3.25 stars

I was invited to read an advanced copy of this by the publisher in order to participate in an early reader book club discussion with them, which is such a fun idea! It wasn't my favorite recent read, but I'm excited to hear what everyone else thinks and what kind of discussion questions are posed on our upcoming Zoom call. 

This is a family saga that follows 3 generations of women and how their upbringings and relationships impact who they are as people, and how some cycles among families continue or are stopped. We follow Grace, the youngest daughter of a famous newspaper editor, Lila, Grace's mother and said editor, and Zelda, Lila's mother/Grace's grandmother. Grace is raised wealthy but feels feels slighted by her mother's obsession with her career and being nurtured mainly by her father, and she resents but craves Lila's approval and comparisons to her, which are inevitable when she enters the journalism field. Lila clawed her way up from poverty to her current success, in spite of an abusive father and dead mother. She didn't need a mom, and thinks her daughters will be fine without one, too. Zelda, forced into marriage to that abusive man at 17 and committed to an asylum when Lila was a child, has left behind no record of a death or another life. But Grace doesn't believe that her grandmother is dead, and is determined to find her, regardless of what issues it might bring to the surface for the family.

There were so many characters in this, it was a little hard to keep track of at times, but it did come with a "cast list" at the beginning to reference, which was helpful. I found it interesting that there was a cast list and then several parts, like a play, but there were no other connections or reasons for that in the text. I found myself enjoying the side plots in this more than the main story. I liked reading about Lila's career and Ruth (Grace's best friend) and her Southern family and her budding romance and career. But I didn't feel connected to all of the characters, particularly Grace, which made investment in the driving plot of the story more difficult. I do like the concept of seeing how successes and failures can be passed down through families, and that our true families aren't always blood-related to us. Thanks to Dial Press and the author for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

“Like Mother Like Mother” by Susan Rieger is a story about three generations of strong women who must resolve the impact of being raised in an unhealthy home by an abusive father and absent mother.

The premise is strong, a mother who is committed to an asylum, a daughter who chooses a super successful career over motherhood and the repercussions of these choices on her husband, children and friends. It was a well written view on dysfunctional families.

This was a good story but I found but I couldn’t warm up to the characters and found myself confused at some of the dialogue. Overall it is an interesting perspective into generational trauma.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I really loved this one. The story is about three generations of mothers. Lila is abandoned by her mother at two years old when her mother suffers a nervous breakdown and is committed to an asylum. Lila and her two siblings are stuck being raised by their abusive father and grandmother in a lower middle class home. Despite her upbringing Lila is ambitious and dedicated to becoming a world renown journalist.

Lila marries into a very wealthy family. Joe is her adoring husband. They have three children that are mainly raised by their father and nannies. Lila is more comfortable sitting in a board room rather than the PTA. Grace is the youngest child and she has a difficult time with her distant relationship to Lila. She writes a best selling book about it and goes on a search to figure out what really happened to her grandmother. Did she run away or die in the asylum?

The characters in this story are complicated. They have depth, complexity and are at times both relatable and unlikeable. The book tackles questions about what it means to be a mother? Can you be a career mother that is hands off and still raise adjusted children. Is your personality shaped mostly by nature or nurture? How does generational trauma shape you? Why do some kids easily adjust and find happiness while others struggle. This book brings up so many important questions. I think it would be an excellent read for a book club. I will be digesting this book and its characters for some time to come.

Thank you to netgalley for the copy of this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the Kindle ARC. Like Mother, Like Mother is the story of three multigenerational women over the course of decades. I wish I had enjoyed it more. I found it difficult to get into the story and stay as interested as I wish I could have been. I may try the book again at a later time and see if I can find a new perspective.

Like Mother , Like Mother is a fantastic look into the complexities of motherhood and family dynamics. Highly recommend.

I loved this book from the opening pages till the last.A generational story a story of family of mothers and daughters.Each character was beautifully written a book I will be recommending one of my favorites of the summer. #netgalley#randomhouse.

A well-written, thought provoking book about a multi-generational family. Strong characterizations. Ruth and Frances were my two favorites and I especially enjoyed their relationship. The Starboard Sisters were weird. Graces conversations with her immediate family often felt overly formal, stilted and unnatural. It's interesting to note the 2016 President Webb is the only fictional names POTUS. Personally, I could have done with less actual politics being included.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

Do not be put off by the lengthy list of characters at the beginning - they are easy to keep straight in the narrative. This goes backwards and forwards in time and concerns Lila, her daughter Grace and her mother Zelda. Lila works obsessively and leaves all the parenting to her husband Joe. It is posited by various characters that this is because she was never mothered herself, Zelda having been committed to a mental health facility and then dying. Or is this true? This is only what Lila's abusive father has told her.

Lila charges Grace (by letter after her death) to investigate what happened to Zelda. Grace does so, and the narrative shows the similarities (and differences) between Zelda, Lila and Grace, and shows how love can both heal and help us accept the imperfections of others.

I enjoyed this, my only quibble being the inclusion of real events, e.g. the election of Obama, followed by pseudo-real events, e.g. the election of Webb - I wondered for a minute if I had forgotten a president!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
I devoured this book! It was just the kind of multigenerational, layered story I enjoy. The characters were flawed but (mostly) lovable and there was just enough mystery to keep things interesting. What will likely stick with me was the way the characters related to each other. The author explored some fairly heavy themes but injected enough levity to keep from veering into maudlin territory. While the ending fell a bit flat for me, I would absolutely read more from this author and enjoyed this novel immensely.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Grace loved her mother, but never had the relationship she wanted. When she was younger, she was raised by nannies and her father. Her mother had a demanding job that left little spare time. An emotional read.

