Generational trauma and all its ugliness is the thread that binds the mother-mother-daughter relationships in this novel. I typically love stories like these because many of us, me included, have this type of passed-down trauma in our lives. Hopefully we work in adulthood to treat the trauma and break that pattern for the next generation. Generational trauma is such a rich plot thread for a novel with nuances and complexities of character possible. Unfortunately, this one fell flat for me. The characters felt one-dimensional and pigeon-holed into a stereotype of a trauma survivor. I also didn't sympathize much with the characters because they didn't have the complexity to draw me in. The novel had so much to work with and, I felt, took the easy way out and over-simplified characters. Bummer. I'm grateful to the publisher for the gifted copy.

I am still not sure how I feel about this book. It was well written, good character development, interesting story, well presented in 3 sections each supposedly featuring one woman from each generation but really always about all three of them and the generational trauma passed down. But, I think I was not in the right place to appreciate this book and enjoy it as much as I should have. Does that make sense? Objectively I would still recommend this book to myself to read, but it somehow did not solidly click with me and my reading at the time. Not fluffy enough? Which is weird because I am generally not a fluff kind of person. So, I am giving it 4 stars because I do believe it is a really good read, it just wasn't for me and this particular time. Makes me wish I re-read books because I think I would enjoy it more if I were in a different head space. Honestly, it's me not you dear book!

To be completely honest, I want to give this book 2 stars. I did not enjoy the storyline or the writing at all. The concept of following and learning of the lives of three generations of women should always be a win in my book, but there was nothing for me to latch on to with these characters. Zelda, Lila and Grace are so much alike. Seems normal right, since they are grandmother, mother and daughter, but they did not grow up directly influenced by each other. Still, all three are very cold and unloving. They are like the feral animals that will come around to socialize but at a distance and always untrusting.
There were many other lovely characters in the book that provided unwavering support to these women. They essentially kept the story afloat for me.
The writing was choppy at best. There were so many abrupt transitions that I contantly felt like I had whiplash.
I many be the minority with this book, but I truly struggled getting through this one.

Like Mother Like Mother by Susan Rieger tells the story of 3 generations of women. First is Lila, the top executive at The Washington Globe. Next is her daughter’s story Grace then Zelda, the grandmother. Each character tells her own story told. Very interesting characters and the relationships between mothers and daughters. What keeps you reading is how Zelda ties all of this together.

It was a bit confusing to start the story. The writing was a bit choppy, switching from past and present situations. It was interesting to read this story.

Thank you to NetGalley and The Dial Press for letting me read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have a penchant for multigenerational stories but this one felt a bit uneven. The writing style wasn’t bad, but wasn’t for me.

Longer review to come.

Like Mother, Like Mother follows the women in three generations of a family and looks at mothers and the effects that they have on their children and on future generations.

Zelda lived in an abusive relationship in the 1960s and one day she just disappeared. Lila, 2 years old, was told that her mother was in an institution and later was told that her mother had died. Her father, a hateful person, took his abuse out on Lila and she often took the punishments for her siblings. When Lila graduates from college she has decided that she wants to be a news reporter. She goes way beyond her original goal and ends up as the powerful executive editor of The Washington Globe. As she was working her way up the ladder, she married Joe, a very rich man, and they had three children. Lila never prioritized her children in her life. Her job was more important than anything else and she left her three daughters to mainly be raised by Joe and nannies. The oldest two daughters understood why their mother put her job first and accepted their life as it was. The youngest, Grace, wanted a real mom - one who came to PTA meetings and teacher conferences. She is so resentful of her mother that she tells her dad that she hates her mom. Grace's feelings don't really bother Lila. There's always another story to chase or scandal to uncover. Grace becomes a reporter and writes a thinly veiled book about her mother. As she writes the book, Grace realizes how little she knows about her family especially her grandparents. She doesn't really believe that Zelda is dead and plans to talk to her grandfather to see if she can find out more information about her grandmother. How can you ever be yourself, Grace wonders, if you don’t know where you came from?

This well written book is full of interesting characters. At times, it's difficult to like Lila but then when you look at her past, you realize why she lives her life like she does. Joe, her husband is a real saint and takes complete responsibility for raising their three girls. Grace was very resentful but at the same time very understanding of her mother. She is the only one in the family who wants to find out about her grandparents and to learn more about the family's past.

