Like Mother, Like Mother is about 3 generations of mothers. We get an in depth look at each of the characters and they are all very complex and at times unlikeable.

I really liked the writing in this book. The dialogue was very witty and smart. There was a decent amount about politics which wasn’t ideal for me to read around a huge election but luckily that wasn’t the bulk of the story.

I found I really cared for the characters, flawed as they were. The ending was perfection and I loved the last part of the story most of all. At times I found the pacing slow but I always felt engaged with the story. I’d recommend this to anyone who likes books about family dynamics.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

📚Book Review: Like Mother Like Mother by Susan Reiger📚

Many thanks to NetGalley and The Dial Press for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Lila Pereira is a force to be reckoned with. Following the institutionalization of her mother, she is raised in Detroit by an abusive single father and left with no choice but to forge her own path her entire life. As an adult, Lila has left the child rearing of her 3 girls to her endearing husband, Joe, as she climbs the ranks to become one of the most notable newspaper editors in the country. As Lila achieves her dreams, her girls feel overshadowed and hungry for their mother’s love, especially the youngest daughter, Grace. It seems that the more overlooked Grace is, the harder she works to garner her mother’s attention. When she decides to write a fictional book loosely based on her mother’s upbringing, not only does she finally grasp her mother’s attention, but she also opens the door to an unsolved family mystery that could have severe ramifications on all of her family members.

🌹I absolutely loved this book from beginning to end. Generational family sagas are right up my alley and this did not disappoint!
🌹I loved the dynamics amongst all of the family members and how Lila’s story of growing up was woven into the story of her daughters’ upbringings.
🌹This book made me think a lot about how generational trauma can affect a family and is it possible to break the cycle of trauma?
🌹I know there was some speculation surrounding the author’s use of other people’s words and improperly acknowledging their words, but I chose to just maintain my focus on enjoying the book.

The complicated relationships between mothers and daughters

When Lila Pereira and her siblings were young their mother Zelda left them. Their father, the brutish and abusive Aldo, had her admitted to the Eloise Asylum for what he said was her emotional instability and there, he told them several years later, she died. With Zelda no longer in the house to be the recipient of his physical and mental abuse, he turned his rage onto his children. Lila was the youngest but the most stubborn, and she made sure that her defiant attitude and sharp tongue directed Aldo’s anger towards her rather than her siblings. Their hardscrabble upbringing, their lack of a mother and their father’s abusive nature would affect all three in different ways. Lila grew up to become a famed newspaper editor in Washington DC and married the wealthy Joe Maier. They had three daughters because Joe wanted children; Lila did not believe she could ever be a proper parent to a child given her own upbringing, and agreed to have children only if Joe (and whatever nannies etc he might need) raised them, a condition to which he agreed. For their three girls, Stella and Ava aka the Starbirds and especially for the youngest girl Grace, having a mother who seemed to care more for her career than for them created their own version of an absent mother. While Joe was an amazing and loving father and Lila did love them all in her own way, Grace grew up and remained angry that she did not have the type of mother she felt she deserved. When Lila dies unexpectedly within months of retiring from her job, her family is devastated, none more so than Grace who was left with unresolved issues. Lila left behind a letter, asking Grace to research what really happened to Zelda all those decades ago. Did she in fact die at the Eloise? Or did she find a way to escape, leaving her three young children behind to suffer from the abuse she would surely have known was their fate?
All children are affected by how they are raised, and while there is no perfect parent some children are lucky enough to be raised with love and kindness. Others, like Lila and her two siblings, draw the short end of the stick in that particular lottery. Lila’s intelligence and ambition raised her out of the blue collar Jewish neighborhood in Chicago where she was raised and catapulted her into a life where she mingled with the social and political elite, a person whose obituary was featured on the front page of not only the Washington Globe (where she had been the executive editor) but also the New York Times. But that same drive and dedication to her career left little time for her to be a mother to her children or even a proper wife to the husband she loved. As Grace looks into her family’s history in her search for the truth about Zelda, she finds many surprises as well as uncanny parallels between the women that Zelda and Lila were, and what she herself might become. Told with humor and honesty, it was hard for me as a reader not to admire the woman that Lila became even as it broke my heart to see what the damage done to her caused her to miss out on with her family. She did experience love and friendship, and did her best to be a mother to her daughters (she certainly gave them the very best father a child could ever want). The relationship between mother and daughter is fraught with land mines in the best of circumstances, and neither Lila nor her girls would claim to have that….but each made the best of what they had, and tried to do better. Wonderful characters, full of flaws but with spirit and fire galore, and the layered relationships between the people who would come together to form an extended family through blood, marriage, and friendship, this story of three generations of women is beautifully told. Fans of authors like Anne Tyler, Allegra Goodman and Julia Glass would be wise to add Like Mother Like Mother to their TBR list, as should any woman who is or has a mother. Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group/The Dial Press for allowing me access to this delightful saga.

