If intergenerational stories are your thing, then you'll probably be drawn to the three generations of women in Susan Rieger's Like Mother, Like Mother. But what draws you in won't keep you there, unfortunately. I received a free e-ARC to review.
The novel is divided into three parts. The first part is Lila's. The second part is Grace's, Lila's daughter. And Lila's mother, Zelda, gets the third part.
Essentially, Lila's mother was institutionalized when Lila was a baby, and then Lila was told her mother had died a few years later. But Lila never saw a grave or a death certificate. Growing up without a mother in an abusive household certainly influenced how Lila parented her own three children. While her older two daughters had each other and didn't need their mom as much, her younger daughter, Grace, longed for more mothering. When Lila passes, she makes a final request of Grace: find out what really happened to Zelda.
One of the things I did not like about this book was that it's not told in any sort of order. It's all over the place. If it had been a typical chronological order with some flashbacks thrown in, then I think the story would have worked. I would have liked the characters. I would have enjoyed the mystery of what happened to Zelda and how her disappearance affected Lila and, therefore, Lila's children.
Another thing I didn't like was the dialogue. The whole book is basically just long conversations between characters (of which there are many - the who's who in the front of the book would have been more helpful to refer to in a physical copy as opposed to my digital ARC), and half the time, it didn't feel like the characters were talking TO each other but more AT each other. It's a book of talkers, not listeners.
I stuck through this one because I really did want to know how it ended, and it was pretty fast-paced with all that talking. But this is not one that I'd recommend you go out and buy right away. Maybe check it out from the library first if you're really interested in it.
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