i would’ve liked to see them have some more time together in the book but i also thought it was done well how it was. Please don't misunderstand this as me not liking the book, but I hope provide insight into why I rated this down a little. Instead, she hits the road to hand-deliver these mysterious letters and learn more about her mother in the process. This mystery, her sadness, and her lasting anger all come together to cause Maggie to forgo sticking around for her mother’s shiva. there’s not really a mystery involved or anything super important in the plot, it’s more just used as a device for character development and the overall complexity of the novel.

When Iris suddenly dies, Maggie grapples with past interactions they both had and tries to understand the woman she learns more and more about. Unfolding over the course of nine days, and written with enormous heart, All My Mother's Lovers is a meditation on the universality and particularity of family ties, grief, and generational divides, as well as a tender and biting portrait of sex, gender, and identity.i didn’t really understand the point of the book at first, it went really slowly and i liked it but didn’t love it.

With a character so woke, it feels oddly surprising when the plot falls into formulaic pits, most notably exemplified in a trip to an omniscient psychic who could easily exist on the Disney Channel.

I think if this were a book club choice or group discussion, there would be a lot to ponder about parents being people with lives prior to having children and how those lives continue once children come into the picture. Maggie assumes this rejection of closeness is a byproduct of “seeing such a good example in her parent’s marriage” which perhaps was “detrimental, made her standards too high, her expectations over the top. As we spend time with Maggie, we see how she processes her feelings and past and current decisions in the shadow of this complex relationship. Now in her late twenties, Maggie is finally in something resembling a serious relationship, wondering if some of whatever shaped her parents’ decades-long love story might exist after all.