Book Review: Mama's Girl

Veronica Chambers is the author of the memoir Mama’s Girl. She narrates her own story starting at a very young age when she lived in New York with her mom, dad and brother Malcolm. At this time she is trying really hard to make her mom proud but she doesn’t seem to be paying attention to her accomplishments in school or anything that has to do with her. She is more worried about her brother who has not applied himself in school. On the other hand, he dad has a lousy job, another woman, and on top of that he beats her mother.

Veronica’s dad and Malcolm move out shortly afterwards. Veronica then has a stepfather who treats her mother fairly but who doesn’t have a good relationship with her. At this time, Veronica is pursuing her dreams of going to college and one thing she realizes is that her mother never pushed herself to be greater because she was afraid of the dominant white race even though she lived through the civil rights movement. Veronica, she wants to be successful like any other white person and she knows she has the potential.

Veronica left her mother who fed her during 14 long years and gave he shelter to move in with her dad because of the awful relationship with her stepfather. Veronica has to fight for her rights in this new house; her dad’s new wife is extremely cruel to her and mean to the point she’s not allowed to have her groceries in the same refrigerator or eat in the same table. She gets beat up for no reason and her dad is ashamed of her appearance, because he never took her shopping for new clothes or to the beauty salon for a day. Neither did her mom.

Her desire to succeed is even greater than the pain she has and the little voice that tells her to give up. One day, she gets the worst beating because her guy friend took her shopping for her birthday. Her dad thought she was doing a sexual favor and beats her, leaving her bleeding in the street. She threatens to press charges but instead of doing that she made him pay for her tuition for early college so she could leave.

Now that she is in college she feels more independent, free, and safe. She talks to her mom everyday and realizes she is the only person that has really given her what she’s needed and even though she wanted more attention, she knows really how much her mom has done and how she’s the only thing she has left.

Veronica is pushing herself harder everyday doing internships in magazines during the summer and working her way up to success alone. During the whole book she is making reference to the big gap and difference between the white ruling class and the black lower class. Her mom is an example of a person who lived all her life with her head down as a secretary for white people.

After college Veronica starts living with her aunt and with all her work she finally breaks down to her mother about how she always wished she noticed how hard she studied to be good and successful in life and she never seemed to notice. But her mom tells her how she’s always been proud.

After this, Veronica has a new way of seeing life, she has infinite possibilities and thanks to her vision she becomes editor in the New York Times. She never let her dad stop her, her stepmother, her skin tone, or even her mom. She realizes how different she is from her brother, now he is living in the streets doing drugs and lost his path. They both had the same mother but they made completely different choices in life.

She is the woman she always dreamed of being, but overall she expresses the way she feels like she has to make up to her mom for her brother’s failures and her father’s beating. She tries to do this by giving her the things she never had before. The reader can really feel how thankful she is to her mom for being so strong. She could’ve left the moment Veronica’s dad started beating her but she didn’t for her children.

This memoir is a coming of age novel. Veronica has a very rough childhood where she is looking for answers and experience away from her broken home. She has to be responsible almost by force and she starts to take her own risks by working and studying to buy her own food since 14. She has a low self-esteem but her knowledge and studies help her realize how much she is really worth. Even though this book takes place in the 1980’s and 90’s mostly, she still feels that pressure to fit in, especially during college where there are only five black kids in her class.
I believe that the title Mama’s Girl has of course a lot to do with the story but mostly the illustration of a little black girl conveys more than the eye meets. My interpretation of this is that even though Veronica had a very rough childhood and teenage years, without her mother’s way of being and her sacrifices she wouldn’t be who she is now, but that it doesn’t mean she’ll ever stop being her Mama’s Girl. Even though she changed a lot from when she was a naive little girl, she tries to stay true, throughout the whole story, to her mother and herself thanking her mother for making her who she is today.

This memoir is about Veronica Chambers, a former editor of The New York Times Magazine and Premiere. She wants the reader to know through the novel that it wasn’t easy to become the person she is now, but with hard work and perseveration your dreams will soon become reality.

From the moment Veronica started being physically abused at home and ignored by her mother she started to focus more and more in school, one of the first things she realized is that if she does really good in school she can move out faster. Later she realizes that staying strong is important because giving up for her was not an option. While growing up she wonders why her mother never pushed herself to be promoted in her job and she realizes a lot of people in the black community including her mother still feel different or that they don’t have the same chances to succeed as the white community. Veronica proves this to be wrong when she excels as a young black woman with a privileged job as an editor that many white people yearn for.

I think the life of Veronica really made me appreciate my life and my privileges. She never gave up and I realize sometimes I feel like the world is just crumbling down at my feet and I want to stop and just not do it anymore but the truth is my problems seem insignificant compared to what Veronica had to face. I think that she is an excellent example of overcoming the difficulties in life anyone might face, and for her they were cruel and harsh but the reward was gratifying.

“In my mother’s arms that night, I found a safe space. I was a child again and being a child didn’t make me feel weak or afraid like it did when I was a girl, helpless to protect my mother or myself. In mother’s arms, I found healing” (page 168) I think this line shows how she finally feels safe in her mom’s arms something she hadn’t felt when she was a little girl because she saw her mother get beat up and she felt helpless because she couldn’t protect her. She also says she finds healing in her mother’s arms because she never felt she loved her until that moment and now that she knows it she feels safe and fearless.