I found Wild a Game by Adrienne Brodeur to be a disturbing read, but the kind of book that you don’t want to put down. The mother treated her daughter as a confidante for her affair with a family friend, talked to her like a girlfriend, and wanted her to be happy for her, in spite of the fact that she was married to her father. I can see how this might happen if a mother treated her daughter as a friend. A strange, but intriguing I guess book, especially since it was based on truth.

What a provocative, engrossing memoir! This story draws you in and never let’s go. I was compelled to read it as it was being compared to The Glass Castle and Educated—two of my favorite books—because of the dysfunctional-family parallels. The writing was beautiful, lyrical even. So honest and unflinching, the writer shares her personal thoughts and experiences being under the influence of her selfish mother. This would make the perfect book club pick—so many discussion opportunities and recipe/food sharing!

Family dysfunction! Who doesn’t have a skeleton or two in their family closet??? Adrienne Brodeurwrites about her family dysfunction, which left a significant emotional scar on her as she grew up. At the age of 14, Adrienne is woken up in the middle of the night by her mother Malabar, who excitedly confesses that “Ben” has just kissed her. Ben is Malabar’s husband’s best friend and is also married. Malabar chooses her young daughter as a confident to her illicit affair and manipulates her so that she becomes a complicit part of the betrayal, acting as the distraction and orchestrator so that the other spouses don’t find out.

I felt for Adrienne in many ways while reading her memoire. It is yet another fascinating glimpse into self-absorbed mothers who put their needs first over their kids’ needs. I was impressed that the author bared her soul for all to see, as it’s not an easy thing to do. Especially when writing about cheating and betrayal. The author also does a nice job in balancing out her mother’s despicable behaviour with a layer of understanding as to why her mother is the way she is. Inter-generational emotional abuse, tragedy and neglect are all touched on.

This was a compelling and, at times, shocking story about one woman’s experience of being emotionally abused by her mother. The writing was relatable and the story itself flowed well. I had a hard time putting this one down.

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book made me deeply uncomfortable in the way the best memoirs do. I tore through it because I couldn't wait to see what happened next. A study of a deeply unhealthy, quasi-emotionally abusive relationship between a mother and a daughter, it is by turns gossipy and deeply emotional--a combination that really works for me. I will put this one in the hands of people who want more like Westover's Educated or Mulgrew's Born With Teeth.

This book reads like it is fiction, and it is crazy to think that it is a true story. I enjoyed this memoir because it doesn't get hung up on unimportant details or isn't a stream of conscience read like other biographies/memoirs I have read. I really enjoyed this book and I am so glad that Adrienne was able to reflect on Malabar's needs and although she was still pulled into secrets that inevitably hurt others, I couldn't put this book down! Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publishing and the author for the opportunity to read this fabulous book!

“Don’t ever forget that you and I are two halves of one whole.”

This story is beautiful and tragic and hopeful and all the things! I applaud the author for writing her story with such tenderness and grace. What could have been a salacious and angry retelling instead is a remarkably compelling and satisfying tale.

The author grew up in Boston and Cape Cod, the daughter of a brilliant and talented mother who was a well-known cook. Her cooking and food play a central role in this book, as the author describes her mother's recipes with beautiful detail. Malabar was a food writer and her kitchen was the center of the family.

Married to an older man, Malabar enters into an affair with her husband's friend Ben, who was married to Lily at the time. The two couples were also very close friends. Malabar enlists the help of her daughter, the author, to hide the affair, and Adrienne (Rennie) spends many years hiding evidence of her mother and Ben's affair.

What kind of mother does this to her own teenage daughter? I was surprised with the way in which the author handles her own memories and her mother's behavior. This is not an angry book, but instead is at times a painfully beautiful account of the author's struggles with coming to terms with this betrayal by her own mother.

"We all know the adage that one lie begets the next. Deception takes commitment, vigilance, and a very good memory. To keep the truth buried, you must tend to it."

For years the author did everything to protect her mother and her mother's secret. This takes vigilance and hard work and Rennie's own early life and relationships suffered. All of this just to make her mother happy. As I read this extraordinary story, it became clear to me that Malabar was a narcissist but yet the author does indeed have many happy memories of her childhood and apparently still maintains a relationship with her mother (who now has dementia.) This is an absolutely fascinating story of complex family relationships, the danger of keeping secrets and how our parents shape our lives.

The role of protector was thrust on the author at an early and tender age. I loved how she has overcome her past, and forged her own healthy relationships and come out stronger. Once I started this fascinating book, I could not put it down.

"... I didn’t have a moral compass. It would be years before I understood the forces that shaped who she was and who I became and recognized the hurt that we both caused. What I knew then was that nothing made me feel more loved than making my mother happy, and any means justified that end. Starting when I was fourteen, what made my mother happy was Ben Souther."

The title of the book refers to the name of a cookbook that Malabar and Ben planned to write together. It was also a ruse under which the two coulees could spend time together without raising suspicions. Eventually the affair ends up having explosive consequences but even this is handled deftly by the author. Even if you are not a fan of non-fiction, I highly recommend this stunning story. You won't ever forget it!

