“Just Like Mother” is a new read by Anne Heltzel, new author to this reader. Not sure what I was thinking but I really don’t do horror or scifi-fantasy with novels, however the story description was intriguing and attracted my interest. To say this is a frightening novel is an understatement. Such and amazing book and hard to put it down. It was horrific and a bit unsettling for my taste but not a disappointment. However, there are some triggers (rape/sexual assault, suicide, child abuse) that made me a bit uncomfortable. Ms. Heltzel has a well-written story that has plots and plenty of twists that kept me guessing until the very end. As this type of genre…meaning horror is not up my alley, it was an exciting read but not sure if I will venture into this type of read again. Recommend if this is you cup of tea. 😊 3.5 Stars

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for this ARC in exchange for my fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

I reviewed expecting a potential spooky Halloween book but it was well beyond creepy! In that it reflected the oppression of women and what we might do in the extreme case. Right from the beginning when we meet the Mothers, I was intrigued, terrified and dreaded what might happen. Girl children are worth everything. Tied with the continuation of the cult and its world-wide promotion via conditioning training of women with therapy doll Olivia. I read it in one setting because I just had to know what was going on. If you want a book that a) keeps your attention; b) is haunting; and c) has some depth—this fits the criteria. You won’t want to put it down and you may start thinking twice about dolls that look realistic!

The saying “motherhood is a cult” is taken literally in this story. I like it well enough. It got a bit predictable, but the story-telling is good enough to keep it entertaining.
Some parts felt rushed, so I can’t give it 5 stars, but I would definitely recommend it!

In Just Like Mother by Anne Heltzel, we follow Maeve and Andrea, cousins who escaped the Mother Collective Cult. They are both adopted out separately and lose contact. They eventually find each other through a DNA test and connect. Maeve is struggling as an editor and Andrea seems well off as a CEO of a self established business based on motherhood, of course.
I could see where this was going right away. I thought that the story would be more focused on the cult, but Andrea nips that in the bud immediately upon meeting up with Maeve, telling her she does not want to talk about their past at all.
The writing was very dialogue heavy with a lot of drama which was distracting for me. I was bored through most of the first half of the book. The characters are unlikeable and annoying.
I felt that some parts were written well and others were too descriptive and/or redundant. The plot was super slow and convoluted which made me dread reading this particular book. The events became more and more unrealistic as the story went on. I might add that the very end of the epilogue was creepy and clever.
Overall, it just wasn't for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I have always been interested in books regarding cults and this one was everything I could ask for. It was perfectly paced and so intracately told in a way that kept me intrigued throughout. If you want a good, creepy read then this is your book.

Ooooh this was creepy and I liked it. Granted there were a few times I had to suspend my disbelief to really enjoy the story, however that has never been an issue for me. I know some readers struggle with that.

This book has so much drama that people are bound to have quite a few opinions to discuss it. The prologue was completely weird, it made me think what was I even getting into. It starts off with a regular day in cult based on motherhood, where seven year old Maeve runs away from the cult. Now as 30 something, she is shocked to connect with Andrea who is her cousin and also had shared experiences a cult member during childhood. Maeve is struggling in her life both personally and professionally but Andreas seems to have been extremely successful.

With her difficult circumstances, she ends staying at Andrea's creepy mansion for a bit where things kept getting weirder day by day. I could sense right away that Andrea had entered Maeve's life with a specific agenda and is going to leave no stone unturned which leads to few deaths even. I couldn't believe how stupid Maeve was as she kept falling into Andrea's trap again and again. It was frustrating to see her trusting like an idiot and not get out of that place. Only at the end, Maeve decides enough is enough and plans up but she is too late as the cult has other plans already. I liked the ending but it was like watching a car crash when reading everything Maeve did. And there were creepy dolls that was so sickening to read but thankfully that was not a major part.

Totally binge-worth thriller with cult drama included.

