What: you can leave the cult, but you can never REALLY ever leave…it follows you
About: a woman who escaped a cult as young girl finds a possible member of the family who also survived
Features: the feeling of things not being as they seem, and that they're going to go really wrong drives this novel
Assets: just when you think you know…you don't. Major twist!
Who it’s for: readers fascinated by cults, survivors, and how their cult life has impacted their current life.

The creepiness of this book will be with me for a long while.
Maeve and Andrea are cousins that escaped a Motherhood cult as children. When they reconnect, Maeve’s life starts to spiral and Andrea is there to pick up the pieces.
This is really a book about what society expects from women, how motherhood is prized and celebrated (in an often creepy way) and body autonomy. Although I expected a lot of the twists, the writing kept it creepy and scary throughout.

Got to this a bit later than I was expecting to, but was still a hell of a creepy read to start out 2023. Maeve grew up in a cult that idolized motherhood, was eventually busted by the feds, and has spent her last decade or so trying to get to something that resembles normalcy. Suddenly, though, Andrea, her best friend from the cult, shows back up in her life, right as Maeve's life starts to fall apart. Andrea has made a fortune in the fertility industry, and the people she works with are interesting, to say the least. But as she spends more and more time with Andrea, she starts to remember things about the cult, and eerie similarities start to pop up. All I can say is fuckin YIKES, but in a good way. Unsurprisingly there is body and mental horror around pregnancy and forced impregnation (and rape), and child abuse, so if any of those are triggers, heads up. The reveal of the depths of what is going on and how it's all ultimately connected to the cult is enough to ramp up the paranoia as you read it, and it's incredibly good at ramping it up as it all unfolds. Definitely worth a read, if the type of horror is something you can take.

5 stars. What the phuuggggkkk is what left my mouth when the book ended. God damn this was one hell of a twisted Rollercoaster. I am not a fan of cult books but this was BRUTAL and the cult aspects weren't in your face and brought up every few minutes. It just felt like a normal, albeit fucked up, situation between cousins who were born into and even more fucked up situation.

I couldn’t put this one down! It had me on the edge of my seat the entire way through, definitely one of the best horror books I’ve read recently!

I really enjoyed this thriller and had not read anything quite like it before. As a woman who is not interested in having children, the horror of having decisions made for our body without our consent was not lost on me. I am looking forward to reading more by Anne Heltzel in the future!

Mommy Dearest



Have you ever gotten so excited by a book cover that you couldn’t wait to read it?
This cover is chef's kiss! It is so freaking creepy I could barely contain myself! Add the fact that I have over 70 porcelain dolls in my bedroom, this book was a beautiful combination for everything I love.

This book follows two cousins who are separated when they are younger and through a DNA test website are brought back into each other’s lives after over 20 years. What follows is some pretty creepy stuff.
This book gives you small glimpses into the cousin's past to show you basically why they are the way they are in the present. I felt the main character Maeve was so strong! I loved when she talked about why she didn't want to have children and embraced the fact that all women do not have to give birth to be valuable, or an asset to society. I think people are allowed to go on their own adventures. Maeve was only a child when she stood up to the "Mothers" who were basically in a cult-like entity where birthing more girls was their mission in life. So yea even with all her "issues" she kept that stuff together and knew what she wanted out of life. She is my favorite kind of protagonist. The way the story ended was nice and not what I was expecting. I really felt it was wrapped up with a creepy little bow at the end.

Maeve escaped from a cult twenty years ago. Now, she lives in New York City, and lives a quiet life. After all these years, she is reunited with her cousin Andrea. Maeve spends more and more time with Andrea and her friends, which triggers memories in Maeve. Unfortunately, Maeve may be in too deep with Andrea to escape again.

Just Like Mother combines mystery and horror elements. Tense and atmospheric. The story did have some holes in it, but it was still an entertaining novel.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Are you sure you cannot judge a book by its cover? Because this cover is extra creepy and so is this book. Our MC is a bit on the naive side, which is somewhat off-putting, but the concept kept me reading. I'll look forward to more from this author.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

This was a no from me. I just did not enjoy it at all. I only made it 100 pages in and had to DNF it. It was a little to creepy for me

This book kept me turning the pages but I was so frustrated with Maeve’s character. Unbelievably fucking stupid, she looked at every red flag like a charging bull. I had just read the last housewife before this novel and the main character made the same stupid decisions. It’s frustrating to read from someone’s point of view that is so oblivious. That being said, this was a fun, dark and somewhat creepy novel. I would check out other books this author writes. Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.

The last time Maeve saw her cousin was the night she escaped the cult.

