Whoo hoo! The December/January issue of Upscale Magazine has a great review of Orange Mint and Honey:
"Daughters strive to either be just like their mothers or the exact opposite. Shay has every reason to avoid imitating her alcoholic mother, a habitual street wanderer who left her home alone for days and one long, scary week that the now 25-year old still can't forget.
After moving back home to tortuous childhood memories and an Alcoholics Anonymous-enthused mother ready to make amends, Shay refuses to forgive until her own misstep shows her a glimpse of life from her mother's perspective in Carleen Brice's gripping Orange Mint and Honey."
This review makes for excellent discussion questions: Do you think daughters strive to be just like our mothers or the exact opposite? If so, which did you go for? Is the same dynamic true for fathers and sons?
I tried for opposite for a long time. After my mother died, I was able to allow the parts of myself that were like her to breathe. Now I'm grateful for them.
13 comments:
Lovely review!!! You are getting all your Christmas presents early Carleen!!
Ohhh...excellent discussion question indeed...I did strive to be like my mother..for her approval and even after she died I know I was "hearing" her on my shoulder until a wise person told me I was now "being" my mother..that freaked me out and once I realized that I stopped and became "just me".
I have 2 boys...right now I'd say that are "opposite" in their own minds but I see ways in which they are like him...as they get older I think it will be interesting to see if they want to emulate or continue to be different.
When I was younger, I did everything possible to avoid being like my mother. I was HORRIFIED that I might turn out just like her!
Now that I'm older, I think I do understand her more. She passed away two years ago and more and more, I think of qualities that I honestly do admire (about the person she was) and seek to emulate those qualities.
I don't think I'll ever be much like my mother...but I no longer judge her choices or her, as a person. And yes, there are qualities about my mother that I wish I had more of.
For one thing, she was never, ever judgmental. She lived her life with the philosophy that if you couldn't say something nice, not to say anything at all. I'm still working on that one!
No matter what else, I think we are all our mother's daughters. We may be very different...but I think there are always at least a few ways...that we are just like our Mothers.
As a side note: My children appreciated my mother and had a much closer relationship with her than I ever did. And for this, I am eternally...grateful. She was a huge influence in their lives. And I am happy about that. For them...and for her...
Great discussion topic, Carleen! Thank you!
What a cool review, Carleen. You must be thrilled. And what a great question . . . I'm still trying to figure out how I'd answer it.
My answer to the question is exactly the same as yours, Carleen. After my mother was dead, it was easier to see and accept her as she was and also to see and accept those aspects of her that I share.
Oh, and congratulations on getting such a good review!
The "anonymous" comment was from me. For some reason, it didn't pick up my identity.
Shauna
What an awesome review! Congratulations! I'm so excited to buy it! I am not anything like my mother, thank goodness, she is a little crazy, but I love her. ;o)
Whoo-hoo! Excellent review. Congratulations.
(The discussion question is a tough one. I have to think about that.)
Ouch...being a member of the "sandwich generation" (caring for parent AND children in the home at the same time), this one is tough for me.
I love and appreciate so many things about my mom, but having her in the house and taking care of her much sooner than I ever dreamed makes it really easy to see the most irritating things and aim for the opposite.
People always told us we looked just alike, and I cringed as a teenager. Now I hear people say the same thing to my daughter, and I cringe for her. :-)
Congrats on the great review!
what a great review carleen!! so exciting. as for the question, i think when i was younger i wanted to be cooler, flyer, completely different than my mom...now i know that if i can be 1/2 as cool as my mom i'll be pretty damn fly.
Sherry, Yes this is a Merry Christmas for sure! I had a similar experience when my mom died; from what I've read it's common.
Sassy, You're right: for better and for worse we are products of our mothers.
Judy and Ms. Peri, I'll be interested to see what you guys have to say after giving it some thought!
Shauna, Why do you think that is? For me it was because my mother was such a big personality. When she was in the room, she took up all the space. (And didn't mind that it meant forcing me into a corner.)
Thanks Ello!
Julie, What goes around comes around, right?
Jamey, That's sweet. I hope you tell your mom that!
Carleen, I think for me it was that my mother and I had such different expectations from life and different ideas about what I should do with mine.
Making things worse, my mother always treated me as a total incompetent. For example, whenever I visited for a few days, my mother would rush out to the kitchen each morning when she heard me making my breakfast and tell me step by step how to do it. Each day it would get harder to bite my tongue, and we were often arguing by the end of my trips. As I got older, it got easier to ignore her harangues—detailed instructions on how to fry an egg were insulting when I was 20 but just plain silly when I was 45—but a lot of anger and frustration always tinged our relationship.
After she died and we weren't arguing anymore, I could look at our relationship with a cold eye. I finally saw that she wanted the best for me and wanted to protect me. I could forgive her then and feel sorry for her that I was such an ornery, contrary child who never listened to her.
Wonderful review. I can't wait to get my hands on the book
Ohh... this is so timely, I been thinking about my mom a lot lately.
I was so my father's child that at times I think my mother must have wondered what the heck happened. Weren't daughters supposed to be like their mothers? My mom and I were nothing alike in temperment or taste. I did share her talent for cooking but when she was alive I often wondered if my mother understood me at all. It took time for me to realize that my mother’s constant criticisms came from being abused as a child. Her greatest fear was that she would fail at being av good mother. I use to tell her she was a great mom, it just that we just were very, very different and that was okay.
I was her caregiver in the last years of her life and one day she told me in a sad voice that she knew that I wouldn't be able to become who I really was until after she was gone. I thought she was being over dramatic but in ways she must have deeply understood she was right
One of the best gifts that my mother's best friend gave to me after my mother died was to tell me all the things my mother admired about me but felt she just couldn't tell me herself. I found out that she loved the fact that I was a writer and a quilt artist. She also loved that I was so in to books and that I knew how to listen and that I was kind. She still didn't understand my passion for horses, gardens or agricultural history but she was finally okay with it.
I am more my mother's daughter now that she is gone. She died too young, so as her oldest daughter it has fallen to me to pass on the family traditions and stories to the next generation. So as I make her prize winning fruitcake ( She acutally won a prize in college for her fruit cake.) for all my friends and family I tell her that was a wonderful mom, the best mother a daughter could have had.
Post a Comment