Heidi Reimer writes a brilliant debut novel and I am not sure why more people are not talking about it. I flew this read because it was so well written and the theme explored is one of my favouite. The book opens with a daughter who is estranged from ther mother attending the opening night of her mother's show. They have had a very tumultuous relationship, a lot is left unsaid, there is a lot of hurt and no way forward.

Sadie Jones is an actress and feminist who grew up in a very conventional home. Her mom had over 8 children and when she was a teenager Sadie vowed to never give birth. She knew the life she wanted to live required her being child-free and she had this for a long time... until her husband came along. After having her daughter Jude, Sadie Jones left her with her father so she could go live the life she's always wanted for herself. With this decision comes a lot of resentment.

The book is told from the perspective of the mother and the daughter so we can a well rounded look into how each feel about their decisions. The author does a brilliant job of presenting the information and leaving it up to the readers to decide.

I LOVE this book and I cannot stop talking about it.

This was a thought provoking look at motherhood & I enjoyed the author exploring an often overlooked perspective of women who are child-free by choice.

The average cost to raise a child to 18 in the United States has reached nearly $250,000. Add in college, maybe grad school, and that number can nearly double. The COVID pandemic highlighted the lousy daycare system in the U.S.; the pandemic may be over but the daycare teachers never returned. Women in heteronormative marriages report doing the vast majority of house and childcare, even when they work full time. Republicans’ response to this crisis is to outlaw abortion, and now they’re coming for birth control.

No wonder that birth rates have dropped to record lows, that 25 percent of Gen Zers have ruled out parenthood entirely. If having a baby means sucking up every spare dollar and extra minute, why would anyone agree to it?

In The Mother Act, novelist Heidi Reimer’s provocative debut, a woman who became famous for her show on the horrors of motherhood must confront the demons she gave her daughter. This dual POV, time-hopping story is a masterpiece of character and theme, resonating with anyone who has been a parent or had one.

Sadie Jones always knew she never wanted to be a mother. Growing up in a rural, religious household, she witnessed her mother popping out baby after baby; as the oldest daughter, Sadie was expected to take care of them. Running away from home as a teenager, she found herself in New York City and became a guerilla actress, performing plays in open spaces and always questioning the patriarchy.

The book doesn’t start with Sadie, however—her 24-year-old daughter Jude, also an actress, opens the action as she waits for Sadie before the opening of her mother’s latest show. Like The Mother Act, the one-woman show that made Sadie famous, Sadie’s current play is also based on Jude. Will mother and daughter be able to reconcile, or will this play be the final nail in the coffin of their relationship?

Under a lesser-skilled hand, the character of Sadie could have been one note and shrill, a man-hating Feminazi. But Sadie loves Jude’s father, Damien, and her conflict between her art and her love is concrete and thoroughly explored. True, Sadie is a bit of a narcissist who has trouble understanding other people’s points-of-view. But as the book progresses and readers get to know Sadie at different ages, her choices become more understandable. It helps that she’s larger than life—passionate, expressive, the type of person who throws her entire being into her projects and performances. Who wouldn’t want to be around Sadie, have some of her light shining on them?

In contrast, Jude is a born introvert, only comfortable with her father and a few people from his traveling Shakespearean acting troop where she was raised. After briefly meeting the 24-year-old Jude, readers get to know her as a 13-year-old desperate to connect with the mother who abandoned her at two years old and has been an infrequent participant in her life since she was eight. Longing for her mother’s love, but rejecting Sadie’s self-absorbed attempts at parenting, Jude only feels confident when she’s performing a role in someone else’s play.

The acting world is the spine of the book—Damien is a British Shakespeare actor who grew up in a family of acting royalty, and the novel is divided into acts, some of which are named for Shakespeare plays. An early chapter shows Sadie disgusted by Damien’s portrayal of Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew; that she is drawn to him anyway foreshadows the couple’s later issues. Acting is the thread that connects Sadie to Jude; as much as she wants to deny their similarity, Sadie’s fame makes it easier for Jude to book roles and harder for her to disavow her mother.

The specificity of the characters’ challenges—Sadie trying to find funding for her movie; Jude trying to befriend actors who see her as daddy’s princess—at times work against the universal themes of the book. But they work in creating Sadie and Jude as real people, not just stereotypes. As the book progresses and Sadie weighs her love for Damian and his desire for a child against her lifelong opposition to motherhood, she faces a dilemma more typical to men: Should I become a parent only because my spouse wants a child?