In the beginning of this memoir, the then 14-year-old author is woken by her mother who confides that she has just kissed a male family friend (who, uh, is not her father). And thus begins a disturbing and decades-long affair between her mother and the man, and an even more inappropriate mother-daughter relationship. The mom basically makes her daughter an accomplice in the affair, using her to help keep her secrets from everyone else. It is a lifelong, incredibly damaging relationship that profoundly affects everything around them. The story is jaw-dropping, and you won't be able to put it down. (You'll also never be so thankful for your own normal mother!)

This book did not read like a non fiction to me. I knew nothing about Adrienne Brodeur before picking up this book. I found this story to be sad. Adrienne is woken up in the middle of the night at age 14 by her mother Malabar. Malabar tells Adrienne she kissed Ben, her husbands best friend. Her mother goes on to have an affair with Ben and Adrienne has to keep up the ruse and her mothers secret. While Adrienne enjoyed being Malabar’s confident and always strived to be perfect for her mother - she was never quite perfect enough for her mother. Malabar always holds secrets and this family necklace over Adriennes head. If you are looking for a story that reads like fiction but is non fiction with a touch of mystery this one is for you!

I'm just not sure how I felt about this book. The writing was solid and it's an interesting and definitely different story. At some points it was extremely painful to read - I just wanted to shout at the characters - I wanted to hold an intervention for the family. At almost all points it was sad. At some points there was a bit too much irrelevant details; hence 3 stars and not 4.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an early release in exchange for an honest and fair review.

Thank you to Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover and Me is the story of the impact on Adrienne “Rennie” Brodeur’s life and the secret she held for her mother. Malabar wakes Rennie up to teller her she was just kissed by her husband’s best friend. Rennie was 14 at the time, and she was just discovering herself. She becomes the keeper and protector of her mother’s secret affair which she views as her mother’s way of displaying her love and affection.

Right away, I was angry at Malabar and wanted to give her a strong shake. I found her to be manipulative and selfish, focusing too much on her interests. This came through in the positions she put Rennie in, how she turned on the caregiver, and her obsession over the necklace. She maneuvered every situation to be to her advantage, even at her daughter’s wedding. What baffled me was how her self importance ranked higher than her own child’s. As a mother, I truly don’t understand this. What kept me reading was the hope that there was a realization or an awakening in Malabar. I so hoped…

Regardless of how irritated I was with Malabar, my heart went out to Adrienne and the life struggles brought on by her upbringing. I was rooting for her in the end to come to realizations and confront her mother. I also held out hope for a change in Malabar. This journey fascinated me and had me hooked right away. I would recommend this book, for sure!

Wild Game is a memoir of Adrienne, who was her mother's confidante in an affair. Malabar, the mother, woke Adrienne at age 14 to tell her of the start of an affair between herself and Malabar's husband's best friend, Ben. Malabar also enlists Adrienne to help Malabar and Ben carry on this affair for about 10 years. Adrienne becomes a player in this love story and it is manifests itself in depression and being under her mother's thumb for too long.
I was looking forward to reading this memoir, due to all the advance praise for it, but after reading it, I just felt that it was all about the rich not caring who they hurt. The families lived very wealthy and carefree lives on Cape Cod and in NYC, and carried on an affair in front of their spouses, and involved a young daughter in this lie. It made me sick to think of a mother who would do this to her daughter, only caring about her own happiness, and not caring what effect it would have on the daughter. I felt sorry for Adrienne, but I also had a touch of "poor little rich girl" feeling that went along with it.
I also felt that it was odd that all the names in the book would be changed, and then the author names each person in the acknowledgement section of the book.
Thanks to NetGalley and Edelweiss.plus for a free reader copy, any opinions on the book are my own.
#WildGame #AdrienneBrodeur

Judging a Book by its Cover
I was deeply intrigued by the promise of a complex mother-daughter relationship in this memoir, but I was a bit hesitant picking it up due to my unfamiliarity with the author and the comparisons to The Glass Castle, which I loved. But it promised me buried secrets and complex family dynamics, which won out over my hesitation.

Book Review
This was an interesting read for me, not specifically in terms of content (though that was interesting as well), but the kind of hypnotic fascination I had with this mother-daughter dynamic and that feeling of 'wow, is this really happening?'

One on hand, it doesn't seem like anything really happens in this. It's a retelling of an illicit affair, but a part of me was always waiting for something bigger to happen, something over the top turning this story into something much more sinister. But at the same time, realizing that this was a true story, the manipulation and poor judgement and naivety was more heartbreaking and had a bigger impact than a big, glaring, traumatic event could ever have.

Human behavior is endlessly fascinating, and it was difficult not to be drawn in to the magnetism of Malabar, difficult to escape the conflicting feelings and that pit in my stomach got bigger and bigger the longer the story continued.

I wasn’t sure what this book would give me, but I ended up quite liking the self-realizing journey that Brodeur took me on. It’s easy to see everything in hindsight, but it’s also reassuring to read about someone else’s experience and know that there’s still lots of time to make big life changes and go after the things you want and find out who you really are. I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would and applaud Brodeur for sharing such an intimate, difficult and complicated story.

