A touching and enjoyable story with lush descriptions of the locations and characters.

A story about found family, art and Jamaica that I found at an indie bookstore. Enjoyed how all the characters come together and the descriptions of life on the island.

Quote Spotlight:

“I think that when you go, you know, Chris, the most you can ask for is to come back as a flower.”

It was tough to write a review for this book. Usually, when I read books, I write in the margins and bookmark stuff to write about later. But for this, I mostly read it straight through. Was it because the book was boring? A little. But it was also about things I usually don’t talk about with others, this thing being grief. A Million Aunties is a pretty short book, so this review will cover a brief summary and some final thoughts. In short, you will like this book if you like stories from multiple characters’ perspectives and like reading about supportive familial relationships.

Summary

In a Million Aunties by Alecia McKenzie, we follow a community of people as they work through loss, tragedy and difficult circumstances together. Chris, one of our main characters, is a painter and has recently lost someone he loves to a terrible event. To cope with his loss, he goes to Jamaica, his mother’s homeland, which he hadn’t visited since she passed. In Jamaica, he stays with Miss Della (or Auntie D), his agent’s mother-like figure. We later find out that his agent, Stephen, has lost his parents to a tragic event and Miss Della has become a firm presence in his life. She slowly becomes a supportive presence in Chris’ life too through their early morning yoga stretches and outings. These three characters will show up in each chapter frequently, and we get to know them not only through their own perspectives but from other characters that surround them as well. For example, one chapter is narrated by Stephen’s love interest and we get to know what she thinks of him. Another is told by Chris’ father, who fought in the Vietnam War, and another is told by Miss Pretty (Auntie D’s neighbor), who wears a fur coat no matter the weather. By the end of the story, we don’t get a concrete conclusion to these people’s sorrows, but rather a food for thought when thinking about grief and how a community of people can support each other through it.

Thoughts after Finishing

As I read about different characters’ experiences with loss and grief, I kept thinking about my own. There have been too many people that have died suddenly around me. And when I say this, I am not only referring to COVID-19 but people throughout my life I seen people be hurt, abused, and killed due to circumstance, race, or a combination of other reasons. I feel these things intimately, and it can be exhausting to read about others and their struggles with their loss.

However, while the feeling of pain and loss was an overwhelming emotion I got while reading A Million Aunties, I was fascinated by McKenzie’s use of flowers to represent hope and love. One of the main characters, Chris, was trying to develop his technique of painting flowers. Auntie Della had a flower bed that kept washing away because of a landslide, but she kept planting them back. Chris’s wife, Lidia, thought that the best you can hope for is to come back as a flower when you die. Auntie Della gave her neighbor, Vera, a dead flower and she nursed it back to life. You would be hard-pressed to miss how important flowers are in understanding that nothing lasts forever, and it is crucial to nurture the flowers (or people) that are alive while also cherishing the memories of those who have passed. Overall, this was a solid book for anybody dealing with grief and would like to walk through somebody else’s for a moment. It could be comforting to grow to know these characters and compare them to people in your life. As for me, I think the most important lesson I learned from this book is to keep nurturing the flowers- and community- that nourish me. Nothing is permanent, but we can enjoy the beauty while it is here.

2,5

I absolutely loved the book and the characters until the sudden and unrelated trip to France.
The overwhelming descriptions and the lack of understanding of French culture and politics ruined it for me.

So sad. It was a great story.