I adored this book.

I rarely read memoirs, but Bernice L. McFadden is one of my favorite authors, so I didn’t think twice about reading this one.

So many elements of her story resonated with me – her family dynamics, her interest in researching her family lineage and hearing the stories passed down from her relatives, her love of books and reading from a very young age – the list goes on. The title is what initially caught my attention, being that I too am a firstborn girl; however, this book explores so much more. She takes the time to cover various historical events that she either lived through or were relevant to the people, places or circumstances in her life. She doesn’t shy away from talking about difficult topics such as domestic abuse that occurred in her own family. She also shows us what it looks like to continue to pursue a dream even when it seems as if no one else believes in you or wants to give you a chance.

In this memoir Bernice shares her love and admiration for the authors that influenced her most: Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, J. California Cooper – just to name a few. I think what warmed my heart the most while reading this book was the fact that her name is now included with those same revered authors when discussing the greatest black female writers of our time.

Thank you Bernice McFadden for sharing a piece of your history with us. The woman who emerged from such a turbulent childhood is full of grace and talent and uses it to craft beautiful stories for her readers.

I ran the emotional gauntlet with this memoir and the way McFadden writes makes it easy to inhabit her story. Her mother and grandmothers and the other strong women who she holds dear and in high regard have all helped in shaping you and your experiences. The lessons learned as she grows from child to teen to young woman are all so relatable.

I am so glad that this exists and wish it to reach all who need to see themself reflected in words on a page.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Net Galley for providing a free e-book ARC of this title in exchange for my review.

I love memoirs because they are a window into another person's life, another time, another culture. But they can also be so tough to read - and review - because they are REAL. This is a deeply personal, heartfelt memoir about history, identity, family and race, where the author explores her roots going back several generations. She also learns about the history of Black people and traces a map of her own life. The emphasis on the author's ancestors and connection she feels to them is especially special to me, as I love family history, and I found those sections especially specials and enjoyable.

This is a beautiful, courageous book about history, hard truth, survival against the odds and I feel that everyone should read this book. IT will live in my mind for many years to come.

5 stars - highly recommend, and will probably read again!

For some reason, I didn't realize this was a memior when i requested it ,

This was...traumatic to me?
Her formative yers were brutal and hard to read but i think it's meant to give us background into how she became the writer she is.

Thank you to NetGalley for the Arc. All opinions are my own.

What a Memoir. I couldn't put it down. The writing, the way the story is told, Although it is a very raw story, child abuse by her father and all the violence in general she lived as a child along with her family but I can see how all those experiences made it the person she is now, and being vulnerable and brave to share it with the world.

Firstborn Girls by Bernice L. McFadden is one outstanding memoir exploring inherited trauma, family secrets, and the enduring bonds of love between mothers and daughters.
This book was hard to put down. The author did a great job with the details in the story and is a fantastic storyteller.

I am so thankful to Dutton Books, Bernice L. McFadden, and Netgalley for granting me advanced access to this book before it hits shelves on March 4, 2025. This book was crazy and I could NOT put it down at all. I was simply hooked from the start.

I found "Firstborn Girls" to be a particularly rough read, especially the first two parts. I picked up this memoir mainly because I wanted to learn about McFadden's publishing career, but much of the book focuses on her childhood under an abusive father. The first half of the memoir details scene after scene of her father terrorizing her mother and children, creating a heavy, often disturbing reading experience. I read a lot of rough material but listening to it in first person POV over chapters and chapters was... a lot. I imagine living through it was also a lot.

I understand these traumatic experiences shaped McFadden as a writer. The resilience she developed through surviving family violence certainly influenced her voice and perspective, particularly in her penning the novel SUGAR, which remains my favorite McFadden novel. The historical context she weaves throughout adds depth to her personal narrative, connecting her story to broader African American experiences.

What frustrated me most about this memoir is that it ends just when it starts to get truly interesting for me. Right as McFadden begins to discuss her entry into publishing—the part I was most eager to read—the book concludes. This abrupt ending left me hoping there might be another volume focused on her writing career and experiences in the publishing world.

While McFadden's writing is powerful and her story important, the balance of content didn't match what I had hoped to find. For readers specifically interested in her literary journey rather than her formative years, be prepared that this volume only takes you to the threshold of her publishing career.

This is a compelling memoir. It is hard for me to grasp all the trauma McFadden experienced in childhood and later. Family violence was one aspect of it. I was amazed she was able to overcome so much to become a published author and professor.

