Book Review: My Mother’s Funeral by Adriana Paramo

A big thank you to TLC Book Tours for providing me with an electronic copy of this book and for inviting me to be a host on this tour.

My Mother's Funeral, Adriana Paramo, memoir, Colombia, Alzheimer'sNonfiction – Memoir
Released November, 2013
Pages: 288
Bottom Line: Skip it.
Link to this book on Amazon

Plot Summary of My Mother’s Funeral:

The story of Adriana’s childhood in Colombia with her mother and six siblings, and her experience with her mother’s death from Alzheimer’s.

My Thoughts on My Mother’s Funeral:

Adriana certainly lived an eventful childhood as one of six children of an essentially single mother and stories from this time made good memoir material. Adriana’s mother was a hard-working, superstitious, Catholic woman who seemed to have an infinite amount of patience for her derelict husband (who constantly disappears and reappears throughout Adriana’s childhood). She was also witty, quirky, and had very creative methods of disciplining her brood (i.e. she paid a taxi to ferry Adriana to and from school to ensure she was not skipping class to attend communist meetings).

My Mother’s Funeral tells Adriana’s story in two simultaneous threads: one about her life growing up in Colombia and one about her mother’s death and funeral

I enjoyed the childhood thread once I got into it, but Paramo lost me every time she switched back to the story of learning of her mother’s death and attending her funeral. After a quick Prologue and opening chapter about how her parents met, she dives right into her mother’s death. I had not gotten a chance to get to know her mother yet or develop any emotions towards her, so the going on and on about her death (even her rigor mortis!!) felt like blathering to me. I found myself skimming over every death / funeral chapter.

I also didn’t feel like I got a good sense of her mother’s Alzheimer’s and the effects that had on the family. Maybe this was because Adriana was living in the U.S. by the time the Alzheimer’s truly hit, but I feel like that was a central element to the story that wasn’t sufficiently covered.

There were certainly parts of this book that I liked. And, I think I would have liked it even more had Paramo focused exclusively on growing up in Colombia and her relationship with her mother. But, the sections about the funeral just filled up too much of the book for me to recommend it. 


TLC Book Tours

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4 Comments

  1. I’m sorry this one wasn’t your cup of tea but thanks for being a part of the tour.

    Posted 1.19.14 Reply
  2. Harvee wrote:

    Sorry it didn’t speak to you. But would love your comments on my review of the book:
    http://bookdilettante.blogspot.com/2014/01/book-review-my-mothers-funeral-by.html

    Thanks,
    Harvee

    Posted 1.21.14 Reply
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    Posted 6.7.15 Reply

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