While the daycare challenges of COVID made it more acceptable to admit that mothering is tough, and parenting isn’t for everyone, these types of raw stories are few and far between. Movies like The Lost Daughter and The Babadook show the work but also imply the kids’ neediness is unique to the specific child and justifies maternal disengagement. By the end of The Mother Act, I felt that Reimer was falling into the same trap.

Motherhood is hard, and even the most selfless woman with the easiest baby in the world would chafe under its demands. There are no bathroom breaks, no sick days, and most importantly, no pay. The most important job in the world is the most thankless. While Sadie Jones is a fictional character, and a particularly opinionated one at that, her dilemma has become more common as childrearing becomes less and less affordable. Authors like Heidi Reimer perform an important service by shining a light on the soul-sucking challenges of motherhood. But writers alone can’t change anything. Only voters who prioritize the needs of women over the religious values of certain men can do that. Hopefully, in November, they will.

This is a story of a mother-daughter relationship that I haven’t seen done before. The blatant honesty that comes through really gives another perspective to motherhood, one outside the social norms. I recommend this to readers interested in feminism and family relationships.

Sadie never wanted to be a mother, and now she tells the world exactly that as she performs The Mother Act on stages all over. But her daughter Jude is still desperate for her mother’s love and attention, despite having been left with her father throughout much of her life.

This story is absolutely moving. It focuses on all of the ways that a woman’s life changes when she becomes a mother - often with no changes to the father’s life at all. Sadie balks against all of it, and chooses her career and her free life over being a mother. We get the perspectives of both Sadie and her daughter Jude throughout the book, seeing the pain that they were both in when it comes to their relationship.

Sadie’s honesty about motherhood feels so brutal and makes her wholly unlikable at times, but I think that’s exactly what I liked about her. She knew what she was choosing, and she stood firm in it - even at the risk of what other’s may think. While at the same time, we feel the pain that Jude feels knowing that her mother never really wanted her and now tells the world through her play.

I really loved this story. The theater aspects were at times a bit boring to me simply because I’m not a theater person, but Reimer kept the story moving and allowed both our main characters to be inherently flawed without trying to tie a bow on their relationship. It’s easy to bounce back and forth between understanding them both while also hoping for a reconciliation and less pain on both sides.

I don’t know why more people aren’t talking about this book but I hope that they will because it’s a stunning portrayal of a complicated mother daughter story.

"At least there’s divorce, but it’s pretty hard to get out of being a mother once you’re a mother. Not impossible, that much is clear—just trickier."

The Mother Act, Heidi Reimer's powerful debut, is a thought-provoking read that will stay with you long after the final page is turned. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the professional theater world, this story spans decades and details the relationship between Sadie, a fiercely independent actress with some controversial work, and her daughter, Jude (a talented actress in her own right). Sadie, who has a larger-than-life personality, prioritizes her ambitions for fame over motherhood, even writing and performing a one-woman show detailing her struggles with becoming a mother. Jude, who yearns for her mother's love and affection, grapples with the emotional fallout from Sadie's choices.

"But don’t mothers and daughters forgive words spoken in anger? Don’t they process and move on?"

Structured cleverly as a six-act play, the reader is presented with both Sadie and Jude's perspectives, which offers nuance to a story where one of the characters could easily be written off as irredeemable. Reimer's writing is both insightful and emotionally charged, and I found this book gripping all the way through. This book is not concerned with who deserves to be vindicated and how, but with truly understanding the complexity of a woman's experience.

"Does it never occur to you that people and relationships could in fact be the most precious thing there is?"

If you enjoy stories about complicated family dynamics, thought-provoking questions about motherhood and feminism, and books set against the backdrop of the theater world, pick this one up. I think this will be great for fans of Laurie Frankel's Family Family and Jenny Jackson's Pineapple Street.

Thanks to Dutton and Heidi Reimer for the review copy in exchange for my honest review. This book is out now!

What really sets this book apart from others is how it is written, its format. Thank you to NetGalley and publisher. I was so intrigued by the story and found myself getting lost in each page.

The Mother Act tells the story of Sadie Jones, an actress who became famous for her one-woman show THE MOTHER ACT a one -woman show that is scathing with respect to Motherhood. Motherhood , according to Sadie, was crippling so she left her husband and daughter for her career. This novel is dual timeline -- one learning about Sadie in her youth as she married and got pregnant with Jude. The other storyline is two decades later. Jude is an acclaimed actress in her own right and she is invited to a revival of Sadie's show. Despite her fraught history with her mother, she shows up and the two come face-to-face.

