This Boy We Made: A Memoir of Motherhood, Genetics, and Facing the Unknown by Taylor Harris is a story about the author's son, Tophs, who has an illness that has yet to be diagnosed or identified and Harris' challenges with navigating his physical health as he grows up and the way she mothers him and her other two children.
I think I would have enjoyed this memoir more if I was a mother myself. This story really lends itself to Harris forging her own journey about motherhood, faith, science, and medicine against everything she was told and expected it to be in the perspective of a concerned mother, which is not an identity or role I relate to. Even though I didn't really feel connected to Harris' storytelling, I still liked the memoir and thought it provided something unique.
This story is partially told in present time and in flashbacks to Harris' childhood in Columbus, Ohio, and her time at University of Virginia and living in Charlottesville post-graduation with her husband, Paul. I felt like some of the flashbacks didn't fit into the narrative super cohesively, and some of them were difficult to make sense of at times, especially when the correlation between her memories and Tophs' experiences wasn't clear.
I read this book for The Stacks Book Club for the May pick. I normally wouldn't have picked this book, or probably anything similar to it, to read on my own, so it was interesting to read something outside of my normal fiction and romance books. I just think this would have piqued my interest more if I was a parent.
Have you read This Boy We Made? What did you think?
Comments