The focus of this novel is the very strained relationship between Lily, who is about to begin her studies at Oxford, and her mother May, who has crazy, violent and dangerous tendencies and who exerts way too much control over Lily. Both of Lily’s siblings, Julia and Jacob, no longer live at home, and the question becomes can Lily really begin a new life for herself at Oxford in just a few months and escape her mother’s clutches? The resolution is a complex one, as are all of the characters that Ella King has created. This is a dark and disturbing read that is filled with lies, deceit and deception.

I applaud King for her creative work, but I found the flashbacks in this novel (and there are plenty of them) to be too overwhelming and distracting. I also found that many of the shocking moments occurring in the novel seem to have been put there only for their shock value’s sake. And, although this novel is beautifully written, it was so slow paced at times (even though a quick read all in all) that I found myself bored at too many moments.

This novel has gotten many stellar reviews, but it just did not do it for me.

A complex novel full of family secrets, dysfunction, toxic relatiohsips and family trauma. While it certainly was an enaging read, I can't rate it higher since, at the end, I was left with too many unanswered questions.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Bad Fruit.

Lily is spending her summer before attending Oxford with her Singaporean mother, an emotionally abusive and manipulative woman.

Her old brother and sister have left the family home, and she has no relationship with her doormat of a father.

As the summer progresses, Lily begins to experience disturbing flashbacks that are not her own. Whose are they and why is she having them?

Unraveling these reasons will force Lily to face devastating truths about her family, but is she ready for the heartbreak it will cause?

When a novel features abuse of any kind, whether it be sexual, emotional, psychological, I feel there has to be a greater story behind it.

Lily eventually faces up to the demons within her family, her abusive mother and co-conspirator father, her traumatized brother and sister, to break away from the past and forge ahead with her life.

Yet, I felt no connection with Lily. I realize she doesn't have a personality after having been beaten down by her mother for so long, no identity than the one her mother created for her, which is why's referred often as Mama's Doll.

What happened to Lily and her sibs is horrible, yet I don't blame them for continuing to remain submissive under their mother's rule.

When you've been treated as prey your whole life, that's all you know.

The father is a pathetic, despicable man who is no less abusive than his wife, since he's complicit in allowing the abuse to go on.

But, what does the author want to say through this story?

That terrible people do terrible things and as long as one person gets away, then it's a win?

That awful people don't get punished? That's true.

That just because you were abused as a child it's okay to abuse others because that's how you were raised?

Let me be clear. Being abused or having a bad childhood is never an excuse for inflicting pain and suffering on others. There are, sadly, many people who have terrible childhoods who are not abusers.

Lily finds solace in an older guy she meets at a party, a contrived relationship the author created so Lily would have a safe person, a confidant, since she has no friends to turn to for help.

I don't even remember the dude's name, which is how I felt about their relationship; it didn't click and never felt real.

The writing wasn't bad, but I thought the story would be empowering.

Instead, it left a bad taste in my mouth like eating bad fruit.

I was unable to finish this book and thus will not be posting a full review of this book. The writing was clunky and not well done. Thank you for the opportunity and consideration.

wow. a book about complicated familial relationships and generational trauma?? say no more, i'm sold.

after hearing glowing reviews from friends and mutuals online, i decided to read this book for myself and i was absolutely blown away. the writing style is so raw and invokes so many emotions, the characters and their relationships are so nuanced and complicated. the main character, lily's, relationship with her mother is obviously the focus and there's this very interesting push and pull in which lily acknowledges everything that her mother, may, has done for her and holds so much compassion for her due to her past while also realizing that she has to let go of her relationship to her due to the abuse that she and her siblings endured throughout her life.

the only criticism that i have is that the flashback scenes in the book feel a little bit clunky and out of place in comparison to everything else. that may be how they are supposed to be, and it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the book at all, but it did take away from my ability to comprehend everything lol.

so much about this book hits alarmingly close to home for me. definitely re-read material and i really am hoping that this book gets big!!

Bad Fruit is the next unhinged girlie novel that everyone will be posting about in August. Lily is a recent high school graduate waiting to start college at Oxford in the fall. She has a tumultuous relationship with her volatile Singaporean mother. Lily lives under extreme scrutiny in an effort to appease her mother, May. As her mother becomes increasingly abusive to the entire family, Lily starts to have flashbacks but they aren’t flashbacks from her English childhood, the flashbacks are of her mother’s childhood in Singapore. This is a story about inherited trauma & explores the dynamic of the mother / daughter relationship.

There are some brutal elements to this book so please check the trigger warnings before reading.