The way the narrative is organized was a little confusing to me. There was some jumping around in time and in the people she was writing about. I would have preferred a more chronological and focused account. I did appreciate the area history McFadden would insert from time to time. Some of her writing was quite lyrical.

McFadden's memoir is a story of family, trauma, and perseverance. It clearly shows the difficulties some families have, going down generations. It is worth reading.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

This is a tale for the ages! Each firstborn daughter's story could have easily been its own biography. 
In this memoire, Bernice weaves the stories of the women of her lineage and herself. It took me some time to get through it as it was very heavy at times. Ultimately, it's a story of resilience and triumph. As a Caribbean woman, I was triggered by the 'interfering with her'. the known predator in the family is so typical of the Caribbean, my blood ran cold reading it in this book. I had to take my time with this one as it is heavy. It's a plague on our society, the platitude and the frequency of the occurences on small islands and seeing those words on paper was just broke me. It was a tough read. i had to set it aside a few times, but it's a discussion starter for people of the Caribbean and the diaspora. There were a lot of heavy themes addressed in this memoir but ultimately it doesn’t stay there, the women rise above. I struggled a lot with ‘why’. Why do women of color have to be resilient? Why can’t we just be?
This one is well worth the read and discussion.

What a strong memoir. Intense and often difficult to read but so impactful. Such a courageous story, proving you can’t choose your family or your family’s history but you can choose how to go forward and incorporate that history into your being. A real pleasure to read about not only McFadden but the fascinating people and secrets in her heritage.

Thanks to Penguin Random House Dutton / Plume / Tiny Reparations Books for providing an advance copy of Firstborn Girls via NetGalley. I recommend it without hesitation for anyone who wants to learn “more of the story.” I voluntarily leave this review; all opinions are my own.

Bernice McFadden is a must read author for me and I was delighted to read her memoir. This book gives a lot of context to her writing as well as a bracingly honest look into her experiences as a black woman in America. I especially appreciated her commentary shaped in wisdom to the past events of her life.

Thank you Dutton Books and NetGalley for the chance to read an early copy of this book.

This is a powerfully written memoir that not only captures the experiences of the author as a Black woman growing up in America but also the generations of women who came before her. As the title suggests, it’s an ode to the firstborn daughter, but it’s also a warning of the trauma that can be passed from each generation to the next.

McFadden is a compelling storyteller, and though it took me a bit to get into the book, I was completely sucked into the story halfway through, as she shares her experiences growing up in New York City with an abusive father and responsibilities put on her from a very young age. I found the descriptions of the bond between mothers and daughters to be particularly moving.

From a structural perspective, I did sometimes get confused by all of the family members/characters she introduced, especially when the timeline jumped around. I wish that there had been a family tree at the beginning! There were many moments that were hard or sad to read, and I encourage everyone to check content warnings.

Ultimately, this was a compelling read, and I definitely want to read McFadden’s novels now!

Penning a memoir is no easy task. You are giving everyone an insider’s peek into your world. This is exactly what Bernice L. McFadden did with Firstborn Girls. McFadden starts her story with the horrifying car accident that she survived at just two years old. She takes us from that moment all the way up to the publication of her first novel, Sugar.

What made this book so moving is how you’re traveling with McFadden through the different decades. She includes significant historical moments that were happening during that particular time period. McFadden does an excellent job of telling us about her family’s history and how they survived slavery, joined the Great Migration, and lived through many other moments in history.

Readers will find it refreshing to see who McFadden’s literary influences are and how she was a voracious reader from a very young age. When reading this book, readers will see that McFadden went through the same struggles that many black women go through as far as trying to establish their own place in the world. Firstborn Girls is a heart-wrenching memoir that is also full of hope and redemption.

Thank you Dutton for an unforgetttable memoir. I don't like to give stars to memoirs (that's not my thing) but I will rave about this and be recommending it! I have yet to read any of this author's books but goodness this memoir is fantastic
Bernice McFadden’s Firstborn Girls is a beautifully written, deeply personal memoir that weaves her own life story with the broader historical and generational struggles of Black women in America. With unflinching honesty, she explores family trauma, resilience, and the pressures of being a firstborn daughter, all while connecting her experiences to the larger forces of systemic injustice and erasure. Her vivid storytelling transports readers into her world, from a chaotic Brooklyn childhood to finding solace in books and summer visits to Barbados. McFadden’s exploration of the “mother wound” and the spiritual guidance of her “angelcestors” adds layers of depth, making this memoir as much about healing as it is about hardship. Her vulnerability and honesty make the journey feel raw and real, resonating with anyone who has grappled with family, identity, or personal growth. The only critique? I wanted more—especially about her journey to publication—but maybe that’s for another book. A powerful, emotional, and thought-provoking read that lingers long after the last page.