4.5 stars. Many thanks to Penguin Random House / Dial Press / Net Galley for an ARC of this book. This is far from my normal type of fiction but I really enjoyed this. The characters felt very real and spoke so directly and openly with each other; this made them feel very real. It’s one of those novels that has such a wide range of what it speaks to - families, parents, friends. It’s very well balanced and I really enjoyed it. I’ll be recommending it to friends.

Thank you Netgalley..this was a good multigenerational story that will keep your attention from beginning to end.

This novel spans three generations of women, each shaped by the past, yet it seems to revolve around Lila.
Lila’s father brought her up in 1960s Detroit, as her mother was committed to an asylum when she was a child. Mirroring her own upbringing, she chooses her career over motherhood, leaving her husband to care for their daughters on his own. This seemed to have worked well until their youngest, Grace, felt abandoned.

Publishing a bestselling book about her mother, Grace discovers she knows very little about her family's past and decides to delve deeper into the history and trauma of the generations before her.

Overall, this was a very well-written novel. I loved the dysfunctional family aspects and the discoveries made along the way. Even though the cast of characters was confusing to keep straight at times, I appreciated the complexity it brought to the narrative.

The publisher provided ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is the best book I've read so far this year. It has notes of The News Room, Gilmore Girls, and just such a fresh originality on how monther-daughter relationships are complex and how our generational history impacts them. Can't wait to own a hardcopy of this!

I received an email from NetGalley inviting me to read and review this book, and I was intrigued by the description: When Lila was a young girl, her mother, Zelda, was committed to a mental hospital by her abusive father and died there -- or so she was told. She escaped her childhood home and went on to become a high-powered newspaper editor, a wife, and a mother to three girls, though she never really felt that she was a true mother to her children or that she even knew how to be one. She leaves the parenting to her husband, instead spending more and more of her time and attention on her job. Her older daughters, born a year apart, have each other and do just fine, but her younger daughter, Grace feels keenly the mother-shaped hole in her life. Following in her mother's footsteps and becomes a writer and newspaper reporter, and the mystery surrounding Zelda (and the repercussions of her absence on Lila's approach to parenting) lead her to write a novel very much inspired by her family and in which she speculates that her grandmother didn't die but rather escaped and pursued another life.

I enjoyed the story and the characters, though they never seemed fully three-dimensional to me or all that realistic. I'm not sure the ending (no spoilers here) really fit the rest of the book; so much of the plot is about living with ambiguity about whether Zelda really did die in the hospital and what the characters choose to believe about her fate. Everything seemed a little too well wrapped up given how much uncertainty played a part in the narrative. There were also some other quirks about the writing that I found to be bothersome, like how many questions in the dialogue were followed not by a question mark but by a period, or how the characters regularly quoted some other source that was presumably known to the other characters but not necessarily to the reader -- inside jokes within the family that the reader isn't privy to. The writing was smart but also felt forced at some points, like the author was trying to move the story along too quickly or trying to write a screenplay rather than a novel. Problems aside, this book did make think, a quality I always look for in a book.

This was a very interesting story about a mother and three daughters and how different and/or alike they were. The mother really had no maternal instinct so the father functioned as the mother and the mother devoted herself to her career. The book explores the events in the mother's childhood that shaped her interactions with her children and then explored how her behavior affected her daughters' handling of their children. It was a little confusing at the start because of the number of characters but the author included a "Cast of Characters" in the front of the book that solved that problem.

I enjoyed the excellent character developments. The story is gripping. The layers are deep. Multigenerational family with bright, complicated members. The friendship between Grace and Ruth touched me. The writing is succinct. Which is such a pleasure! The repartee between Lila and her daughter Grace, is intelligent and quick thinking and just so good! I’ve read a review noting the political bent in the book was disconcerting and although I do not agree with the politics written in this book, I didn’t care! It’s a story. Let’s move on. Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Random House for granting this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own. #LikeMotherLikeMother..

Like Mother, Like Mother was a propulsive read. I loved the characters, especially Lila, the main mother. Lila is a parent of three, but a “mother” of none. She married Joe, knowing he’d be a doting, caring father, so Lila could focus on her career and herself. Lila is fierce and unapologetic. And while she lacks the nurturing aspects we’re taught to admire in a mother, she is so passionately herself that I fell in love with her. The defining moment for me is when, in a workplace meeting, Lila publicly calls out a male colleague for groping her in a way that is funny, strong, and utterly shames the man.

This book is sweeping in that it pulls in characters all over the place. There are Lila’s three children, with a focus on Grace, the youngest and most impacted by her mother’s lack of closeness. There is Grace’s best friend, Ruth, a bright spitfire from Tallahassee. There is Lila’s mother, Zelda, committed to a mental hospital when Lila was two, who died there years later. And more. In fact, my one criticism of this book is that sometimes the tangents don’t flow well or congeal with the story in a logical way. It would be a five-star read for me if this were done more cohesively (maybe some of that will be cleaned up in the final copy?).

The writing is smart. I highlighted a dozen passages. It frequently made me chuckle.

Highly recommended. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. 4.5 stars rounded up.

"Like Mother, Like Mother" was an extreme disappointment. If I had wanted the Democratic politics shoved down my throat, I would have turned on CNN. The first two parts of the book were garbage. to quote "Fox is very popular with a narrow demographic, white, middle-class, red state Christians" was a very biased statement to make, among many.

I had trouble following the interview-like tense, with no rhyme or reason when switching between characters. Grace and Ruth especially were painful to read. The last part of the book, "Zelda" was the most interesting due to the genealogy, and I wish that was what the entire story was based on. All in all, I would not recommend this book to my worst enemy.

Excellent book! I was engaged from the start, enjoyed the building of characters. This book that I will recommend to others!