What could have been a great book because of the subject matter turned out to be very different. I am sad to say that this book was poorly written on several fronts. It misses the elegance this book could have had and it's mostly on the technical part of writing this book. The characters and storyline lack depth and detail. Also a lot of the sentences have repeating words like mother said this, mother did that etc.,. Overall, it is a shame and this book could have been so much more.

Poignant in some parts, full of humor in others, “Mother’s Genius”, by Kristin Andrychuk (Guernica Editions), had a slow beginning for me, but I was gradually pulled into it and intrigued with Martin’s sad story.
Martin is such a different, wounded hero, obsessed with Donna, blind in so many ways. Martin is a tragic male character, but also so self-centered and selfish. Watching the hero prematurely aging and its physical decadence is a realistic experience, sometimes hard to read.
I particularly enjoyed and found extremely well written the parts told from Donna’s point of view about handling domestic life, marriage and children, some of which were very funny and realistic.
I also liked the intertextuality with Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”, Donna’s practical outlook on the iconic novel and Martin’s sedentary life and isolation contrasting with it.