With the effect of a Greek chorus, they bookend the stories of three young adults, offering their advice and admonitions at various stages of the journey. The title of Brit Bennett's superb debut novel The Mothers refers, in part, to a group of gossipy and reproving older women from a black church community in southern California. If we laid all our lives toes to heel, we were born before the Depression, the Civil War, even America itself.”

If, as time passes, we must always live in servitude to the decisions of our younger selves, to the communities that have parented us, and to the decisions we make that shape our lives forever.“What did a bunch of old ladies know? We would’ve told her that altogether, we got centuries on her. In entrancing, lyrical prose, The Mothers asks whether a 'what if' can be more powerful than an experience itself. Soon, Nadia, Luke, and Aubrey are full-fledged adults and still living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully maneuver, and dogged by the constant, nagging question: What if they had chosen differently? The possibilities of the road not taken are a relentless haunt. As Nadia hides her secret from everyone, including Aubrey, her God-fearing best friend, the years move quickly. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance - and the subsequent cover-up - will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. 'All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we'd taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season.' Set within a contemporary black community in Southern California, Brit Bennett's mesmerizing first novel is an emotionally perceptive story about community, love, and ambition.

Brit bennett's the mothers