Blog Tour – At The Feet Of Mothers

Welcome to post two of the day! It’s a good day to be following me. This time, my review of the book At The Feet of Mothers, which is a truly unique and powerful read.

Book Blurb:
Joseph Schneider grows up in a Cherokee-Jewish family in the Smoky mountains of North Carolina. He dreams to be a cook on the biggest ship there is in the world but his attachment to his mother Rachel and his rootedness to the little mountain village keep him from moving on. When his mother falls ill she reveals she stole him from a Palestinian girl Aliya in the 80s when she volunteered at a hospital in Gaza. Joseph refuses to know anything more about his biological mother, but later when Rachel dies, Joseph honors his promise to her and embarks on a painful pilgrimage to the holy land, a walk in the footsteps of his American mother and a search for Aliya.

I found this book somewhat abrupt and difficult to adjust to the style of, but once I had settled into it, it was a story about love in all its forms. The demonstrations of how love can start, form, change, bend, and sometimes ultimately yield entirely was entrancing.

It was written in such a personal style that it sometimes felt as if I was almost prying into something private and secret, and when an author can create such atmospheric book then they need to be commended.

Ultimately this story is a search for identity, and about trying to find our place in the world when all our markers have suddenly changed. Joseph goes through his teenage years, contending with everything from obnoxious tourists to his first girlfriend, giving the appearance of a normality that it at the forefront, backed by this void that he had no idea about.

Many thanks to Emma from Damp Pebbles Blog Tours for bringing this book to my attention, and to the author for sharing it with us, as well as with the world.