This book looks at three generations of women - Zelda who disappeared from her family, Lila who never learned how to parent and throws herself into her work and Grace who just wants to understand her mother. It's is a portrait of family, marriage, ambition, power, love and forgiveness and looks at why people become what they believe they are meant to be.

This was a deliciously satisfying story about three generations of women in a family.
Lila is the centerpiece - a fascinating well drawn character who lost her mother at a young age and had an abusive father. Her relationship with her husband Joe was compelling to follow.
Her daughter Grace is unhappy with her mother’s lack of maternal devotion. She is a successful reporter who always feels overshadowed by her mother who is larger than life professionally . She also longs to know about the fate of her maternal grandmother.
Her mother Zelda was put in a mental asylum and her fate was lost to Lila.
The writing was excellent and I found the unveiling of all there stories to be a really great read.
The ending had quite a twist that made it very satisfying. Three strong women and how they became themselves.
This would make a wonderful movie/series.
I think the book highlights that women often to make choices for themselves and can do this alongside successfully raising children.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC to read and review! Looking to read more by this author!

Thank you NetGalley, Dial Press and Susan Rieger for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of Luke Mother, Like Mother.
This is an interesting story about ambitious women who get stuck in their past, yet are quite successful in certain ways but are filled with self doubt. The characters are very three dimensional.
I liked the characters and storyline but felt the pacing was a stumbling block for me. Some parts were so repetitive but then sped up so fast I was confused and couldn’t keep events and characters straight. Especially when I took a break, I needed to reread the previous section in order to continue. I did this multiple times which was not enjoyable and why it felt so repetitive. Could just be my focus and I would like to give this author another try.

This book gave me everything I wanted.

As the title has hinted, it explores the theme of motherhood. It also talks about other topics that might be considered heavy, such as child abuse, so beware of this before you start the book.

I loved almost every character in the book. Lila and Grace are so similar and so different, and I sympathize with both of them. There is no way to describe Zelda without spoiling some part of the story, so every reader has to make their own conclusion on how to feel about this particular character.

If there is one thing I dislike about the book, it is the parts about politics. I mostly skimmed these long paragraphs about the story's fictional politics because I do not see how it adds to the main story about Lila, Grace and Zelda. I understand how important it is to give a little context to Lila's job, but I feel that a little context is all that is needed. Readers do not need too much explanation of what is going on in the fictional world unless it affects the story.

Like Mother, Like Mother is a journey of Lila and Grace navigating their careers and personal lives, with the ghost of Zelda always haunting their choices and decisions.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Glass Castle meets Nobody Will Tell You This But Me with a little bit of Gone Girl.

Well developed characters, thought provoking, entertaining, well paced, and I personally loved the DC connection. But beware, this novel is similar to Gone Girl for the obvious reason but more importantly because Lila and Grace are very unlikable, similarly to Gillian Flynn’s protagonists.

I really enjoyed this novel even though the characters are unlikable at times. I think Rieger did a great job of making the characters fleshed out and realistic. It had me captivated for the whole book.

I am sure this will be one of the most critically acclaimed texts this fall. It is extraordinarily well-written, an interesting character study of three generations of women who connect in unexpected ways. A real master class on characterization--this author shows how you can feel completely engaged with (and empathy for) characters even when they aren't necessarily likable. There is a section that feels choppy--the beginning of the second section where the characterization lapses into "what the character says" and nothing else. One person asks a question, the character does a long speech, and on it goes. But it picks back up when the girls leave school. Raises some interesting questions about gender roles, nature/nurture and inherited trauma. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC and the opportunity to share my review. #LikeMotherLikeMother #NetGalley

Lila is the mother of three children. She is not close to them, as she was more committed to her job than her children. Her husband took care of the kids for the most part. She was unable to bond with them appropriately. She had great damage perpetrated upon her by her biological parents. Her mother was committed to an insane asylum back in the 1960’s, by her father. Her father then beat her, which caused her to be unable to have the confidence and nurturing nature a mother should have.

One of Lila’s daughters writes a book about Lila’s life. After Lila passes away, she learns much more about her mother, her maternal grandparents and family. What she learns is devastating.

