Reviewed: “The Missing Letters of Mrs. Bright” by Beth Miller

You know how you can buy a book because of the cover, knowing absolutely nothing about it? Well, I wanted to read The Missing Letters of Mrs. Bright because my fifth grade teacher was Mrs. Bright and she was the best teacher I had in school. That’s it. The human mind can be weird.

But it can also be kind to itself, because Beth Miller’s novel was a gentle rollercoaster of emotions and self-discovery that hit all the right notes as it told the story of Kay Bright.

Quite abruptly, it seems at first, Kay decides that the life she’s been living for thirty years has been good enough but it could be better so she leaves her husband and sets out to find and define herself in ways she never has before. This, of course, upends her husband and adult children so the journey becomes theirs too. And in doing so, Beth Miller is able to keep the wife and mother as a central figure in the story even as she moves away from it.

That seems to fit just right the idea of that role in a family.

Each member the Bright family goes on their own journey, spurred because Kay speaks for herself and herself alone. She doesn’t set out to help her son, daughter, and husband grow into themselves but she does because she is growing into herself. In a way, it’s a middle-aged coming of age story and maybe the world needs more of that.

• My rating: 4 stars
• Genres/topics: women’s fiction, contemporary, family, relationships, coming of age

I received a copy of The Missing Letters of Mrs. Bright through NetGalley and Bookouture in exchange for an honest & original review. All thoughts are my own.