Mother Tongue

by Julie Mayhew

Based on the shocking Beslan school siege in 2004, this is a brave and necessary story about grief, resilience, and finding your voice in the aftermath of tragedy.

On the day she brings her sweet little sister, Nika, to school for the first time, eighteen-year-old Darya has already been taking care of her family for years. But a joyous September morning shifts in an instant when Darya’s rural Russian town is attacked by terrorists. While Darya manages to escape, Nika is one of hundreds of children taken hostage in the school in what stretches to a three-day siege and ends in violence. In the confusion and horror that follow, Darya and her family frantically scour hospitals and survivor lists in hopes that Nika has somehow survived. And as journalists and foreign aid workers descend on her small town, Darya is caught in the grip of grief and trauma, trying to recover her life and wondering if there is any hope for her future. From acclaimed author Julie Mayhew comes a difficult but powerful narrative about pain, purpose, and healing in the wake of senseless terror.

• ISBN10: 1536202630
• ISBN13: 9781536202632
• Publish Date: 13 August 2019 (first published 25 August 2016)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Candlewick Press,U.S.
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781536202632

Reviews

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight .


It's funny, in the last Julie Mayhew book I read (The Big Lie), I freaking loved the first half of the book. I'm talking five-stars, mind blown, all the feelings loved. And that is exactly what happened here. The beginning is awful and raw and I found myself wholly immersed. I will admit, it was hard for me to read (since I had my own kids, reading about kids dying guts me, but that isn't a complaint, I knew this going in of course!) so it took me some time, but I was hooked. Darya had practically raised Nika, as her mother was largely unable to due to mental illness. Darya feels like she not only lost a sister, but her whole purpose. And the family, as you can imagine, struggles to handle it too. It seems horrifyingly honest and when the media circus comes to town, terribly realistic.

This part of the story was well crafted and full of emotion. Darya trying to reach out to find where she would fit was of course believable. And her need to escape her small town to seek opportunity in Moscow made tons of sense. But this leads me to...

What I Didn't:

Here's the thing: the second half of the story wasn't necessarily even bad, it was just... different. A whole different tone, really. It became a lot more about Darya trying to navigate the big city, but I just wasn't as invested. I liked Darya, and I was rooting for her, but as the story turned from one about family and picking up the pieces after tragedy, I had trouble caring about Darya's new friend, or her crushes, or what have you. Which is perhaps unfair, but I simply didn't find this part of her journey compelling. It lacked the emotion of the first half. Where I had cared about Darya's grief, and her bond with her family, and even her trying to move on after the unthinkable, in this second half, I just felt... nothing, really.

Bottom Line: A stunning first half based on an unimaginable tragedy and a family trying to stay afloat, the second half was a bit underwhelming, especially by comparison.

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

Disclaimer: I received this book for free from and Candlewick Press in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I respect what Julie Mayhew was trying to do with this book, but I don’t think it worked.

Mother Tongue is a fictional account of the family of one of the victims of the Beslan school siege in 2004. I will admit my ignorance – before reading this book, I was entirely unfamiliar with the event. Also, I was 14 and admittedly not following the news. The Beslan school siege was a three-day siege at a Russian school where approximately 1200 people were held hostage on the first day of school for three days. Over three hundred people were killed, half of which were children.

In Mother Tongue, we see the morning before the siege, then the siege itself and the aftermath. From a research perspective, Mayhew’s done an excellent job. The technical aspects are all well done and shocking. The cultural attentiveness is there. What’s missing is the emotion. And I’m not sure if this was a choice – to have the main character so emotionally detached as an affect of shock – or if it was just unsuccessfully written?

I genuinely wish that there were more emotional depths in Mother Tongue. This story is super important to bring to life. The Beslan school siege is not the type of thing that should be forgotten, because it’s tragic and heartbreaking and horrible. But as far as this novel goes, there’s not enough depth to the characters to pull your heartstrings for this particular story. Darya is flat and directionless. There was a point where I thought that the story was going to turn and she was going to grow, but she constantly turned tail and avoided opportunities of growth. That was a theme here – I felt like the storytelling kept stopping short. I couldn’t connect with the characters because they never showed enough of themselves.

As far as the plot goes, its meandering. It’s all about Darya’s healing after the siege and learning to live. She feels guilty for wanting more, and she’s angry at her family for their own types of grief. The book star s strong – getting ready for school and a sister conversation. She doesn’t know what she wants, and the story follows that indecision. As a reader, I felt like I was being lead in circles, and the conclusion was not fulfilling.

Mother Tongue had a lot of idea potential and tells what could be an important story, but I personally did not feel it was told successfully.

[Joséphine]

Initial thoughts: Mother Tongue is based on the Beslan school siege, and the aftermath. Needless to say, that made it a difficult book to read. Knowing that children were killed, thinking about the families left behind, recalling the despairing faces I saw on TV in 2004 made it all the more heart-breaking. The pain, however, does not compare to that of people who were there. That's why I'm glad that Julie Mayhew continued to wonder in her afterword if this was a story she should tell.

Was it her place to write this book? I don't have a concrete answer either, though I don't think that she sensationalised any aspect. That's an important factor that made me appreciate Mother Tongue. Mayhew focused on one person, Darya, and how she was affected — the post-traumatic stress disorder she was struck with when she lost a her sister, whom she had raised like her own daughter.

The pace felt a little dissonant, Darya's character introspective yet not always fully present. That slowed down my reading of Mother Tongue significantly. Usually that would've bothered me but given the subject matter, it seemed fitting.