Trigger Warnings: Loss of child, sexual assault, toxic relationship, heralding motherhood

3.25 – 3.5 STARS

Delving between the pages of “Just Like Mother,” I braced myself for what I anticipated to be one terrifying and disturbing ride! Creepy, though it is, it ultimately fell short of my hopeful expectations. Despite its promising start, I struggled to remain engaged, as I was able to anticipate what was to come every step of the way. Hence, it lacked the suspense element that I so desperately wanted. Add to the mix the backstory holes and unlikeable characteristics of many of the players, and “Just Like Mother” went from what could have been a really great read to one that was merely good. That said, I had no issue with the author’s writing or with the overall premise. I didn’t even mind stretching reality just a bit. The story simply failed to tick off all my personal boxes when it comes to creepy thrillers.

It has been a long time since I’ve started a book in the morning, and finished it by bedtime. That’s what happened to me with Just Like Mother, by Anne Heltzel. I’m not sure what I was expecting with this book, but it certainly wasn’t what I got. Thrills, chases, escapes…you get the idea.

Just Like Mother is only a little bit predictable. I had points where I kind of knew what was going to happen, but had to keep reading anyway, to make sure I was right. A couple times I was surprised, so that was nice.

This book is NOT all sunshine, rainbows and roses. Parts of it were highly disturbing. I didn’t find it disturbing in a “this book really needed a trigger warning” type way, though. Women struggle with infertility, but the ones that do are the type of people I actually hoped never got pregnant. Just Like Mother is a fictional story, so I was able to indulge the side of my personality that actually wishes death on fictional characters. I needed for at least a couple of them to die.

But, in all honesty, they were horrible people.

To have such an emotional response to a book is a huge deal. I wouldn’t necessarily say the characters were relatable, even in the way that I struggle with infertility, because I wouldn’t have gone about things the way some of them did. Several times, I thought to myself, “this is crazy! Why would they do that!?”

I did love Maeve.

Maeve was a well-written character. I really liked her, and wanted her to succeed. Over the course of the book, she had some horrible things happen to her, but despite her wanting to at times, she never gave up on her dreams. She had decided early on, I think because of her experiences with the Mother Collective, that she never wanted children. When Andrea asks her for an egg, so that she can have a baby, Maeve sets a boundary and sticks to it.

I did not love Andrea.

From day one, I was suspicious of Andrea. I wasn’t even sure why at times. I just knew something was off with her, and I needed Maeve to figure it out. I even suspected at times that Andrea wasn’t even who she said she was. The two ladies met through a DNA website, though, so I figured they were at least related. Throughout the book, though, Andrea proves herself to be not a very nice person, and even highly selfish at times. It pissed me off, because she regularly accuses Maeve of being the selfish one.

Maeve and her cousin, Andrea, last saw each other when the cult their mothers were apart of was broken up. Twenty years later, they've reconnected. It seems like this is the best case scenario but Andrea's friends disapprove that Maeve doesn't want children, and then Maeve loses her job and her boyfriend. I love how the author alluded to the cult breaking up and how Maeve was supposedly responsible but kept me hooked trying to figure out what happened the whole time. Plus, when strange things started happening in Maeve's life I totally thought I had it figured out and was so wrong. If you love thrillers, this is perfect for you.
Thank you #NetGalley for the ARC!

I requested a digital copy in order to sample the prose on my phone (since I don't have a eReader) before requesting a physical copy for review. I will update Netgalley once I read & review a physical copy.

My review will be based on the physical ARC I read.

