Breath, Eyes, Memory: First Impressions

This book moves through Sophie's life very quickly from when she is living with Tante Atie, to then leaving for New York to be with her mother, and then to being 18 and living with her mother. Throughout this first section of the book we can look at how Sophie reacts to the differences in her caretaker. Perhaps it would be different if Sophie's mother had never left Haiti or she had taken Sophie with her, but because Sophie grew up and learned her first lessons from Tante Atie, I believe that she sees Tante Atie as being her true mother, and she is unable at the age of twelve to completely warm up to her true mother. When Sophie first moved to New York I expected her to move into a setting that was better than she had left, and I expected her mother to be married but I was wrong and the mother I pictured in my head, was probably more like the mother in the picture that Tante Atie has in her house. I think that although Sophie's mother has every right to her child and should be able to act as her mother, she isn't ready to truly be a mother to Sophie and that descision was made when she left Sophie with Tante Atie when she was a baby.