I decided I needed this book based entirely on the awesome & creepy cover and I can confirm the guts fully match the skin. So cleverly twisted & thrilling - I read it in one sitting. Maeve is a complex, lovely, and sharp main character. She’s also naive as hell which can be grating on the nerves of the reader but it worked very well in the story here. Lots of relevant and witty commentary on the many kinds of motherhood here. Also, ghouls, cult stuff. You can’t go wrong with cult stuff. You just can’t.

I tore through this book. Boy was it dark though! Should have known from the cover that it was CREEPY! I loved the cutly moms and it was such a unique idea! Can’t wait to read her again!

Well. This book is terrifying.

Maybe it's just that it touches on a subject (i.e. the cult of motherhood) that pushes all my buttons, but this was a genuinely upsetting, disturbing book (and I mean that as a compliment, or course). Where other books I've read this year have creeped me out, Just Like Mother had me honestly wishing I could disinfect my brain. I think the best recommendation I can offer is that I had to go watch hours of cartoons before I could go to bed because there was no way I was getting through the night without nightmares otherwise.

Part of why Just Like Mother worked so well for me (read: terrified me) is because of how brutally it intersects with our current timeline re: not just reproductive rights but, again, this cult of motherhood where even so called "progressive" women willingly reduce themselves and other uterus having folks to nothing better than baby makers by trying to couch the act of giving birth into some pseudo-spiritual experience of giving life that makes us basically holy?

Hold on, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. And clearly Heltzel agrees, because this book is nothing if not a takedown of that kind of rhetoric, which is not only aggressively anti-women (while being sold as feminist) but also deeply transphobic in its singular idea of womanhood. My heart was in my throat (and so was my stomach) the entire time, particularly as someone with 0 interest in childbirth now living in a world that's increasingly anti-choice/pro-birth.

All this to say that if you're looking for a work of sociocritical horror that will make your skin crawl, particularly related to reproductive rights, I highly recommend Just Like Mother. But make sure you buckle up, folks, because oof, it's a rough one.

I read this book over a month ago but couldn't put a review into words other than WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!?! This book 🫠😩 if you've read it, you know.

I can't remember the last time a book had me so stressed out and feeling absolute unease and such an overwhelming sense of dread. The entire time you KNEW Maeve, the main character, was going to experience the absolute worst, but you had no idea how or when. This book took over my LIFE while reading it and it was an immediate five ⭐

The story follows Maeve as she reconnects with her cousin, Andrea. Both women were born into and raised in a cult — The Mother Collective — and haven't seen each other since the night the cult was infiltrated. The two are thrilled to reconnect as adults, but something is off.

Andrea has made a fortune in the fertility industry, and invented weird AI babies that gave me the CREEPS!! I hated every minute they were mentioned. She also REALLY wants a baby of her own, and keeps trying to guilt Maeve into helping her 🚩🚩🚩

There's an incredible amount of manipulation, unreliable narration, tension, overall BAD VIBES, and a disgusting sense of pride and importance placed on the concept of motherhood. As a child-free adult woman I was SCREAMING.

The plot is incredibly dark, and it's a unique take on a domestic gothic thriller. Trigger warnings galore, so please take care of yourself before/during reading it.

Just Like Mother is a thriller novel about the danger of cults and groupthink, how danger can always be hiding in plain sight. I love books that are based around cults, and this one was really interesting to me. It takes a different route than cult books typically do, but I really enjoyed the ride that this book took me on. If you're a fan of books about cults and books with twists and turns, this one is for you!

I wanted to read this book because I thought it would be right in my wheelhouse. However, I couldn't finish it. The writing didn't grab me at all.

This book was OK. It was a bit slow getting started. I did like the character development but the story was not one that i liked very much. It was hard to finish. The story was just too predictible.

Very overdue review so for that I apologize. I finished this book a long time ago, in April to be exact. And still to this day I am not entirely sure what I read!

What first grabbed my attention was that it was a book about cults. Anything about those, I am game for. Give me all of them! But what kept me turning the pages on my Kindle was the story between Andrea and Maeve. Because not only was this a crazy cult, but it was also two sisters who were extremely hurt and experienced a common bond with their betrayal from each other.

Andrea clearly has issues. She was firmly set in her brainwashing and had no desire to think or see otherwise. Maeve was entirely too trusting. She knew what kind of family they both came from but to continue to go back each and every time when red flags were going off left and right was just annoying. The whole doll thing was really creepy but I love that it brought a creep factor that went beyond just the cult being the center of the horror. I really liked that the author included a backstory as the book progressed. It left us wanting more cause we had to see how far this went! I love quick reads with short chapters which this was. But the unlikeable characters is ultimately why I rate it a 3/5 stars.

I was hooked on this book from the very first page! It was fast paced and I could not put it down. I loved all the twists and turns it took me on!