Member Reviews
This book is a gripping thriller that plunges into the complex relationship between a mother and daughter against a backdrop of secrets and danger. The novel opens with a harrowing scene where Cleo, a NYU student, finds her mother, Kat, missing from their Brooklyn home, with only a bloody shoe as a clue. What follows is a race against time as Cleo unravels the hidden facets of her mother’s life.
Kat, a seemingly perfect corporate lawyer, harbors a secret identity as her firm's fixer, equipped with skills honed from a perilous upbringing in a group home. Her disappearance exposes the multitude of threats she was facing, from a deceitful husband to dangerous past connections. Cleo, dealing with her own emotional struggles and a risky relationship, must confront these revelations and navigate the treacherous path to find her mother.
The novel excels in creating a tense, emotionally charged atmosphere, keeping readers on the edge of their seats. The interplay of suspense and family dynamics is deftly handled, making the story as thought-provoking as it is thrilling. This is the ultimate bingeable read!
Thank you Kimberly McCreight, Knopf, and Netgalley for the advanced copy.
There's a lot going on in this book and it felt really disjointed and hard to follow. The story is told in several different ways - from Cleo's POV from the time her mom disappears, from Kat's POV for a few days leading up to her disappearance, and then weird text strings, legal documents, and other things that are littered in between.
Despite everything, I could kind of see where this story was going to end up, but I don't feel like the ending wrapped up everything completely especially where Aidan, the husband, is involved.
Thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
A top notch psychological thriller with plenty of twists and turns. The author keeps the reader guessing throughout, always wondering who is trustworthy. Highly recommended!
Wow, wow, wow! I absolutely devoured this book. Kat is a high profile lawyer going through a divorce and navigating a tricky relationship with her daughter Cleo. But, something happens to Kat and this launches Cleo into a full on investigation trying to figure out what has happened and most importantly where her mom is. The dual narration and timeline was great as the book toggled between Kat leading up to her disappearance and Cleo in the hours and days after. The twist at the end…just wow. Don’t miss this one. I think it might just be Kimberly McCreight’s best yet!
Cleo, a student at NYU, comes home to see her mom, only to discover dinner burning in the oven, only one of her Mom’s favorite shoes, broken glass and blood on the floor. This is just the beginning of this roller coaster of a mystery/thriller.
The main characters in this story include Cleo’s mom, Kat; her dad, Aiden; and her boyfriend, Will. The story is written from multiples POVs, which took some time for me to adjust to. But once I did, boy was it a fun read. We hear from Cleo in the present, her mom in the past and present, and Cleo with her therapist. As Cleo tries to figure out what happened to her mom, she discovers family secrets that will impact both her missing mom and Cleo’s future. She also discovers a pharmaceutical cover up that her mom, an attorney, is working on.
I found it a little strange that the police allowed Cleo so much freedom as she investigated her mom’s life. I’m not really sure if that would happen. But, it added to the suspense and the ultimate amazing twist at the end. I never saw it coming!
Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for this digital review copy.
I loved two previous books by this author, and raced through the first 3/4 of this one, turning pages quickly. Involving not only the disappearance of a mother, but the issues between mother and daughter, marital troubles, medical research and unethical behavior, this book was a treasure trove of possibilities. . However, the ending pages lost me, feeling forced and hilariously implausible. But perhaps I’m just too picky about my thrillers?! I suspect many will love this heart-racing story.
I’ve been enjoying Kimberly McCreight’s novels for years and am always excited to pick up her new releases!
This felt most like A Good Marriage, which is my favorite by her! We have transcripts of therapy sessions, legal documents, family drama, and all of the suspense. I thought the mother daughter relationship was well evoked and could ring true for many.
I always enjoy McCreight’s writing style, but I will say this had a lot of moving pieces that felt a little confusing at first. But everything does come together to make perfect sense at the end, with a satisfying ending.
This is a story about a mother and daughter. The mother has been keeping secrets from the daughter for some time. They do not come out until the mother is discovered missing. The book alternates between their POVs. I normally enjoy the swapping POVs but this book didn't work for me like that. I was annoyed by both characters. If you enjoy thrillers you should pick up this book. Thank you to netgalley for the ARC!
I struggle giving high ratings to books where the characters are unlikeable.
