THE MAKING OF HER by Bernadette Jiwa

 

MY THOUGHTS

This is Bernadette Jiwa's debut novel and it's a very good one. It will keep you turning the pages. Shedding some tears. Pulling your hair out. Wanting to kick Martin and Joan throughout the book. I was so angry at Joan until the last few chapters that I would have bit nails into. I throughly despised Martin from start to finish. He was a player and a user who wanted things his way and no other way. Well maybe his "mother's" way. Big mama's boy. 

Joan and Martin were seeing each other but when his mother found out they had to hide their relationship. As much as he tried to keep her from finding out though of course she did. She sent him away to school in London to learn how to run the family business. He's a grown man so why did he have to go away to learn how to run any business that belonged to them? That part I found unbelievable. It was one way for his mum to control him is all. He let her too. But he did arrange for Joan to follow later so they could be together. Of course they could be in secret that way. Mommy would never find out. Joan gets pregnant and of course it is up to her to bear the "shame" of that. In the sixties men were not in fault at all. It was the woman or girl who was the tramp. Though Martin did promise to stand by her. He just could not bring that shame on his family or business. So he talked Joan into giving the baby up for adoption. She could not raise it on her own and certainly could not take it back to Dublin with her. So she finally agreed. Though for about a week she was livid with Martin.

Martin and Joan got married and lived in his family home with his Mummy. Of course mum is there. She's at the center of everything concerning Martin. They eventually have a child, a daughter, and live their life fairly peacefully. As long as Joan never mentions the child they gave up. Another little girl by the way. Martin had promised that someday they would see her again but of course that could not happen. His mum would find out their dirty little secret and he could not have that. Thirty years go by before Emma contacts Joan wanting to meet. Emma has a secret reason for this meeting also. Her son is dying and needs for Joan and Martin to be tested to see if they can save him. Neither Emma or her husband are a match. Joan of course does but Martin is absolutely not going to. What would his mum think. What would the people who he does business with think. No way. He's cold hearted about his own grandson.

Joan finally has enough and tells their daughter, Carmel, about everything. Carmel wants to get tested and begs her dad too but to no avail. He will not. Joan finally gets some backbone and leaves Martin and Carmel leaves the business. 

POSSIBLE SPOILERS HERE:

This book was so good but that ending left me hanging. What happened? Did the transplant work? Was the child saved. Did Emma ever truly get to know Joan and forgive her completely for giving her up. I was left with a few questions that would not answered.  This was a five start read until that ending. It left me scratching my head. While I was very proud of Joan finally for opening up to Carmen who she had pushed away for twenty seven years, I was angry at her for actually doing that. Carmen was her chance at being a mother after she gave up her first child. I think this book had so much potential. It kept me reading but then left me confused. It is all about a mother who was devastated at having to give up her daughter but then you don't know if they ever got to know each other completely or not. Did they become parts of each other's lives and did the two sisters have a relationship? I was just so disappointed in the ending. 

Thank you #NetGalley, #BernadetteJiwa, #PenguinGroupDutton for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this book.

3.5 stars. I recommend you read for yourself. To me it was good but not great. It left to many questions for me.

SYNOPSIS

An unforgettable debut novel about family secrets, falling apart, and coming together.

Dublin 1996. Joan Egan lives an enviable life. She and her husband, Martin, and daughter, Carmel, are thriving in Dublin at the dawn of an economic boom. But everything changes when Joan receives a letter from Emma, the daughter who she and Martin gave up for adoption thirty years before, asking for a life-or-death favor.
 
While Joan grapples with the guilt over giving up her baby long ago, she must confront her present as the cracks in her marriage become impossible to ignore and simmering tension with Carmel boils over. Meanwhile, Carmel and Emma must come to terms with the perceived sins of their mother, to imagine a future for their family before it is too late.
 
Spanning the nineties and the sixties, with Dublin as its backdrop, The Making of Her is the tender and page-turning story of marriage, motherhood, a culture that would not allow a woman to find true happiness—and her journey to finally claim it.