Title: Half Moon Waking
Author: Liv Hunziker
Publisher: Page of Notes
ISBN: 9798218296186
Through poems, lyric essays, and voice-driven short stories, Liv Hunziker’s Half Moon Waking walks readers through her life’s journey in this book on motherhood, marriage, and love.
Hunziker’s collection builds like a walk through the woods, with pauses to look at the important parts of her life and a trail that circles back on itself in a way that gives a sense of lessons learned to help readers keep moving forward. Hunziker seems to understand that topics like love, religion, and motherhood never have destinations or ends; her approach to these topics highlight the journey of each as well as their complicated intersections.
Hunziker talks about the intertwining nature of religion, marriage, and motherhood and the beauty and dread that accompanies each in their own ways. This collection will especially resonate with mothers, both those holding a newborn for the first time and those who have guided their children through to adulthood but will always see them as their babies. Reading this as a mother in the newborn and toddler trenches, Hunziker’s words “Motherhood. Tougher than any marathon” and her cinema-veritas description of holding a coughing toddler in a steaming shower through the night to free his cough rattled me in a way I couldn’t let go; I returned to those lines over and over, feeling seen and like I had company in the early hours of the morning where only nursing mothers and insomniacs dwell.
While sometimes the religious aspects of Hunziker’s work might be distracting to some readers, her connection to the religious side of her life is intrinsic to understanding her approach to the trials of marriage and motherhood.
Review by Betsy Lepchitz
@horror_momma_betsy
Komentarze