My opinion + some spoilers:
This a book that can be (maybe should be) devoured in one sitting. I just didn’t read it as quickly as I think others will. While my grandmother is not nearly this bad, definitely elements of this book reminded me of her which is why I would have to take breaks from reading this. This would be a great book for a book club since it would promote discussions of femininity, race, & the mother / daughter dynamic. I thought this book was extremely thought provoking & now I want everyone else to read it so we can discuss. This is a great debut novel & I will definitely purchase when it is released in paperback (because I’m that person). I can’t wait to see what Ella King writes next!

This book totally destroyed me on multiple levels, and I know it will haunt me for a while to come!

In this story, Lily and her stunningly disfunctional family live through through a London summer full of drama, insecurities, and betrayals, and we learn how her volatile mother affects the entire family and slowly unravels them. We follow Lily trying to cope with all the traumas that connect the different members of her family, parents and siblings alike.

The story is absolutely messed up and often very messy, which the author captures perfectly in writing, managing to still portray each and every one of the characters in a relatable way, even at their craziest, which is no mean feat and makes this a masterpiece of storytelling.

For me, the only flaw in this book was the ending, which was not entirely comprehensible to me (but then maybe it wasn't supposed to be), but other than that this is a great book and makes for a great read (though make sure to look up trigger warnings because there is a lot of serious and traumatic stuff going on in here).

Lily is waiting to go to Oxford living with her parents, having always to "manage" her mom until one day she starts having memories that are not hers and everything her mom ever told her seems to not be true.

This book is one that I'm rating completely based on my enjoyment. I think my main issue with the book are the characters (specially her dad). I was hoping for Lily to break free and I could understand the why's of how everyone was (aside from the dad, especially what he does with Lily by the end considering his whole arc), but I also didn't really care for her and for any other character that much. I think there are too many shocking moments that are there just to be shocking; they didn't deepen my connection to the characters neither helped the story move along.

Thank you Netgalley, author, and publisher for the ARC.

This book just was not for me. I tried hard to enjoy it but most of the situations did not seem real\relatable so if that's the kind of stuff you enjoy, stay away from this book.
The plot also failed to sustain my interest till the very end and I thought of DNF ing it multiple times. but somehow powered through.

okay reading the other reviews of this book i think i am definitely in the minority, but it took me so long to read this and i ended up dnf'ing it at 64%. i tried SO HARD to finish it but i was just not really excited about reading it. i really loved the first 50 pages; the description was really visceral and i was so intrigued to see where the author would go with this clearly toxic mother-daughter relationship and family dynamics. however, as i went on it felt like there were things going on that didn't make sense and everything felt very one-dimensional. i dont really know how to explain it any other way. i felt like it had really great potential, but it fell flat to me and it got to a point where i didnt care what the ending was. with all this being said- i may revisit it later, perhaps i am just not in the right headspace for this.

This is the story of Lily and the abuse she's been dealt by her neurotic and cruel Singaporean mother.

Books like this typically hit me right in the heart. How can they not? The idea of a child being abused by anyone much less their own parents that should love them unconditionally is heartbreaking.

However there was something about this book that left me cold. Throughout the story Lily suffers from hallucinations but the hallucinations are actually flashbacks to her mothers abusive childhood and they are causing Lily to suffer panic attacks. Lily is now wondering what is true and what is false and whether or not her mother has ever been honest with her.

I don't know, I just feel like I should have felt something tugging at my heartstrings and I didn't. I just could not get immersed in this story no matter how sharp the actual writing was. I know her mother experienced horrific abuse but I'm not a believer in that being any justification for abusing her own children but I say that as someone who grew up with loving and supporting parents. What do I know? On this subject, thankfully, very little.

This book is receiving many glowing reviews and they are all worthy. This is a case of a book just not being the right fit for me at the moment. I think my expectations going into this were a little skewed imagining this as a twisty psychological thriller and this is NOT that. I would consider this a family / domestic drama.

While I know this isn't the most glowing review I will say that Ella King has tremendous talent and a very bright future ahead of her and I very much look forward to see what she comes up with next. 3 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for my complimentary copy.

