The Dovewick women have always had complicated relationships with their pasts. Maybe that's why the tradition of the notebooks started. No one knows anymore. It's expected, though.
As Mimi struggles to find a way to connect with her mother--always withdrawn, always a little cold--she wonders if being a Dovewick daughter is another name for being a disappointment. No wonder she prefers to be @MimiDove. She can curate who she is online. She can show people the best pieces. The ones that don't make anyone ask her why she's so short, why she wore that top; online Mimi can share the pieces that won't ever show how she turned sixteen alone, how her mother's boyfriend barely tolerates her presence.
Mimi has always known about the notebooks kept by every woman in her family. She's seen them all lined up on the mantle. All the girls in all the pictures that bleed together as background noise.
Writing in her own notebook is daunting. But it's also a place where, finally, Mimi can present an unvarnished version of herself. One that is allowed to be scared and hurt, one that is allowed to miss all of the things she never really had.
Mimi doesn't like to think about the past. She doesn't like to think about what happened before or what her mother said after. She tries to ignore the sexual assault case that's all over the news, tries to make it more background noise. Until her mother comes forward as an accuser.
Suddenly, Mimi feels like she doesn't recognize her mother or her own life. As she digs through the old notebooks she finds her mother's story, her grandmother's, her great-grandmother's. So many Dovewick women. All navigating the same confusing space between girl and woman, absorbing the same hurts as daughters, hoping they'll learn how to be better mothers.
Looking to the past gives Mimi strength to understand a lot of truths about her own life and her relationship with her mother. But before she can look ahead, she'll have to decide who she wants to be and how she wants to navigate this confusing world in Lawless Spaces (2022) by Corey Ann Haydu.
Lawless Spaces is a standalone novel in verse. The primary story follows Mimi in 2022. Readers also encounter Mimi's ancestors as Mimi unearths stories from Betty (1954) and Tiffany (1999), among others. Mimi and her family are white. Despite tackling so many voices and time periods, each girl's voice remains as distinct as her story--even as common themes like loneliness begin to come through.
Through Mimi and her family, Haydu's sophisticated verse addresses the damaging legacy of the male gaze while looking through a smaller lens focused on the fractured relationship between a daughter and her mother. It's a story about what happens when you realize you have to save yourself because the grownups who were supposed to keep you safe can't even protect themselves.
Lawless Spaces is a timely, forward-facing story that tackles the isolation and loss of the pandemic while also telling an entirely different story about what it means to carry generational trauma.
Possible Pairings: One Great Lie by Deb Caletti, Unbecoming by Jenny Downham, You Too?: 25 Voices Share Their #MeToo Stories by Janet Gurtler, An Emotion of Great Delight by Tahereh Mafi, Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough, You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins, 13 Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All by Laura Ruby, A Room Away From the Wolves by Nova Ren Suma
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