This is a well written memoir. What attracted me to the the title was the relationship between mother and daughter, not being ideal. Wow, Adrienne Brodeur's mother did not know boundaries with her child. We learn that this poor relationship between mother and daughter did not start there, but was in a line of matriarchs. Brodeur captures the intensity and passion of her mother and their secrets. As she grows older and attempts to create her own self-identity, her mother balks. The pain is palpable.

I don't want to give anything away, as this is a powerful read. I applaud Brodeur for being self-aware and immensely strong to dive deep into family relationships and write this book. I can only imagine how difficult that task when there may be people who want to hide the stark truths.

Definitely recommend reading this book.

This memoir is a great read. I keep telling my friends it is a true soap opera. I couldn't put it down. I know that I will be recommending it to a lot of people because I already have! It is all about growing up with a self centered immature mother who has an incredibly small moral code. At the very tender age of 14, her mother makes her daughter complicit in her affair. The ramifications of this echo through her life. The author does an amazing job of telling her truth in a very open and revealing way.

Absolutely perfect in every way, gorgeous prose, captivating subject and well drawn characters. Very genre flexible in that it could be literary fiction. The geography of self, place, and family themes are timeless. The complexity of mother daughter bonding and narcissistic parenting
are topics ever intriguing. I’ve been in a total book slump since I finished so it was very exciting to see the new Emma Straub up for request
just when I need it! Wild Game top five books of the year for me.

{My Thoughts}
I often find it difficult to fairly review a memoir. After all, a persons life is their truth and why do I have a right to have any opinions about it? So let’s delay a little longer and start with the writing. Brodeur is excellent. Her complicated life story unfolds easily and eloquently.

“Malabar was falling in love and she’d picked me as her confidante, a role I hadn’t realized I’d longed for until that moment. Perhaps this would be a good thing.”

I enjoyed Wild Game very much, just not quite as much as I’d expected. Even while completely captivated by Adrienne’s story of growing up as the confidante and accessory to her mother’s long running affair, I couldn’t help being repelled by her mother. Malabar definitely read like fiction. She rapidly moved from one selfish move to another with little concern for those left in her wake. Rennie obviously craved her mother’s love and approval so desperately that for many years she was willing to do anything to help her mother keep her affair under wraps.

“For better or worse, that was who Malabar was to me, the most central and important person in my life, even if I wished it were otherwise. For as long as her love affair had been going on, for me, the “we” had always been my mother and me. Not Ben and Malabar. If Ben was everything to my mother, then what was I?”

No doubt about it, this book is compelling, always keeping me stunned, amazed, and a little sad. Perhaps because it did read like fiction, I became anxious for Rennie to pull away from her mother and find herself much sooner than she did. I wanted her to be free! Brodeur’s journey was no one’s but her own and despite sometimes feeling almost complicit for being on it with her, it’s a memoir I’ll long remember.

Immediately engrossed in this story, I devoured it in a matter of hours. Through the story of Adrienne and her complicated relationship with her Mother, we learn many dynamic truths about the nature of human relationships and interactions of all kinds. Though heart-breaking, this story is fascinating as it weaves true tales of scandal and secrets for several decades. I encourage you to get lost in this story and hopefully you will discover some truth of yourself along the way!

What an a riveting memoir!

The relationship between a mother and a daughter is intricate and complex at it’s core, but wow, in regards to Adrienne Brodeur’s connection with her mother Malabar, saying it’s intricate and complex is a massive understatement! Adrienne (Rennie) pens a very candid history of their relationship which at the age of 14 moved from a parent/child role to a friendship role. When Adrienne was 14, Malabar confides to Adrienne about an affair between Malabar and her husband’s (Adrienne’s step-father) best friend. Not only does she swear Adrienne to secrecy, she regularly asks for advice and help to cover-up the affair. Throughout Wild Game, Adrienne does a great job with recalling her teenage perspective of her situation and then ultimately realizing through her now adult eyes what had actually happened. I also found it enlightening how Adrienne goes one step further to let us know how Malabar’s childhood and upbringing most likely shaped her into the person she became.

Wild Game takes us from the 14 year old who desperately wants to please her mother all the way to how she dealt with the trauma and healed as an adult. This novel is so very candid and raw, I commend Adrienne Brodeur for her honestly and bravery! Wild Game is a 5 star novel that I think would make a fantastic book club selection!

I feared that reading this memoir was going to make me feel like the worst type of voyeur—that reading the details of the affair at the center of this story would be uncomfortable at best and tawdry at worst.

But the story was ultimately more about an emotionally stunted mother, her codependence on her adolescent daughter, and how the author unraveled the many smothering ties to the woman whose conditional love and affection directed her life for too many years.

Brodeur is a measured writer who thoughtfully considers her youth, her infatuation with and reliance on her mother (who throughout her life is only concerned with her own impulses and desires), and how her own eventual personal growth drove a rift between her and the mother she idolized that changed everything forever.

Really interesting and a quick, engrossing read.

I was given a copy of this book by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

How could this story of a mother and daughter's complicated and dysfunctional relationship be so compelling? I read this book in one sitting, completely unputdownable,