Show me a multi-generational multi-year saga of a book and it's most likely I'll love it. Like Mother, Like Mother was no exception. This is a book of strong. sometimes dislikable, women. But i'm a firm believer that not every book character must be likeable for the book to be good.

It has been a long time since I've read a story that is a story just for its own sake. No moral. No teaching. No mea culpa. Just an interesting story spanning three generations. I was slow getting into the book but once I was hooked, it was hard to put down. With one exception, the men are nice, kind and the women mostly strong, forward looking action oriented people. There is a mystery that is solved by the end of the book.
I really enjoyed reading Like Mother, Like Mother. Even the title makes sense by the end!

A completely engrossing story of the lives of a mother, her daughter, and the mystery of her mother’s life. The conversations are short and to the point. The narration follows the same pattern. It is loaded with successes and disappointments. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the format.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This fabulous three generations of women sage examines how much we inherit from our mothers, like it or not. The story begins in 1960’s Detroit where Lila Pereira and her two siblings grow up with a constantly angry, deeply physically abusive Dad who has their Mom committed to an asylum as part of his bullying. Having never seen her Mom since age 2, Lila ends up both serving as the lightning rod for her father’s abuse as a protection for her sister and brother, as well as galvanizing herself to escape from his household wrapped in the keen ambition tied to survival.

Lila emboldens herself to put everything she has into rising the ranks of print media to become the executive editor and award winning journalist of D.C.’s Washington Globe, a fictional rival to the Washington Post. Along the way she marries compassionate Joe, who’s the only child of a very wealthy family, and with whom she has three daughters. But the deal is that Joe knows of Lila’s unrelenting ambition and agrees to take on the nurturing parent role.

Grace, their youngest daughter, deeply resents her Mom’s constant absenteeism and parenting by proxy by Joe. Graces feels emotionally neglected, endlessly resentful, and deeply judgmental about her Mom’s perceived parenting failures. Grace also cannot stop wondering about what happened to Lila’s Mom- did she die in the asylum? Escape? Grace, in an act of rebellion writes a thinly disguised novel about her Mom’s life that becomes the talk of the town.

As Grace goes on the hunt to find out what happened to her grandmother, the revelations pour forth about how many traits these three women share in common, and how this deeply impacts each of their parenting approaches.
Susan Rieger’s writing is moving, lyrical, deeply insightful as she sweeps you into this sprawling family saga. She challenged me to thoughtfully reflect on how I approached parenting my two kids, juggling Mom-hood with professionalism, and the trade-offs inherit in both loving your kids and finding personal fulfillment.

A novel that stands out among the best of 2024.

Thanks to Random House, The Dial Press and NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

I really enjoyed reading this book, though I was thrown off a bit by some minor controversy related to some of the dialogue in the book being borrowed in some way from other (well-known, quotable) authors. When I learned that, the dialogue that was so enjoyably quippy and interesting was hijacked in my mind by the question of whether it was borrowed or original. However, over time (and more reading), I came to wonder whether it being borrowed even matters. The content/story is original, so if the author drops in phrases she either internalized or even intentionally borrowed, does it take away from from her creation? I’m not sure.

The story itself is really good. I loved her exploration of the idea of whether the way a mother *is* can be transferred to the daughter even in absence (as with Lila and Zelda) or when the daughter may not want it (as with Grace and Lila). The tale told is unique and propulsive, and I wanted to know what happened to Zelda! The discovery was well-explored, too, which I appreciated more than if it was just quickly answered. Overall I really liked this and can see upping my rating with time and perhaps more understanding of the “controversy” around the borrowed text.

This was amazing, emotional, inspiring, thought provoking. I want to buy a copy for all the ladies in my family.This is such an in-depth read about three generations of women who each are strong in their own ways. Probably one of my favorite reads this year.