I love anything creepy and culty, so when I heard about the premise of this book I knew I had to read it. Unfortunately, the farther into this book I got the more unwieldly and unbelievable (not in a good way) the narrative and plot became. Maeve, the MC, was a pretty standard believable character. Andrea, her long lost cousin, completely doesn't work as a character. The two grew up together in a cult but lost contact when Maeve escaped and the cult was dissolved when law enforcement came in. Maeve has essentially moved on, building a life for herself even if she feels a bit unmoored and anchorless. She meets up with Andrea and we find out that Andrew now runs some sort of mom focused startup company with her creepily perfect husband.
The story never really focuses on the cult and how it functioned, which is sad because I (wrongfully, apparently) assumed that the story would focus on the cult and how they never really got out from under it's thumb or that it's back again or something. I just couldn't figure out what I was supposed to care about. Andrea's company is underdeveloped as a plot point and doesn't make sense from even a concept stand point. As we go further, the cult and the business are supposed to become more integral and high stakes (at least I'm assuming, or else what was the point of this story at all) but it was all so convoluted and confusing and fuzzy. The pacing of this was pretty solid, and this only took me about one lazy Saturday to get through, but the twists were more confusing and weird than exciting. There's definitely a lot going on, but very little of it makes sense with the set up/in general. It also wasn't very creepy or culty, just strange. It felt like we started as a spooky book and then slowly devolved into an under baked, generic thriller. I couldn't even really tell if it was supposed to be a commentary on societies obsession with motherhood and female incubation, or if that just happened on accident in the confusing mass of the story. I'm just overall confused by this book. I may check out something else by this author, just to see if this style and confusion is carried through all their works or if this just really didn't work for me.

Maeve had a tough childhood in a cult. As an adult Maeve is content being single and childless, and she’s dealing as well as can be expected with her past.

Heltzel lets the reader know up front that this is a horror novel, but then she backs off so that there’s dread on every page. You just KNOW something horrific is going to happen again. The tension, even in the more benign, “chatty” scenes, is so tight I had to remind myself to breathe.

We’re slowly introduced to additional characters, and Maeve gets surrounded by baby-happy women. There’s something so sickly messed up about the way the characters talk about babies. This is horror, but it’s (mostly) not gore or jump scenes. It’s more like Stepford Wives horror.

Book clubs will find LOTS to discuss in this book. At first I thought Heltzel’s novel is a feminist portrayal of motherhood. But maybe it shows the dark sides of feminism. Or is it simply a celebration of procreation disguised as psychological horror?

The ending is grand. I thought I knew how Heltzel would wrap things up, but it’s even better than I expected.

Literary and horrific, five stars!

This book left me feeling entirely violated. There's sexual assault, endless extreme obsession with motherhood, and no end in sight. But that's the point, isn't it? The reader is supposed to feel like Maeve It's powerfully done, and I felt rattled. But it just wasn't for me. The first three quarters or so absolutely slogged. I was bored out of my mind, and if I'd picked up the book not from NetGalley I wouldn't have finished it. But the last quarter was pretty good horror, decently gory. The psychological horror was too much for me, too real. If you have complicated feelings about motherhood and societal expectation, I'd recommend this one.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Macmillan-Tor and NetGalley for the advance copy of this book!

I know I’m into a book when I dream about it or when I think about it while doing the dishes or folding laundry. This is the first book so far this year that fits the bill. Granted, the dream I had about it was a nightmare but given the plot that’s not surprising!

Just Like Mother is like a wallop to the back of the head with a cast-iron skillet. Once things get going, and it doesn’t take long, the pain, the fear, and the suffering just does not stop. There’s an insidious, sneaky feeling throughout 3/4 of the novel that something just ain’t right, and that’s a damn understatement.

Interestingly, I didn’t like a single character in this book. Did I feel sorry for a few of them? Yep. But not a single person (to me) was remotely likable. Normally I have to have some affinity or appreciation at least for the main character to get behind a story, but not this time around. The horror carried this one along just fine for me.

I don’t want to say too much else and ruin the plot and the payoff, but this book is beyond creepy and I loved every second of it.

Also–the fact that this post is going live on Valentine’s Day is not lost on me!

Loved this! Super creepy, didn't want to put it down.

Maeve escaped from a cult when she was young leaving behind her cousin, Andrea. She's carved her own niche in the world, keeping everyone at arm’s length, but comfortable with her routine. Until her cousin pop's back into her life, then things slowly start going off the rails.

Definitely in my top 5 faves of the last year.