This book has gotten some rave reviews, but it did not work for me. The real problem was Sadie who was such an unlikeable character. There are ways to redefine motherhood and reclaim a sense of self other than walking out on your family. In addition, the advice and actions that she gives Jude when they meet up later in life are cringe. 2.5 stars roudned up.

I’m a sucker for a story that focuses on some juicy family drama, particularly when it centers around parent and child relationships. The mother/daughter relationship at the heart of Heidi Reimer’s new novel, The Mother Act is about as dramatic and juicy as it gets. Navigating the messy waters of societal expectation, bucking the trend, and the importance of being able to see things from someone else’s perspective, The Mother Act explores what it’s like to grow up with a mother whose opinions are loud, strong, and don’t always take other people’s feelings into account. At the same time, it examines how a woman can find herself questioning everything she thought she knew about herself and what she wanted (and what can happen when you get something you wanted and it isn’t anything like what you thought it would be… or perhaps it’s just that it’s your worst nightmares of how it could be come to life).

Sadie Jones has made her name by very publicly confronting the biggest societal taboos around motherhood, beginning with the one-woman show about how much becoming a mother had twisted and taken over her sense of self, taking a sledgehammer to her dreams and her relationship. As much as her father tried to protect her from the whole truth, Jude has always struggled with just what to make of her mother and how to improve their relationship. She wants her mother to be part of her life but whenever they’re around each other, Sadie tends to steamroll and intimidate her daughter with her forceful opinions and self-centered approach to life. As Jude grows up and spends more time ultimately working alongside her mother, they begin to clash before a major, public falling out. Two years later, Sadie has reached out to Jude to try to repair the relationship… by inviting Jude to her new one-woman show about their fraught relationship. Will Sadie’s gesture work? Or has their relationship deteriorated beyond salvation?

There were so many thematic elements in The Mother Act that resonated with me personally. Perhaps the biggest was the way that Jude and Sadie’s personalities simply weren’t compatible and how that exacerbated their already fraught relationship. Sadie is a steamroller when it comes to the people in her life and her daughter is no exception, but given what Jude learned about her mother leaving and her very publicly expressed feelings about motherhood, it makes it that much harder for Jude to assert herself with her mother until her frustration finally overflows in a big way. I’m definitely more of a Jude, trying to be tactful when certain people in my life push hard for there way, but it reaches a point where things just boil over. Sometimes it’s only when that happens that people will pause to actually listen and realize that yes, there are other people around and they have feelings that also should be respected and taken into account. The real question, as with Sadie and Jude, is will they actually stop, reflect, and grow or will they get defensive and shut down further?

The structure of the novel helps to balance the two perspectives as the reader first sees Sadie through her daughter’s eyes and then flashes back to Sadie’s own early adulthood and the choices she made leading up to choosing to become a mother. The reader gets to see Jude’s understanding of her mother evolve with time as, gradually, her perspective on her father and his role shifts as well. Being the one who stayed and always made her feel wanted and loved, a priority, she hesitated to cast him in any role in her life but hero until she reaches adulthood and the ways he makes excuses for Sadie begin to grate on her. From the flashbacks, it becomes clear how the relationship between Sadie and Damian only began to fall apart when their dynamic shifted so drastically with the introduction of Jude. It’s interesting to see later in the book, those ways that personality and circumstance can be what makes or breaks a relationship or situation. If Jude had been an easier baby – less fussy and more pliable… or if Sadie had possessed a greater wealth of patience and was less self-centered, more practical and forward thinking, a planner instead of so susceptible to impulsive decisions… If just a little bit had been different, everything might have turned out differently. And yet, there’s a sense of inevitability to it all and a determination to try to fix things, to not give up because just trying is worth something.

This was so complex and well written. I love that it was written as a play and separated into acts. The dual timelines and switching of perspectives between Sadie and Jude made for such a strong narrative where we were able to see from both sides how their lives played out and why Sadie (but also Jude at times) made the decisions that she made. I have so many mixed thoughts on Sadie. Overall I loathe her and I'm angry at her. But it REALLY tells a story of a woman who struggles from the beginning to connect with her daughter and how this complicated relationship between the two affects each life.