One of the best books I have ever read!. Three generations of women are so affected by past and present discrepancies in their families lack of knowledge of the past.
Lila has a horribly abusive father and is incapable of being a good mother in the conventional way so she leaves it up to her husband Joe to take over that role with her three daughters. Her own mother left when Lila was only two years old and she never saw her again. This profoundly affected her ability to mother her own children and instead threw herself into her job as a reporter on a large newspaper. Her youngest daughter, Grace, was very resentful and always felt abandoned by her mother's lack of attention.
As time goes by the children grow up and each make a good life for themselves but there is a unexpected twist at the end you won't see coming. I highly recommend this for anyone who enjoys reading family sagas.

Thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for allowing me to read this wonderful book.

I struggled immensely to finish this book… I’m not sure if it was the style of dialogue, the extremely slow character development and plot line, or perhaps that it simply wasn’t a book well suited for me. When I read the synopsis, I was sure the character relationships would reel me in, but I never grew attached to any character or their outcomes. It was an interesting enough concept and the mystery of ‘what happened to Zelda’ was the most intriguing aspect of what otherwise felt like hiking through mud.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book

This is a touch review to write. The book was wonderful and beautifully written. It tugged at my heart in so many ways.

Three generations of women are told about in this story. Zelda was a very abused mother. She had three children. Two little girls and a son. She was put into a mental hospital when the youngest child, Lila, was only two. Lila received the brunt of the abuse. She was mouthy they said. Their father was a horrible man. Lila married and had three daughters. The youngest is Grace. Grace is the one that you will hear the most about and from.

Lila and her siblings were told that their mother died in the mental hospital. There was no funeral and no death certificate. When Lila went away to college she never looked back. She did keep in touch with her brother and sister but their father she hated. She went on to marry a wonderful man and had three girls. She was also a top rated reporter. She gave work her heart and soul. Her husband was a lawyer and more of a mother to their children. She loved them but didn't know how to be a mother.

Grace, the youngest child, went on to be a reporter also. Though she had some hard feelings for her mother she still loved her. She wrote a book and after her mother's death regretted writing it. It was based on her family just with different names. Grace always thought that Zelda was alive. Lila never cared. She never tried to find her. Grace wanted to know after her mother died.

This story goes through a lot of emotional things and will definitely make you shed some tears. I liked almost all of the characters. I despised Aldo, the father. He was a horrible person. I also did not like Zelda. While a part of me understood why she did what she did I just could not muster enough forgiveness for her. She left her children with a tyrant. An abuser. She knew what he was. Yes she had good reason but still she should have got her children. She should have fought for them. Even back in those years she could have gotten some kind of help. I just didn't feel sorry for her. I did feel for Lila. I adored Grace and Ruth. And Joe. And Frances....

This was a tough one for me to read but it was so good. So well written. It had the feels you expect. The story was told in a way that made you think about some things. Like how Lila was how she was and how her relationship with Grace was the way it was. They were so much alike in so many ways.

Thank you #NetGalley, #RandomHousePublishing #TheDialPress, for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this book.

Five stars!

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Random House | The Dial Press and NetGalley for an electronic advanced readers copy of this novel.

Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger is a well written and entertaining tale of one family. Lila Pereira has grown up with an abusive father and a mother who is committed to an asylum when Lila is only 2. Ambitious and smart, Lila manages to go to college and is determined to make a success of herself. On her journey, she meets and marries Joe, who is from an extraordinary well off family. He wants children of his own, but Lila is more concerned with her career- but they come to a compromise where Lila can still work and Joe raises their kids while still working as a lawyer.

This novel follows Lila, who turns out to be the managing editor of the Washington Globe, and her daughter, Grace, who looks like Joe but has the same tenacity as Lila. Grace becomes a successful reporter and also publishes a fictional retelling of Lila and her family.

I really enjoyed this novel. It was a bit long, but the writing is sharp and the story was very interesting.

Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger tells the story of three generations of very strong women and their multigenerational family drama. Smart, strong, difficult, and complicated mother-daughter relationships are at the core of this novel. Told from the point of view of three different women, the reader is able to identify with these women and what they went through, as each tells their own story. It is a thought-provoking novel that will get you thinking about motherhood. It is a perfect book for book clubs.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.
#NetGalley #RandomHouse

When Lila and her siblings were young, their mother was institutionalized by her abusive husband Aldo. He later claimed she died. The children became his punching bag, finding no solace from their grandmother.