Thanks so much to the publisher and Net Galley for a chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
This story is twisted with a capital T”. We have a mother who suffered from extreme mental and physical abuse as a child , then rains the same abuse on her children, ( ala Flowers in the Attic) who when the story takes place are all adults. Lilly the youngest is about to head off to college if she can find a way to get away from May, her mother who is needy - demanding-whiny-vicious- broken- suspicious et al. Unfortunately Lilly looks more like her white mother than she does her Singaporean mother- so her mother makes her dye her hair black, wear contact lenses and yellow tinted makeup, from the time she 8 years old. Her siblings who are no longer living at home are no help, one is anorexic and the other is in on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Her father is a doormat, enabler and occasional co - conspirator.
Horrible stuff happens in this story to all involved, and I won’t go into it here, suffice it to say that while I was rooting for Lilly to break free, I feel that the mental damage was too great. This entire story was painful to read. Spoiled fruit needs to be tossed out- and this story is spoiled fruit.
Spoiler below
I don’t think the happy ending is realistic for Lilly . No one walks away from that kind of life without lifelong damage, even with intense therapy.
I get May being mentally ill after what she had experienced, but the father really makes me angry. While I understand that he too was a victim of May- he stood by and saw the years of abuse May rained upon the children, and
watched it continue with Lilly. However any shred of sympathy was gone when he moved from observer to active participant when he actually stripped his adult daughter naked, threw her outside and behaved as if nothing had happened. He needs to be in jail.

Thank you to Netgalley and Astra Publishing House for an egalley in exchange for my honest review.

Bad Fruit is gorgeous and complex and maybe hits a little too close to home.

We see a story of family and memory told through the protagonist, college-bound Lily, while living with an abusive narcissist, as she transitions from the place of Golden Child to Scapegoat.

All her life, Lily has had a special ability to “handle” her mother, to baby her or manipulate her just enough to lighten the emotional load for her siblings and father. The family walks on eggshells, they live with a woman they can’t stand, but they love her so fiercely, and they need the support she so often withholds, so they cannot leave.

I’ve seen stories like this glaze over what these dynamics are like, but Bad Fruit doesn’t pull punches. The beauty and the ugliness of family is laid bare. Sometimes literally.

Lily is such a moving protagonist, even when she is trapped under her mother’s thumb. We spend the novel following her attempts to change the status quo and undo the cycle of violence, as she tries and fails.

It offers such a unique perspective of how ugly it can be to be the Golden Child, which is something I don’t think many of us know. I see so many perspectives from scapegoat kids, I thought we definitely had it worse. But this story shows that being the Golden Child is ugly as well, but maybe just in a different way. Conformity and degradation come at a great personal cost for Golden Children.

I loved it. It gave me insight.

The protagonists fascination with etymology was something I found to be unique and interesting to learn about and it often gave greater insight into the more subtle relationship dynamics between characters. If anything, this was a little bit under used. But it made the ending very satisfying.

Lily is “Mama’s Girl” or “Mama’s Doll.” She’s the youngest of three siblings, and in order to retain her position as the favorite, she’ll do whatever Mama asks. With a Chinese mother from Singapore and white father from London, Lily doesn’t quite fit in. She dyes her hair blacker, she wears contacts to hide her heterochromia, she wears yellow-toned makeup to make her look more Chinese, more like her mother’s daughter. But she’s so much like Mama that she’s started experiencing flashbacks that seem to be of her mother’s life. Lily’s mother appears to be increasingly unhinged as Lily gets closer to moving out of the house and going to Oxford, and as all of their lives seemingly start to unravel in front of them.

Please note that this is *significantly darker* than most books I review, and I’ve listed content warnings at the bottom in case you prefer to go in unspoiled. It’s psychological thriller in style, and starts slowly as King sets her stage, picking up pace towards the middle of the book, and then by the end I was frantically flipping pages to find out the ending. (I’m so used to happy endings these days and now cannot handle not knowing where something will end.)

The entire book is told from Lily’s perspective, and having an eighteen-year-old unreliable narrator raises the stakes in this one. The interplay of relationships - mother-daughter, father-daughter, siblings - makes this one particularly interesting, too. I’m also always fascinated by stories that play with the concepts of flashbacks and memories. The book does some heavy lifting with the concept of identity, as well, particularly as Lily is torn between multiple worlds of Chinese and white identities, mother and father, past and present, and self and other.

I’d like you all to please read this one so I have more people to talk about it with! I can’t say much more without spoilers at this point. I highly recommend picking this up as a buddy read so you can tear apart theories with a friend as you go! It reminded me of my favorite Emily St John Mandel book, Last Night in Montreal, so if you read and liked that, I recommend this as well.

Thank you to @astrahousebooks and @netgalley for the eARC for review. This is out 8/23/22.

CW: emotional abuse, sexual assault, memory loss

Ella King's novel is one of the most intriguing novels I have read in a long time focusing on family dysfunction and child abuse. Lily is about to begin her studies at Oxford but trying to endure the final months at home with her difficult mother, May. Lily is the youngest of three siblings whose parents are Singaporean, May, and British, Charlie. Jacob and Julia have left home. Jacob is already divorced with two young children. Julia swears she will never get married or have children. Charlie is a forensic pathologist and comes and goes at irregular intervals, sometimes for days.