Cleo, for example, is a spoiled child who makes all the wrong decisions. It's not until she reluctantly comes home from college to see her mother and finds blood and a missing mother that she realizes, oh shoot, mom might not always be there to bail me out.
And Kat, an overbearing mom. Okay, okay, I see her point, her daughter was a mess. But she basically stalked her daughter and her boyfriend.
And don't get me started on Aiden, the worst husband and father of all time.
But the story itself was very interesting. I liked the different points of views and the back and forth in time way this was written. It kept me guessing up until the end, and I actuality didn't see any of the twists (and there were several) coming!
I'd recommend this book, as long as you can look past the flawed characters...
Thank you to NetGalley for my free ARC in exchange for an honest review of the book!
Katrina is the mother in the story with a tragic background that left her at Haven House most of her childhood. Her experiences there have led to be an averbearing, anxious, worried mother to Cleo, who is now in college. Kat and Cleo have a difficult relationship with Cleo feeling like her mom is constantly on her for every misstep or action that doesn’t align to what her mother wants for her. Kat is devastated by her lack of relationship with Cleo but doesn’t know how to turn off her worries and justified her over protection because of what she’s lived through and the dangers she’s witnessed.
Kat goes missing and left a suspicious scene at her house with broken glass and blood. Cleo tries to piece together what happened for herself and uncovers secrets about her mother’s past and present along the way. First, being that her Dad, Aidan, is having an affair with his assistant at work with has led their parents to be separated for the last few months and keeping it secret from Cleo. After her dad lies about this and a few other things- like his fighting about money from Kat’s inheritance- she wonders who she can trust and what really happened to her mom.
Cleo wonders if Kyle, her drug dealing, bitter ex-boyfriend is somehow responsible, or one of the creepy men she was online chatting with, or her dad ??
The book flips from Katrina’s perspective five deals leading up to her going missing. During this time, she’s dealing with Aidan asking for more money, worried about her daughter, and grieving over Doug, her boyfriend of three weeks she was falling for fast who was killed in a suspicious car accident.
Cleo’s current perspective is captured in “hours gone” and there are other snippets embedded like a text chain that you don’t know the senders to, journal entries from Kat’s time at Haven house, press releases about a drug company being sued for harm to infants, etc.
I really liked how the book was laid out and the mystery whodunnit it factor. There were a lot of plot lines to follow that had me guessing and a bit confused at times, but it all came together nicely in the end!
Cleo and her mom Katrina have a strained mother-daughter relationship. Cleo agrees to dinner with her mom but when she shows up, her mom is not there. Dinner is burning on the stove and there's blood on the floor. Her mom is gone.
Despite warnings from law enforcement, Cleo starts to hunt through her mom's past to try and find out what's happened to her.
I loved this story. I could not put it down! I loved how it tells the story from Cleo (current time, mom missing) and Katrina's view (leading up to her disappearance). Such a page turner.
Thank you Netgalley for this ARC! Publish date is July 30th (add to cart immediately)!
Cleo and her mother, Kat, have a complicated relationship. More than would a rebellious college student and a privileged Park Slope mom. Cleo arrives late for dinner with her mom, and finds dinner burnt in the oven and a bloody shoe, a pool of blood and no Kat. Cleo must find her, working past her conflicts with her and uncovering layer after layer of secrets about their lives.
I really enjoyed this book—from the secrets Kat was hiding, to the conflicts between parent and child. The story was gripping and I couldn’t put it down until the early hours of the morning.
This is my kind of thriller. Fast paced, the characters are woven together nicely and it all wraps up at the end. I was about 90% through with the book, before I got an inkling of the twist. Would definitely recommend.
A bloody shoe, an estranged husband, a toxic mother-daughter relationship, and a missing woman...all the requirements of a great story that keeps you on the edge and turning the page. After Cleo gets a desperate phone call from her mom Kat to come home, she finds the house empty, food burning in the oven, and a bloody shoe. Where is Kat and why is Cleo's dad not as concerned as she is? What did Kat really do as a lawyer? Everyone seems to have secrets and things just don't add up for Cleo who decides to try to find her mother herself instead of waiting around for the police to do their job. A great domestic thriller and a discovery that daughter is just like the mother. Some surprises at the end after many twists and turns made this quite enjoyable. I recommend it. Many thanks to #netgalley #likemotherlikedaughter #kimberlymccreight #knoft for the opportunity to read and review this book.