Lila realizes her life will only get better if she creates a new version of it. She marries Joe, who adores her and gives her space to grow. With talent and hard work, Lila becomes a journalist and eventually makes it to the top of her field as Executive Editor of the The Washington Globe.

Joe wants children, but Lila’s had no model of a home life from which she could draw. She didn’t envision motherhood as her path. Lila’s abusive father instilled in her a different kind of fight. She tells a friend that Aldo’s father beat him, and he thought it made a man of him. “I suppose it made a man of me, too,” Lila says. However this might be interpreted, one thing this story demonstrates is that Lila follows a career path of a typical executive who lives at the office and misses her kid’s milestones. Joe is the parent who is home for dinner each night. This arrangement is accepted when the roles are reversed. But. Lila’s youngest daughter, Grace, resents Lila for never being home.

Grace carries a notebook recording her mother’s comments. She later publishes an unflattering tell all, timing the release to overshadow one of Lila’s big events. Grace’s sisters tell her she is holding their mother to a different standard than men in the same situation, and Lila never seems to take offense or criticize. She even helps Grace meet her professional goals. This paints Grace in an even more unflattering light than she has already painted herself, if that’s possible.

This book is a study in a double standard that is pervasive in the workplace. Her husband and the men with whom Lila works are her champions. The pushback comes from a female child, who is jealous and resentful, willing to shame her mother publicly for not conforming to her antiquated biases. Grace, petty and selfish, is such an unlikeable character, it felt tortured at times getting through some chapters.

It’s likely many with sympathize with Grace, might feel they have been in her shoes. As the saying goes, there is no excuse for bad behavior. This is the standard that’s being applied here. After all, standard setting, whether fair or not, is a theme.

Many thanks to Random House Publishing—Random House and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

The author was trying to do too much with this book. It was reminiscent of The Mothers by Brit Bennett at times. The characters were generally unlikeable and could be hard to root for. The book mostly felt like it was written to sell, not to tell a story

I enjoyed this tremendously. It would be hard to explain what this book is about...the characters speak for themselves. Ahhhh, the characters. There are a lot of them. The author very kindly put a listing of pretty much all of them up front, but did a fantastic job helping you remember who they were throughout the story. The only time I had to go back and look was when I had put the book away for a little while to attend real life. Lila was a force. She was unapologetic for who she was, but never once shied away from understanding and owning her flaws. Her husband Joe was a patient and loving man, who met Lila where she was in life. Then we have the three daughters. You don't learn too much about the eldest two other than they were virtual twins, without actually being twins. The youngest daughter, Grace is where we send the second third of the book. And she struggles to understand and accept her mother and find her own footing in life. Her best friend, Ruth, is a best friend we should all have. As mentioned, there are many other characters within the pages, and it was fascinating to meet them all and see how their lives intertwined.

“‘All rich men are alike,’ Xander said. ‘Every poor man is poor in his own way.’”

This is a multigenerational and layered story about the power of women and the microscope we frequently find ourselves under.

But, the addition of the politics is what lost me. That is definitely a me problem but oh man does that turn me off.

I also wasn’t a huge fan of the narrator. There was just something about the tone of her voice that actually distracted me from the story.

Thanks for the free audiobook @PRHAudio #PRHAudioPartner and to Random House Publishing, Netgalley, and the author for the ARC.

This one was not for me with a slow, pondering writing style, many characters (there is a list of the multiple characters at the front of the book), many of whom were unlikeable. I just couldn’t engage with them nor care about them and that’s a problem for me as this is a very character-driven read. Halfway through, I decided to stop. Too many other books that I want to read to spend time on one that I wasn’t enjoying.

Thanks to the publisher for this complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.

"Like Mother, Like Mother" is a thought-provoking exploration of the intricate bond between mothers and daughters. The narrative beautifully captures the complexities of their relationship, highlighting both the challenges and the unconditional love that often defines it. The characters are well-developed, making it easy for readers to relate to their struggles and triumphs. The writing style is engaging and poignant, inviting reflection on familial ties and personal growth. Overall, it's a heartfelt story that resonates with anyone who has experienced the ups and downs of motherhood.

Thank you net galley for this amazing book.