Lily is May's caretaker. May is childlike in many ways, including the food she will or will not eat. May loves the color pink and has a collection of teddy bears she talks to. May is mercurial and Lily never knows what tiny thing will set her off so Lily is living a nightmare. She has funny little flashes of memories that seem to be things her mother told her about her childhood in Singapore. Unfortunately, Lily doesn't know what is real about her mother's memories. When May goes off on a tangent about money or food, Charlie quickly has a job he needs to tend to and Lily is left to take care of her mother.

As the novel gets deeper into May's life and Lily's difficulties with dealing with everything, the full dysfunction comes to the forefront. Fortunately, Lily meets a young professor at Oxford who seems to understand the hell Lily has been subjected to and tries to help. Things get much worse as the novel reaches a climax and I was glued to my seat, wanting to call the police myself! This debut novel is a perfect beginning for Ella King's literary career. I loved the book.

Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for this ARC.

Where do I begin? I don't think this is a book anyone would describe as a book they "enjoyed". Bad Fruit, is dark, emotional, twisted, and sad. Very "Mommie Dearest" meets "The Act". This story highlights young Lily's difficulties with an emotional. manipulative, abusive mother, May. Delving deep into the subject of generational abuse, Bad Fruit explores the reasons behind abuse, how different people deal with the abuse, as well as science behind why most victims block it out. Lily is her mothers favorite, or is she? One day Lily begins having flashbacks that are so intense they make her sick, but are they hers? Triggered by words and objects, Lily's flashbacks grow more intense, sending her down a difficult road to the answers she so desperately needs. Bad Fruit was difficult to read but even harder to put down. Major trigger warnings! This will be a difficult read for most. However, there is light in the turn of the last page.

Bad Fruit follows Lily and the abusive relationship she has with her mother. Lily’s life revolves around placating her mother, so she and the rest of her family won’t be subjected to her violent fits of rage. Lily has just graduated from high school and she looks forward to soon leaving home to attend Oxford. Her mother is becoming more violent and angry by the day, but soon she’ll finally be able to escape her house just like her older brother and sister did. One day Lily starts to have “flashbacks” that seems to be showing her parts of her mother’s traumatizing childhood. Lily hopes thinks that if she’s able to tough out living with her parents for just a little while longer, the flashbacks will eventually show her what her mother really needs to heal. Maybe by helping her mother deal with her past, Lily will be able to heal herself and her entire family.

This was really hard to read, but it was so worth it. It shows a complex picture of a toxic family and all the ways each member of this family has chosen to deal with Lily’s mother. Her sister chooses to provoke their mother. Her father allows his wife to treat their children however she wants, and avoids her as much as he can when she’s especially angry. Her brother is barely able to parents his own two children of work at his demanding job because his PTSD sometimes doesn’t allow him to leave his bed. I liked that I got to read about how four different people responded to the same traumatizing situation in different ways. I was hooked by the mystery of what was causing Lily’s flashbacks and how she could be taking on her mother’s memories. It was almost a story that took place in two timelines, with the main story being Lily’s in the present day and the story from the past showing her mother’s entire childhood.

This was such a layered story for each character as an individual and for the family as a whole. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I will say that the entire story isn’t negative. And I needed that while reading a story that was so dark and heavy.


Content warnings for domestic abuse, self harm, and SA. But if you’re able to read this I highly highly recommend it. I will read everything Ella King ever writes.

This was terrifying. I really came unprepared for the shock i've went through while reading this. The story is so captivating yet disturbing, the clear black and white area of good and evil smudged to gray. On top of that, the writing is amazing so i've easily transported myself to that world (for better or worse). Fans of 'My Dark Vanessa' will love this , also if you like darker stories then this will be a right fit for you.

I think literary, psychological thriller is just not for me. I love the premise but it’s just wasn’t engaging for me. For a short book, it took me a long time to finish it.

Bad Fruit hit some really powerful chords. While I found this book in the “Thriller” section, it wasn’t exactly the type of thriller I’ve become familiar with. There was no boogie man murderer with a knife lurking around corners but something much deeper–a damning undertone that swelled throughout the story, something you knew was coming but couldn’t put your finger on. The family dynamic in this book is wrought with a palpable tension from the very beginning, and as we come to find, even further back than that. The author writes well, gripping you in a story you feel you have no business witnessing. Her ability to handle such extreme topics with grace is highly commendable and I’d love to read any future works by her. Thank you to Astra House for providing an eARC for review!