chapter before giving up this book. Depressing, repetitive text, I felt like the story was going nowhere. Boring, poorly written. The reviews on the back cover were raving...I don't know which book those reviewers were reading, but it wasn't this one. If I knew ahead of time it was an Oprah book pick I'd have skipped even trying to read it. She has a penchant for DEPRESSING stories which I hate. I will gladly move onto a much better book.
Her husband was missing, presumed dead â" yet she knew he was alive!
Anabel O'Shea had little more than blind faith to go on. It had all happened so suddenly â" one day she was a normal, happily faculty wife, and the next she was a distraught woman whose husband had mysteriously disappeared. Worse, all available evidence indicated his violent death at the hands of his colleague, Professor Everett Adams.
What grotesque reasons had caused all this? Why were both men unable to be found? Just two of many questions which arise in the moment-by-moment horror of this gripping novel.
Anabel O'Shea had little more than blind faith to go on. It had all happened so suddenly â" one day she was a normal, happily faculty wife, and the next she was a distraught woman whose husband had mysteriously disappeared. Worse, all available evidence indicated his violent death at the hands of his colleague, Professor Everett Adams.
What grotesque reasons had caused all this? Why were both men unable to be found? Just two of many questions which arise in the moment-by-moment horror of this gripping novel.
This book, about a family involved in the Great Migration - from rural south to urban north - is basically a series of short stories dealing with the different children of Hattie and her husband. Raw, difficult, survival stories. Well written, enlightening.
I loved this book but it was missing something.
I enjoyed this book from the minute I opened it. Great first book for an author. Arranged in chapters high-lighting her 12 children, you learn who Hattie Shepard really is. Each chapter is a small novella in itself - from the perspective of one child - giving their insight into their mother, Hattie. Some chapters were better than others, but overall the book was very good.
This book reads like something that Zora Neale Hurston or Toni Morrison might have written. This is the story of Hattie and her husband, August. She moves to Philadelphia during the great migration and gives birth to a pair of twins who don't survive long enough to celebrate their first birthday. Afterwards, Hattie gives birth to ten more children, who grow up to become a variety of colorful figures. Each chapter is told from the POV of one of her children (and one grandchild) and relates their experiences, but in the background of each story, you learn a little more about Hattie and August, so the book is really about the family. Some reviewers have said that they never heard anything more about certain characters after their chapter, but I don't think that they were paying attention, as other family members relate what happened to their siblings, in their own chapters. It's really the story of family and it is a really interesting read. Also a pick for Oprah's book club, if you're into that.
Not quite sure why this book is in such high demand, with so many wishing for it. It is well written, but following the lives of this woman and her many children was a little depressing. D.
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie begins with a sadness that hangs on throughout the book. While a difficult read for me, I believe one may have to have lived in the oppression Hattie experienced to fully understand circumstances of each child as well as Hattie's own withdrawal from life. Hattie raises her children alone although she was married. She struggled alone because it mattered to no one. She was in a sea of stair step children always hungry & in need with no relief insight. I felt Hattie's pain & the confusion of her children as they became adults. Each one had their ghosts & emotional baggage & while it seems Hattie was blamed for all the short comings, she was simply in survival mode. The final chapter is redeeming. Hattie may continue to make mistakes, but she won't make the same mistakes. It's a sorrowful book.
This is an amazing debut novel that begins with a tragic loss when Hattie is seventeen years old. The background and character of Hattie Shepherd emerge as the novel progresses through chapters featuring her children's lives and memories. Hattie is strong, Hattie is flawed and Hattie raises her children in a culture unknown to most of us. In a perfect literary world, each of these chapters will become a novel. Reminiscent in style and quality to the wonderful novel, Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout, this is a book that is a brilliant portrayal of a woman and her family. I am not an Oprah fan, but I do applaud her for bringing this book to the attention of those who don't normally read literary fiction.
