Because the holidays are all about being uncomfortable with family, it would make sense that there has been a trend in my reading lately that I never saw coming. No, it isn’t Barbarians from Ice Planets–yet. No, it isn’t “are-they-or-aren’t they?” incest stories–that was last spring (seriously, why is this a thing?!). It isn’t even books with shirtless guys holding puppies on the cover–my very favorite kind of books. No, it is much scarier than that: books about mother-daughter relationships.
I don’t even generally read adult fiction without the promise of at least one throbbing member popping up **giggles like a schoolgirl** a minimum of three times, making the trend even more of a surprise. Now, maybe you’re rolling your eyes at the 30-year-old who can’t get along with her mommy mother because you have a Lorelai-Rory relationship, but mine is something much closer to Emily and Lorelai. In other words, family dinners always include wine to shove in my mouth to drown the snark.
Does this mean I get to marry a Luke? Actually seems like a fair trade-off. Source
So maybe it was Freud that made me do it when I was overindulging on Netgalley (let me take a moment to thank the publishers for providing me with these ARCs, even though I waited for the right moment to present them), but here are the three books that I read about that relationship we all know way too well, and the one I read after the realization because three didn’t seem like a long enough book list.
Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin
You are probably asking yourself where you know that name. Zevin brought us other amazing books such as The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry and the YA Classic Elsewhere. This fits in with her other books in that they don’t fit in anywhere–in a refreshing way. Young Jane Young is told in five parts, each section giving a voice to a woman affected by the romance 13 years prior between a married congressman from Florida and his young intern, Aviva Grossman (insert Monica Lewinsky comparison here). The best part is that each section has a completely different style to it, really fitting the different personalities of each of the women involved, from a stream of conscious ranting worthy of an Andrea Martin casting, to one sided emails as a 13 year old realizes she doesn’t know everything about her mother, to choose your own adventure style showing all the places that young Aviva could have changed the course of her life, this book keeps you on your toes.
You Bring the Distant Near by Matali Perkins
You Bring the Distant Near was beautiful without being overly flowery. I will be honest, I chose this one because of the beautiful cover. When it started in India in the 60s, I had flashbacks to reading the dragging A Passage to India in high school, but the book moved quite fast through the lives and romances of three generations of women as they move back and forth from India to America, learning how to balance the two cultures in ways different from their sisters, mothers, children, aunts.
On the Spectrum by Jennifer Gold
Clara is the daughter of a famous ballerina, and, though she is not a dancer herself, she has inherited her mother’s eating disorder. After the school takes notice, calling in social services, and Clara is involved in a social media scandal, it is decided that she should spend the summer in France with the father she never talks to and his new family, a hippie wife and six year old son who is “on the spectrum.”
Motherest by Kristen Iskandrian
Taking place in the early 90s, Agnes’s mother leaves her father the day that they drop her off at college. As Agnes navigates her first year of college, she writes letters to her mother, chronicling their lives, including the other times that her mother disappeared and the suicide of Agnes’s older brother. When Agnes becomes pregnant, she must first accept her past before she can deal with her present.