TW: death of a child, gaslighting, pregnant drinking, sexual harassment, toxic relationships, abuse, miscarriage, suicide, attempted murder, rape, abortion talk, death of a child

About the book:A girl would be such a blessing...The last time Maeve saw her cousin was the night she escaped the cult they were raised in. For the past two decades, Maeve has worked hard to build a normal life in New York City, where she keeps everything—and everyone—at a safe distance.When Andrea suddenly reappears, Maeve regains the only true friend she’s ever had. Soon she’s spending more time at Andrea’s remote Catskills estate than in her own cramped apartment. Maeve doesn’t even mind that her cousin’s wealthy work friends clearly disapprove of her single lifestyle. After all, Andrea has made her fortune in the fertility industry—baby fever comes with the territory.The more Maeve immerses herself in Andrea’s world, the more disconnected she feels from her life back in the city; and the cousins’ increasing attachment triggers memories Maeve has fought hard to bury. But confronting the terrors of her childhood may be the only way for Maeve to transcend the nightmare still to come…
Release Date: 05/17/2022
Genre: Cult horror
Pages: 320
Rating: ⭐ ⭐

What I Liked:
• The cover is creepy but pretty
• The plot sounded interesting
• Book is very easy to read

What I Didn't Like:
• Micah ew
• No surprises in the book
• How naive Maeve is
• The ending
• Rip off of Rosemary's Baby

Overall Thoughts:

Micah didn't seem too bad in the car but after the baby talk with Maeve he's pure evil. And now Emily is crazy.

We can retire "drink the kool-aid" now? It's a terrible thing to say about people who were murdered.

By the time you know that Andrea mentions her baby she lost you kind of know that she is going to ask Maeve to help her have a baby.

By the 30% mark you kind of know what's going on.

Maeve is so completely confusing. She spends 20 years searching for her cousin and when she finds her she acts as though she's some annoying person. She gets excited when they stop texting even saying she won't hang on every word Andrea says like Emily does. What happened to the excitement she had to reconnect with her?

So Ryan dies in a mysterious fire which is quoted as being burned from the top down, but somehow they're able to wheel him out and he still has a body left and his shoe flies out. Which I think they would have put him in a body bag not just a sheet over him but whatever. Maeve then proceeded to drive around town not knowing what to do because she's rented her apartment to some Airbnbers. She makes out like she doesn't have a house but she does just go back to the house after your Airbnbers leave and remove your ad. You can go stay in a hotel until then. You still have a place to live and you have money to pay your rent right now and you have a job coming up. I don't know why she thinks she has nowhere else to go.

I think it's disturbing how Maeve isn't weirded out by Tyler's stalker ways. They met and hung out 1 time and he keeps calling and texting. She never questions how obsessed he is with her that it borders on stalker like.

It is grating on my nerves how a naive Maeve is. She just lets everybody tell her what to do and goes with it. She even acknowledges red flags and STILL ignores every single one of them. I find that annoying and frustrating.

What happened to Maeve's apartment? Us there still airbnb people in it? Doesn't she clean when they check out? Does she answer if the have problems? Did she lose the apartment?

What is the timeline of Tyler and her seeing each other? In chapter 24 she mentions seeing him for 2 months and then a few pages later she says she's not going to rush Tyler into seeing his place - it's only been a week it would be weird if he was spilling all his secrets this early on. A week of what? 2 months is too early to want to see where a dude lives? It's not! It's very suspicious. She then let's Tyler tie her up, hears the door open & close and he doesn't talk the whole time. No limits are talked about before being tied up. I knew where this was going. They Rosemary's Babied her! She's not even worried about pregnancy when he comes in her. Go get plan b! You could get pregnant, which is the last thing you want! Why isn't she taking this seriously?? Again the time line makes NO SENSE! Maeve has sex with "Tyler" and he leaves around 5am. She goes back to bed till noon wakes up and talks to Andrea. Maeve mentions that evening that she is helping with the retreat. Skip to after everyone has already went to bed Maeve pulls out a stick in her toilet that shows to Andrea that she is pregnant. How? How could a stick already show she is pregnant??? It's been like one day! It takes 6-12 days for a fertilized egg to travel to the uterus and attach. There is no way it would show she is pregnant. She's so stupid that she buys that it would show you're pregnant that fast. Is this women 33 or 15?