Bernice McFadden’s memoir not only recounts her life from her early childhood starting with the accident that almost took her life, but also doubles as an act of resistance through remembering: interweaving American state violence against minorities, in particular Black folks, and the double violence of erasing these atrocities from its history, McFadden sets the context for the tumultuous environment in which she grew up: as a young Black girl in America and an eldest daughter in a dysfunctional household.

McFadden writes with unabashed clarity, baring the ugliness of her home life, and how it impacted her relationships with her male partners, as well as the beginnings of her dream to become a writer after reading Black writers like Toni Morrison for the first time. I loved this memoir a lot more than I dared to hope, and it isn’t just the shared parentified eldest daughter trauma standing in for therapy. FIRSTBORN GIRLS is a remembrance that incorporates its tumultuous historical context, that reaches far into the past beyond McFadden’s own lifetime as she extends the threads of her family’s origins beyond borders and looks towards a future of making her mark in the soil in which she has been planted.

A beautifully written and at times painful- but always honest and open- story of generational trauma and resilience, McFadden uses the accident which changed her young life as a touchpoint to start but then she moves back and forth to tell the stories of the first born women of her family. They did not have easy lives but they persevered. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I was familiar with but not well versed in McFadden before reading this- and now I'm heading to her backlist (and looking forward to new work).

i have been waiting for Bernice L. McFadden's memoir ever since she announced she was writing one.
it is beautiful. the cover is beautiful. it is moving
i love it

I have not read any of McFadden's fiction novels, and despite not having previous experience with this author's writing, that did not stop me from absolutely enjoying this memoir! After reading the memoir, I plan to read her fiction novels, starting with Sugar. This memoir's writing level gives me absolute confidence that I will enjoy her fiction work.

I don't give a star rating to a memoir based on the events in a person's life. I consider what events/information the author chose to share, the writing style, has the writer connected with the audience and whether the events shared kept my interest. I can say confidently, that this memoir was satisfying in all those areas. Whenever I had to put this book down, I could not wait to pick it back up.

I enjoyed the focus on the Firstborn girls, her mother, the author and other women in her family. We know there are often different pressures or expectations from firstborns. I also enjoyed how the author weaved the current events for the focused time period into the memories. The reader follows her life, that of her parents and extended family, and the author's journey towards becoming a published author; the author is vulnerable in sharing her mistakes and struggles along the way. I appreciate the honesty and vulnerability in her writing. I felt connected to her story and could see similarities in my own life. That is great writing!

The only critique I would have is that I would have liked a couple of more chapters. More about getting her first book published. The memoir stops when she finally learns she will have her book published. But maybe we can get a second memoir about her journey in the publishing world.

Thank you to Netgalley for the eARC. These opinions are my own.

Inspired by writers such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, Bernice L. McFadden has written critically acclaimed novels including Sugar, Gathering of Waters, and Glorious. She has received numerous awards. McFadden now shares her journey with her memoir Firstborn Girls. This engaging story begins in September 1967 when McFadden and her mother Vivian were in a horrendous car accident. While they both survived, it had a profound and lasting effect on McFadden. She believes their survival was aided by the voices of her ancestors, dating as far back as the days of slavery, whom she calls angelcestors. This connection to her predecessors became a guiding light for her. 

Growing up, McFadden witnessed her beloved mother endure years of abuse from her alcoholic father. Most women in her family experienced difficult relationships with the men in their lives. Out-of-wedlock pregnancies were present across generations. From her youth to adulthood, reports of riots and violence continually reminded her of the country's racial injustice. When McFadden began writing stories as a young girl, she knew where her future was headed. Learning about other Black women writers made her dream feel attainable.

This powerful book is about family, especially daughters, love, and resilience. While some challenges are universal, many are unique to Black families. As a white woman, I felt I was given special entry into McFadden's world. This love letter to her family, past and present, will stay with me.

4.5 stars.