This story truly hits the mark with how complex families can be. The secrets they keep; or try to keep. I don’t mind when there are a lot of characters in books, but this one had so many. I had a hard time remembering them. The author gives us a Cast of Characters in the beginning which helps but I still got a bit lost.

Overall, this was a great story. I had to get past the first several chapters before getting to the meat and potatoes of the story. I am happy I read it and look forward to other books by Rieger. It will make readers wonder what they don’t know about the history of their family.

Thanks to NetGalley and The Dial Press for the ARC of this book.

This is a multigenerational story of headstrong and independent women spanning decades and cities. This is one of my favorite genre, but this one was confusing in places and the writing felt a bit wordy. The story starts with Lila is two years old and sees her father commit her mother to an insane asylum, and Lila never sees her again. We follow Lila as she becomes an adult and begins to make her own decisions. She isn't as interested in motherhood, but has three children. Her husband raises them and she continues with her career. When Lila's daughter Grace yearns for a more engaged mother, everything comes to a head.

Like Mother, Like Mother is a story about three generations of women who are living with trauma and in the aftermath of domestic violence and abandonment. The book opens with Lila Pereira who grows up with an abusive father and a mother who was sent to a mental institution where she has supposedly died. Lila becomes a writer, journalist, and through a lot of ambition, climbs to the upper echelon of society in becoming the first woman editor of the acclaimed Washington Globe. She has also married well, providing her three children with a decent father and a good childhood, even though she herself is absent to the point of neglect.

Lila's daughter, Grace, grows up resentful over her workaholic mother and writes a book of 'autofiction' called The Lost Mother. The book comes out just before Lila dies of cancer and Grace is filled with regret for writing it. The book deals with issues of maternal abandonment, focusing on her own mother who is lost to her career, and also her grandmother, who is lost to abuse and insanity. Grace's work of auto fiction could have easily been titled, according to one of the main characters toward the end of the book, Fathers Who Stay, making a commentary about the ways in which men get away with 'running away and leaving children behind' all the time with far less criticism.

The plot line is exceptional, yet at times the characters seem one-dimensional and exaggerated beyond the realm of believability-- like how Lila is nothing but an emotionless workaholic with nary a variety in feeling or sentiment; Her husband, Joe, is an exceptionally sweet, loving father and saintly husband who lacks depth and range of emotion, Some of the other characters fall flat, and a sidebar story involving Grace's friend Ruth is unnecessarily long and distracting.

One final point, the ending was too predictable and presented too neatly. For those reasons, I'm rating this book is 3.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and The Dial Press/Random House for offering me an ARC in exchange for my honest review. This book publishes October 29, 2024

This was pitched as a story about three generations of women and how different circumstances and various styles of motherhood shaped their lives. But in reality, it’s just an extremely long winded and boring story about pretentious and unlikable characters. It’s also written in a really awkward way where people just dump their life story on to other characters instead of having actual conversations. No thanks.

Detroit, 1960. Lila Pereira is two years old when her angry, abusive father has her mother committed to an asylum. Lila never sees her mother again. Three decades later, having mustered everything she has—brains, charm, talent, blond hair—Lila rises to the pinnacle of American media as the powerful, brilliant executive editor of The Washington Globe. Lila unapologetically prioritizes her career, leaving the rearing of her daughters to her generous husband, Joe. He doesn’t mind—until he does.

But Grace, their youngest daughter, feels abandoned. She wishes her mother would attend PTA meetings, not White House correspondents’ dinners. As she grows up, she cannot shake her resentment. She wants out from under Lila’s shadow, yet the more she resists, the more Lila seems to shape her life. Grace becomes a successful reporter, even publishing a bestselling book about her mother. In the process of writing it, she realizes how little she knows about her own family. Did Lila’s mother, Grace’s grandmother, die in that asylum? Is refusal to look back the only way to create a future? How can you ever be yourself, Grace wonders, if you don’t know where you came from?

Spanning generations, and populated by complex, unforgettable characters, Like Mother, Like Mother is an exhilarating, portrait of family, marriage, ambition, power, the stories we inherit, and the lies we tell to become the people we believe we’re meant to be.


My Thoughts:

From the very first pages of Like Mother, Like Mother, I was captivated by the characters. They felt real and as if they could walk right into the rooms they inhabited. Their interactions with their friends and colleagues kept me turning the pages, wondering what they would do next.