Team Sadie or Team Jude? This is an immersive and emotional novel that moves back and forth in time and between narrators to tell the story of the non-relationship between a mother and daughter. Sadie never wanted to be a mother but then she had Jude and when she could no longer cope, she abandoned her 18 month old for her husband Damien to raise. Jude becomes part of the acting dynasty of her parents after spending her childhood with Damien's roving company and she keeps a list of the times she sees Sadie. Sadie for her part becomes a feminist hero for her play about motherhood. These two are on a collision course for sure but what happens? No spoilers from me but know that it all blows up when Jude is an adult. It's easy to be judge-y about Sadie and honestly, Reimer doesn't do much to soften her. There's a lot to chew over (this would be a good book club selection) and then there's the Shakespeare! Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. It's a terrific read.

Thank you to NetGalley, author Heidi Reimer, and Penguin Group Dutton for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

I'm feeling all the feelings finishing this book. What daughter doesn't have a slightly complicated relationship with her mother, even if they are close? I love my mother and do feel close to her, but finding out I was queer and wanted to live a different life than her proved to be difficult and is still something I'm working through both with and in regard to her going on 6 years now. And I don't anticipate it will ever end. Reimer's writing is SO beautiful; this was truly a gripping story filled with lovely prose that hit me so hard. I could empathize with both Sadie and Jude in so many different ways. The pacing of the story and the narrative thread of sharing perspectives from each woman worked incredibly well and benefitted the story. As a reader, it was difficult to be the only person with both sides of the story, as Jude and Sadie moved through their own experiences only seeing their own and a limited view of the other's. Both women are flawed, and no one is correct. Sadie is definitely way more unlikable than Jude, but as a woman who values independence, I could still relate to her. My biggest complaint was that there were big jumps in the timeline from when we would see a character and then next pick up their story, and I think it would have been a bit better to get an inside glance to some of those "lost" years. Reimer's storytelling and writing was so compelling though that this was the only major flaw I felt the book had, and I am already so ready to read her next novel.

𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒕’𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒃𝒍𝒆𝒎, 𝒊𝒔𝒏’𝒕 𝒊𝒕? 𝑰 𝒑𝒖𝒕 𝒎𝒚 𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆, 𝒎𝒚 𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇, 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕. 𝑰𝒕’𝒔 𝒂 𝒇𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅. 𝑬𝒙𝒄𝒆𝒑𝒕 𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒔.

Jude has grown up feeling overlooked and neglected by her famous mother Sadie, in fact, she has kept a minimal list of visits with her mom throughout her lifetime (when the book begins, that lifetime is thirteen years). It is evident they are not close and that it is her father she adores, is loyal to, trusts. She has forever known about the play her feminist mother wrote and performed, The Mother Act (in short about the horrors and grim realities of motherhood). What her father does not know is that she read it, secretly, and it is a deep wound. Though she had been forewarned by her father that she could misinterpret the sentiments within, it was her only chance to discover the reasons why her mother left when Jude was a toddler. It is not about Sadie’s struggles, it is about not wanting to be a mother, the demands too heavy a burden to manage. Jude is burned by the knowledge that she was unwanted, despised even and that a creative life was worth more than being her mother. That Sadie is famous for rejecting Jude is a damning reality, one that Jude has had to bear the cross of. Now, she has the chance to get her mother’s attention, to prove her worth when Jude performs onstage in The Tempest. Jude’s life is all about acting too, touring with her father’s Shakespearian theater company, it is at his knee that she becomes a talented actress in her own right and through him she has a solid anchor, a guide. But absence shapes a child as much as presence, and in this complicated drama, we get front row seats.

Sadie overwhelms Jude, her sporadic visits are earthquakes in her life that even growing up on the road never seems to prepare her for. Her father still holds a flame for Sadie, it confuses and angers Jude. How could he love someone who has betrayed them so deeply with her desertion? How could her mother not love her own child? Is Jude defective herself, or is her mother truly a selfish, unaffected, disinterested, vain monster? Who is to blame? And why does Jude feel conflicted, both longing to reject and accept her mother’s attentions?

We journey back to 1989 when Sadie first met Damien (Jude’s father), as she is working with her own feminist theater collective- innovative, provocative, exploding with talent and ambition. There is immediate chemistry between them, and love takes its natural course, leading to hard realities that do not make room for artistic expression. Motherhood is burying her; she does not recognize the person she is becoming, and the world outside is beckoning. A rift is born from her choice. Once Jude is an adult, she faces similar challenges, but is it possible to bridge the distance years of misunderstanding and anger have left behind? Will Jude and Sadie always be strangers? What will happen when Sadie’s sequel hits the stage?

