The Caregiver

Mara and her mother Ana are very close and take care of one another. Ana, desperate for money to support Mara, takes an actress job that will lead down the wrong path. A path filled with the potential for murder, torture, heartbreak and death.

A beautifully written family saga about the resilience of the mother and daughter relationship; the upheaval of tragic life events; and how change in perspective and locale can alter life after unsavory things unfold.

I received an advanced review copy (ARC) of this book from the publisher through NetGalley for my honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

From the Publisher/NetGalley.com
Mara Alencar’s mother Ana is her moon, her sun, her stars. Ana, a struggling voice-over actress, is an admirably brave and recklessly impulsive woman who does everything in her power to care for her little girl. With no other family or friends her own age, Ana eclipses Mara’s entire world. They take turns caring for each other—in ways big and small.

Their arrangement begins to unravel when Ana becomes involved with a civilian rebel group attempting to undermine the city's torturous Police Chief, who rules over 1980s Rio de Janeiro with terrifying brutality. Ana makes decisions that indelibly change their shared life. When Mara is forced to escape, she immigrates to California as an undocumented immigrant and finds employment as a caregiver to a young woman dying of stomach cancer. It’s here that she begins to grapple with her turbulent past and starts to uncover vital truths—about her mother, herself, and what it means to truly take care of someone.

Told with vivid imagery and subtle poignancy, The Caregiver is a moving and profound story that asks us to investigate who we are—as children and parents, immigrants and citizens, and ultimately, humans looking for vital connectivity.

Ana Alencar is everything to her daughter, Mara. She is the provider, the one who supplies endless love, and the one who makes a mistake that will impact not only herself but also her daughter.

Brazil is in turmoil. There are rebel groups, student revolutionaries, and an aura of danger, of persecution and death that inhabits everyday. Ana is a voice over actress scrapping enough together to just get by but she makes life happy and loving for her daughter. They are each other's rock, their port in a storm, their reason for living. They are each other's caregivers.

However, Ana is forced to make a decision, a choice that will impact everything moving forward and will eventually force her daughter, Mara, to escape, to emigrate to America, where she will once again be a caregiver to a woman dying of cancer. The memories for Mara return and she finds herself in another caregiver environment once again not of her choosing.

Told with emotion, this book explores the intricate to and fro between mothers and their daughters. I do have to say that Mr Park got this relationship just right. We love our mothers, but at times that tenuous line does break and we find ourselves not understanding how this relationship hit upon rocky ground.

I definitely recommend this book for the way in which it presented not only a relationship but the times that brought that relationship to its difficult conclusion.

Thank you to Samuel Park who tragically died of stomach cancer at the age of forty-one, Simon and Schuster, and NetGalley for providing this book to me for an honest review.

This story revolves around Mara at 3 points in her life. When we hear about her she's 8, living with her mother in the violent surroundings of Brazil in the 1970s, then 16 caring for her mother who's got heart disease. At age 26, she's living in LA caring for a woman dying of stomach cancer. AS she cares for the woman, Mara reflects on her past in Brazil and the emotional circumstances that led to her coming to the US. This is a story filled with emotions but I never felt emotionally connected to it nor did it capture my attention like I hoped. I found myself skimming quite a bit of it and while i thought many parts were well written, in the end I just didn't find it quite compelling or engaging enough