Book Review: Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

January 27, 2025

I am not usually a historical fiction kind of gal, but this book sparked my interest with its mystery and intrigue. I will say, there aren’t really twists and turns like I usually like with my mysteries, but I will get into that.

We follow the story of two characters and read things from their points of view. First, is a Native American man named Joe. He grows up in a love filled home that is simply down on its luck. In his childhood alone, his younger sister goes missing and his older brother dies. He is the last to see both of them before they leave the family. There is always hope in his family, that they will see his younger sister, Ruthie, again, but no one knows why. In spite of all the heartache, their family is still full of love and laughter. As he ages, he stumbles into a lot of mistakes and we get to see his point of view through the way that he handles things ( rather poorly ) and his regrets in the way he handles things.

Second, we have Norma. She is a woman from a wealthy white family with a stifling household. She knows there is love in her home, it is just hard to see while she is not allowed to have friendships, playtime or even see other children outside of school hours. She often hears her parents whispering about her and her mother’s love is oppressive to say the least. She grows up knowing that she was the miracle baby after many losses that her parents had to endure - she lives with the ghosts of them in every corner of her home. As she grows up, she begins to see less and less similarities between her parents and her looks and asks her aunts best friend, Alice, about it. She had started to talk to Alice when she was very young and having dreams of another mother, of campfires with laughter, and a girl named Ruthie. She wakes up and tells her mother about them, only for her mother to tell her they are just bad dreams and to go back to sleep.

We, as outsiders, know that Norma is Ruthie, but our characters do not. From the beginning of the book, it is known that Norma is Ruthie and that she was stolen from a home and family that love her deeply, we just don’t know how or why. As the story unfolds, and we learn more about Norma’s family, and the one she left behind with Joe, we get a glimpse of how different her life would have been.

Maybe it is just my phase of life, and the fact that I have been reflecting a lot lately on the women in my family, but this book has a not-so-subtle undertone of the theme of a mothers love. We see how Joes mom does what she can to cope with the loss of multiple children, while she has plenty of other children to raise and love on, that need her deeply and a household that must go on. We see how Normas mom loves her in the only way she really knows how, and even when that is stifling and cruel, the love that runs deep between her and Norma. We see infant loss and mourning the loss of parenthood. We see parenthood that was unknown and therefore neglected. We see mistakes and regrets and real people dealign with real things from points of view I may have never seen.

While I would not call this my favorite book, I would suggest it to anyone who wants to see things from another point of view, and possibly try to understand someone who has a complicated relationship with her relatives, in every shape of the word.