What it means to be a mother and the make-up of a woman is raked over in this complicated story of the expectations and demands of motherhood versus a career, one’s calling. It is also about the mother/daughter relationship, the similarities, differences, resentments, and longings. It must be addressed that Damien has an interesting role in the father/daughter dynamic, being the one who has remained the sole caretaker, in fact fathers are revered for doing what mothers around the world take on without admiration. Truly in the past single mothers were often looked down upon and judged fiercely. Surely this book will launch conversations about feminism, the role of motherhood, and even creativity. It challenges what we owe those we are meant to love most and ourselves. Yes, read it.

Publication Date: April 30, 2024

Penguin Group

Dutton

It’s still quite early in the year, so this might be a tad premature, but I think I just found my favorite debut of 2024. The Mother Act by Heidi Reimer absolutely blew me away, friends! I could not put it down! It’s no secret that I love family dramas, especially ones with a strong focus on motherhood and marriage. This one checks all of those boxes, and then some. It really dives deep into gender roles and expectations, women’s choices and the sacrifices, weight, burdens, and consequences that all come along with it. The characters were all so wonderfully crafted, realistic, flawed, and deeply complex. The reader receives a “two for the price of one” character study with this mother/daughter duo. The format of the novel is pure gold, as it’s uniquely broken into six acts, and presented to the reader like a play. Very clever!

READ THIS IF YOU ENJOY:

- Drama, theater, and the arts
- Multiple perspectives and timelines
- Family drama, dynamics, and dysfunction
- Complex mother/daughter stories
- Feminist undertones
- Reflections on motherhood and marriage
- Epic love stories
- Character studies
- Strong and ambitious female characters

Heidi, your debut gets an enthusiastic “BRAVO!” from me, a huge round of applause, and even a standing ovation. I can’t wait to read more from you in the future. The Mother Act releases on April 30th, and I give it 5/5 stars!

The Mother Act is an amazing exploration of motherhood and relationships between parents and their children. Sadie wrote The Mother Act, her one-woman show about her struggle with motherhood, when her daughter was 18 months old and then promptly left her family to go on tour for the show, never returning. Jude grew up with her father, touring in his Shakespearian theater company and struggling to impress her mother enough to have a relationship with her. This book looks at society's expectations for parents and how having children changes people's lives. It was fascinating to see Sadie and Jude's different perspectives to the people around them and their experience with acting. This book will appeal to readers who enjoy character driven stories, stories about complicated relationships, and readers who are interested in theater.

Wow. This book really packs a punch. As someone who is a theatre artist and new mom myself, it definitely brought up a lot of emotion while reading. There were moments where I had to take breaks, because the power of the novel was overwhelming.

But art is meant to portray the difficult and vulnerable parts of life in ways that aren’t always pretty. And The Mother Act was extremely effective in doing so. I thought it was a beautiful, complex story with characters that were real and not always sympathetic. I’m glad I read it, and I could relate to it on more than one level.

complicated mother/daughter relationships are so common & this books does a great job at displaying that. with the story being written from both sides…… makes the book perfection. chefs kiss. this book touches on so many things and i think everyone should read it

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read and review this book ahead of publication. I loved it! My review will post to my blog on April 22 and I will also feature it on Instagram that day. The review will also be posted to Fable, The Storygraph, Goodreads and retail sites.

Review:

All of my life, I've loved theatre. I acted in high school and college, and when I moved to Texas, I was involved with a local theatre for 12 years as an actor, stage manager, and director. I loved it, and some of my best friends to this day are friends that I met while doing theatre. It's a world I loved and very much enjoyed being a part of, so when I read the synopsis for this book, I immediately knew I needed to read it. It did not disappoint! This debut - set against the backdrop of the glamorous and sometimes cutthroat theater world - is filled with rich characters and plenty of family drama. It follows the complex relationship between actress Sadie Jones and her daughter Jude, a relationship that is fraught with love, resentment, and plenty of misunderstandings.

Reimer's writing is both clever and compelling, drawing the reader into the lives of Sadie and Jude as their stories unfold in six acts. The mother-daughter relationship at the heart of the novel is portrayed with honesty and depth. Through alternating perspectives and flashbacks, Reimer skillfully explores the impact of Sadie's choices on Jude and the lasting effects of their strained relationship. The alternating timelines and perspectives really benefitted this book. I loved the structure and the way Jude's angst and heartache over her absent mother were established from the beginning, while Sadie was portrayed as a self-absorbed woman who only cared about herself - but ever so slowly, perspectives shifted.

