serendipitysbooks's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
How to Love Your Daughter is an exquisite audiobook - the writing (admittedly I’m guessing here since I’m unable to read the original Hebrew), the translation, and the narration. It opens with Yoella thousands of miles from home and spying on her grown daughter Leah and Leah’s two young daughters through the window of their house. She hasn’t seen Leah for years - in fact Leah has deliberately lied about her whereabouts - and has never met her granddaughters. The book then flashes back non-sequentially to explore the mother daughter relationship at different points in Leah’s childhood and adolescence as Yoella tries to work out where she went wrong. The juxtaposition of their current estranged state and the close and loving bond between them during Leah’s younger years is startling and heartbreaking. The tension between the now and then drives the story, as readers (at least those like me) are desperate to find out what caused the rift between mother and daughter, but dreading it at the same time. When Yoella remarks “Everything I ever did, I did out of love” she hones in on the mother reader’s greatest fear. We too did everything out of love but are constantly wondering whether we did enough, worrying about all those times we inevitably fell short, and imagining how devastated we’d be to find ourselves in Yoella’s position.
Watching how the relationship between mother and daughter changed as Leah became older was fascinating and instructive. I often found myself playing the “what would I have done game”, guessing at my actions had I been her mother. I don’t want to give too much away but I will say the book demonstrates how factors like mental health and the quality of a marriage can influence a woman’s mothering and her relationships, and how the mother-daughter relationship, like all relationships needs to be able to change over time.
This book was a definite winner for me.
Watching how the relationship between mother and daughter changed as Leah became older was fascinating and instructive. I often found myself playing the “what would I have done game”, guessing at my actions had I been her mother. I don’t want to give too much away but I will say the book demonstrates how factors like mental health and the quality of a marriage can influence a woman’s mothering and her relationships, and how the mother-daughter relationship, like all relationships needs to be able to change over time.
This book was a definite winner for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness
Moderate: Alcoholism
brinnavirginia's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Suicide, Death, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Addiction, Alcohol, Chronic illness, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Grief, Child death, Alcoholism, Abortion, Sexual harassment, Car accident, Drug use, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Pregnancy, and Sexual assault
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