The story spans the past and the present, including very up-to-the minute events, like COVID.

I kept hoping to be a part of their lives as I read about them. Then, as our youngest protagonist, Grace, begins a diligent search, we start to find answers. Five stars.

***

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ An engaging family story by @susanriegerwrites about three generations of mothers. We start with Zelda in an abusive relationship and marriage in 1960’s Michigan. Lila is two when she loses her mother, Zelda, and is left with her terrible father Aldo. Lila grows up fiercely independent, marries the Jewish elite of Detroit, and then Lila and Joe move to Washington DC. They have two daughters, but Lila leaves the parenting to Joe and several nannies. She spends most of her time as a workaholic reporter, reporting on politics and intrigue through a lengthy career. Lila‘s daughter, Grace, is also a writer. She writes a fictionalized memoir, called the lost mother. The book does very well and is quite popular, her publishers are worried that Lila will sue, but of course she doesn’t. Grace knows that Lila won’t take this personally. She very much owns her life and is unapologetic about her choices.

This was a riveting story, from start to finish. There is so much witty dialogue, the stories that we inherit, and how we change those stories over time. As mothers, we are all doing the best that we possibly can. We are willing to let our husbands and our children think of us as the villain, even though we probably aren’t. Three generations of brave, wonderful women.

If you like women’s book club fiction, historical fiction, and generational family stories, you will love this book. Although Grace seems to think that Lila wasn’t a good mother, throughout the book, there are many pieces of advice that Lila gave her daughters that have shaped them Completely. Perfect for fans of blue sisters and Long Island compromise and any of Claire Lombardo‘s books. No romance at all in this one, the male characters are genuinely usually flawed but kind people. It’s just that the story centers around the women.

Thank you to @NetGalley and @randomhouse for the ARC. Book to be published October 29, 2024.

#booksbooksbooks #bookstagram #booklover #arcreview #booktok #netgalley #bookrecommendations #LikeMotherLikeMother

Upon reading this book, I was struck at how much this reminded me of a couple of books by Ann Napolitano, an author whom I tend to appreciate. Very family oriented, but female based. Close ties with their frayed edges. As with real life families, there are generational intrigues that show overlaps and similarities, yet differences with their own outcomes. Like Mother, Like Mother attempts to do so, but I sometimes got lost with all of the different tangents of bits and pieces of the various characters' lives.

All of the scenes take place in different locations across the USA. A good part of it takes place in Washington, DC which is an area that I'm well familiar and had me invested, partly due to my personal ties with the area. As the story jumps around between the various locations, I found that interesting, but then got tired of all of the jumping around. Same with the different characters and subplots. As I read on, I eventually realized that I really didn't care about most of them. Not all that sure why other than that I ended up not even liking some of them. Most likely because I got bored with the story as a whole. I just wanted to go home and move on to another world between the pages.

Other than being somewhat scattered, the story itself is okay. Just not my cup of tea. Without giving away anything, I think I may have preferred it if it started with the culmination at the end rather than making us wait until then to figure out what all this was leading up to. Either way, it just didn't set well with me. No doubt, some others will find this a fascinating read. For me, there were too many unnecessary interactions between some of the characters that never really had anything at all to do with the main plot of the book. In some of those situations, those storylines kept me hanging. Others finally made more sense later on. Ultimately, I found this book to be a bit of a scattered mess that had the seeds of quite an interesting story that never achieved what I felt that it had the potential to portray.

I’m on the fence about this one. I think the general plot and the character dynamics were very interesting, but there was so much filler and it was so slow. The writing reminded me a bit of Laurie Frankel, but I found this less compelling.

I also found the politics in this books to be unnecessary and a little strange. I’m not sure why there were so many real politician’s names and events, but then they would be followed by fictional politicians. I can completely understand not wanting write about a certain president (one I also don’t want to read about), but what is the point when it’s obvious who the fictional president elected after Obama is supposed to be??

As dry as it was, I still think it was well written, and I found myself really wanting to find out more about the Zelda mystery. Those aspects were fascinating and made me want to keep reading, but the rest just dragged.

I wouldn’t surprised if this becomes really popular and is loved by other people, but this was just okay for me. Thank you to Netgalley and Dial Press for the ARC!