The cop coming to the house makes zero sense. Tyler was drunk and his breaks cut out so he hit a tree. Why would he go to Andrea's house? Tyler kept it all secret so how would they know that Maeve was at Andrea's house or that they are related just because Maeve was at a restaurant eating. They lie to the cop and say she is in the city.

Turns out Andrea is running a fundamentalist pro-life religion like The Mothers. The whole point of living is to birth girls and kill men.

The ending with the search warrant is so ridiculous! Talk about deus ex Machina. Rob takes her to the tunnel and she runs off. She says she can barely see but I doubt she can see at all since it's a dark tunnel, no light, and she has no light - so no you can't see at all enough to even run. It doesn't make sense for Rob to walk through the tunnel in the dark when he has a phone with a light on it. Maeve manages to find Micahs knife, cut herself free, get his phone, get the flashlight app open on a phone that's not hers (I have to struggle to get mine open and I've had my phone for a year) and blind him - all without Rob knowing she has the phone. "With that, I shone the flashlight bright in his face, bright enough to make him blink, startled, and to illuminate all I needed." The next page she says that she's now using the home locked screen to show where she is going. What happened to using the flashlight? Also how is the phone still working? Micah mentioned that the battery case he had only gave him an extra day of battery so he's only been dead a few days then?

We finally figure out why Andrea hates Maeve so much. It's because Maeve left with the boy and didn't come back. She had the cult people arrested, breaking up Andrea's family. I find it hard to believe that an eight-year-old could drive a car without adjusting the seat or anything or even reaching the pedals and seeing over the wheel. There's just no way.

The mothers somehow manage to overrun all of the police and kill them. Like how? Did two cops only show up and didn't have guns?

We find out that really she's 27 weeks pregnant and she never noticed she didn't have a period for 3 months??? She then decides to give the babies to a single working mother. Why would anyone do that. Being a single parent to one child is stressful enough but two babies? And then after Maeve is so dead set on not having children the book fucking ends on her being pregnant!!! Plus her kids were given to a woman that is working with The Mothers 🤦🏻‍♀️

Final Thoughts: This book just puts the nails in the coffin that women choose to ignore the alarming things that people do as not to bother people. Maeve reminded me so much of Rosemary from Rosemary's Baby. The way she just takes EVERYTHING at face value. Ah.

Book turns into everything I thought it was from page 10.

That ending... This book... No. No.

This was crazy. So many twists! Some I suspected and some I did not. If you like fucked up family thrillers this book is for you. Spoilers ahead! As a mother of twin girls I found the ending to be extra creepy. Andrea is a total psychopath and Maeve will never be able to trust anyone. Thanks so much to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this!

I thought this was an okay thriller. The writing was average, but the cult aspect felt a little too theatrical for me: a little more research would have helped. Overall, this was just really hard to finish because I didn't like the writing.

Was this book written by two people? Or were bits and pieces of the first draft lazily left in because the author was racing against a deadline and thought the editor would fix it for her? Because, my god, this was a mess.

Just Like Mother is about two long lost cousins reuniting two decades after escaping a horrific matriarchal cult, one desperately trying to leave their past behind them while the other secretly embraces it. It's an intriguing premise and some of the creepy horror I anticipated were delivered, but the writing itself is what I have a problem with.

It's wildly inconsistent. Some parts were excellent, vividly written, built that terrifying atmosphere, but then it quickly cut to rudimentary, unnecessarily over-explanatory writing that felt like the author cut and paste parts from the outline and called it a day. It's baffling.

The horror itself is decent and it's not a bad take on baby fever/the unofficial cult of "Mommy and Me" clubs. The plot is implausible, as are most books in the genre so it gets a pass, but the "twists" were predictable, especially the ending.

Thankfully, it's a very fast read, albeit a frustrating one. I'm just glad it's over.

⭐️⭐️ / 5

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.