We begin with Jude - now a mature adult - as she arrives at the theatre for a performance of Sadie's one-woman show. Jude doesn't trust her mother, and we learn what's at the core of that mistrust during the first act when we flashback to Jude's thirteenth birthday. She is traveling with her father's Shakespeare-focused theatre troupe, and they have stopped in California for a performance; Sadie will be in attendance. Jude has a list of things she intends to tell her mother, and she has a lot of questions that she wants answered - mainly why her mother wrote and performed a one-woman show titled "The Mother Act" in which she laid out all of the reasons she hated her child and never wanted to be a mother. Was Jude really that unloveable?

This sets the stage for the rest of the book, with each "act" set up with several chapters focusing on Jude as a thirteen-year-old, a summer after high school, and again in her 20s. Within each act, we also see things from Sadie's perspective as she runs away from her conservative home in the Midwest to New York, where she becomes a radical feminist, performs as part of an unconventional theatre troop, meets her future husband and eventually gives birth to Sadie and then one day - up and leaves. Through each act, more and more layers are peeled away, and the balance and our thoughts on each of the characters begin to shift.

At its core, "The Mother Act" is a novel about the choices we make and the consequences that follow, particularly when it comes to balancing personal ambition with familial responsibilities - especially when you are a woman. Reimer delves into complex themes such as gender dynamics, identity, and the nature of artistry, exploring how these factors intersect and shape the lives of her characters. Through Sadie and Jude's struggles and triumphs, the novel poses thought-provoking questions about the expectations placed on women, both as mothers and artists.

I loved this book. I loved the characters, the complex relationships, and the questions it asks. I felt like I knew these characters, and it made me miss my theatre family in Houston; it was almost like coming home. It is a stylish and engaging read that is sure to leave a lasting impact. This is an impressive debut, and I can't wait to read more by this author. I will definitely be adding a hard copy of this book to my shelves when it drops. There's a lot to unpack here, and this is one I'd like to revisit down the road.

What shines brightest for me in The Mother Act is that it goes beyond the experiences of an ordinary mother and daughter dealing with how the role of motherhood affects them. In this story both mother and daughter are actors, therefore expressing emotions is both natural and unnatural for them. Acting has been passionately pursued and developed by one, raised on and conditioned into by the other. While it’s visceral for both, expressing themselves through a “character” is also how they preferably choose to navigate through life, and be the lens through how they wish to express themselves when being themselves is less appealing an option. The Mother Act spotlights the push and pull motherhood demands on Sadie Jones, a struggling actor and fervent feminist who’d only ever viewed it as a threat, and how her choices later affect her daughter Jude.

Our formidable Sadie, an unorthodox actor, wears her heart on her sleeve as she spouts enlightenment on top of her feminist soapbox. She is self-centered, selfish, a narcissist that’s hard to like even in the sections told through her perspective. I don’t think Sadie is meant to be liked and there isn’t any real evidence as to why Damian, Jude’s father, is drawn to her. She’s so assertive about her views it doesn’t even settle as overwhelming. Every single time she’s in a scene she mentions how the patriarchy is bad, how motherhood is entrapping for women, being a mother is the worst thing that could happen to a woman, ultimately women should want more for themselves. And I respect those views, however having it dialed to an eleven in every scene she is present in makes her---as one of the two leading characters---unreachable, unrelatable, and makes it hard to believe she has any allies.

Then there’s her daughter Jude, a more classically trained actor and while a gifted performer, timid, and overly cautious about letting anyone too close to knowing the real her. She’s Sadie’s foil in personality where she isn’t in appearance. While on the surface readers will want to side with her without much evidence, Reimer fleshes her out enough that while we don’t blindly accept why Sadie abandoned her, we do see her as flawed as her mother.

The experiences and traumas of their childhoods and the image of how motherhood is understood by the generation before them set the blueprint for how they will go forward in life.

One of the interesting things I enjoyed regarding the portrayal of acting was that both mother and daughter start with unconventional stages but over time explore other mediums of acting—traditional theater performances or film.

Another fun decision Reimer makes to showcase their dynamic is by setting the stage of her novel using a creative, theater-reminiscent, six act structure in lieu of chapters. We get large doses of the past interwoven through snapshots of the present, see-sawing from mother to daughter, offering perspectives from both. Altogether an excellent character study and enjoyable for anyone in or interested in the theater world.

Finally, I absolutely love a title that takes on multiple meanings.

This warm and witty debut, structured as a play in six acts, depicts a mother-daughter relationship gone horribly wrong. Told from two perspectives, Remmer ingeniously explores themes of motherhood, identity, and ambition. Propulsive, fun to read, thought-provoking and entertaining.