This is my second book by this author, A Good Marriage, being the other and I am happy to report I enjoyed this mystery! This one starts out with college student Cleo gets a call from her mother, Kat, to come home from college immediately. With an eye roll of what only a teenager can muster she reluctantly heads home. When she arrives she is shocked to find dinner burning and her mother gone. This is very unlike her and Cleo starts to panic when she discovers her mothers bloody shoe. Cleo starts to question everyone and everything to try and get to the bottom of what happened and bring her mother home. Her viewpoint of who her mother truly is, is very much different from reality. Her happily married lawyer mother is maybe not what she seemed. And what’s with her father and his untruths?! 😱 Ultimately this ends up being a race against time to find clues about her mothers past so she can do what any daughter would do, and that’s to save her and bring her home.
I love that this one was told in dual POV from both the mother and daughters perspectives and timelines. I could 💯 relate to the overprotective behavior Kat felt towards Cleo. I am in the thick of teenagering and really all we want to to have them be good productive humans that make it safely into adulthood. 😅 It’s not as easy as it looks, like Kat has discovered. I loved how Kimberly creates two characters that seem very different at first glance but as the layers of the onion are peeled back they are very much one and the same. Kimberly does a great job building tension with Kat’s past and current situation as well as shedding light on the wee bit rocky relationship between mother and daughter. The audiobook was executed perfectly and allowed me to fly through this one! Thank you again to my partners!
3.5 rounded up
Cleo is a college student who has a rocky relationship with her mother, Katrina (Kat). Kat does not approve of some of Cleo’s life choices, which has caused much tension in their relationship. One night, Kat asks Cleo to come home for dinner and when she arrives, Kat is nowhere to be found and she discovers blood on a pair of her mother’s shoes.
The police investigation to find out what happened to Katrina begins, with Cleo leading a search of her own, and it becomes clear that everyone in this family has secrets that they have been keeping. Many shady characters are introduced including Katrina’s soon to be ex-husband, Cleo’s shady ex-boyfriend and Katrina’s business associates who are also keeping secrets.
This was a twisty story told from the points of view of both Cleo and Katrina with Katrina’s perspective revealing the events leading up to the disappearance. Throughout the book, the author provides many red herrings which really made me think there were so many possible ways the story could end!
3.5 Stars rounded up
Like Mother, Like Daughter, written by Kimberly McReight, is a thriller story told from the point of view of mother and daughter Cleo and Kat. Cleo is a student at NYU, who comes home one night to have dinner with her mother, but when she gets there she finds the house in disarray and her mother missing. Cleo calls her father and the police, but also takes things into her own hands, and looks at her mothers past hoping to find out some of what her mother has kept from her, and to see if this is connected to her disappearance. At the same time Cleo has her own things to worry about, including her ex-boyfriend, her worries and her own relationship with her mother, and things that she discovers about herself during her mandatory therapy sessions. The reader also learns about Kat, her job, her past, and her relationship with her husband and daughter, as well as the days before her disappearance. This information challenges the reader to wonder which direction to follow, because it seems that there are a few different lines that could connect to Kat’s disappearance.
I really enjoyed this book, the storyline, and the characters. I liked that the book kept the reader guessing until the very end! I also enjoyed some of the more heartwarming mother and daughter moments that were remembered and shared. Definitely recommend this book and author! Thank you to NetGalley and to the author and publisher of this book for an ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.
This was a great domestic thriller and the twists will take readers by surprise. Kimberly McCreight keeps getting better with each book. Her character development and their relationships were well drawn and the plot sucked me in. Bravo! Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. I loved it!
Really enjoyed the thriller about a woman (Kat) who is a fixer at a big law firm and her daughter (Chloe) who is a student at NYU. This book is a dual POV between Kat in the days leading up to her disappearance and Chloe is the aftermath of her mom going missing. There were a lot of layers to this books including a lawsuit from a pharmaceutical company whose drug might be leading to birth defects in babies. The multiple timelines and how the stories were interwoven was really compelling to me and made this a really he great read.
Thank you NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the advanced readers copy of this publication.
I have have read a few of this authors other novels and was excited to read her newest release. It was well written and kept my attention. I would recommend this to anyone in the mood for a quick paced drama with a great ending. Enjoy your read.