-
Motherland
- A Memoir of Love, Loathing, and Longing
- Narrated by: Elissa Altman
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $13.50
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
"I’m reading this book right now and loving it!" (Cheryl Strayed, number one New York Times best-selling author of Wild)
How can a mother and daughter who love (but don’t always like) each other coexist without driving each other crazy?
"Vibrating with emotion, this deeply honest account strikes a chord." (People)
"A wry and moving meditation on aging and the different kinds of love between women." (O: The Oprah Magazine)
After surviving a traumatic childhood in 1970s New York and young adulthood living in the shadow of her flamboyant mother, Rita, a makeup-addicted former television singer, Elissa Altman has managed to build a very different life, settling in Connecticut with her wife of nearly 20 years. After much time, therapy, and wine, Elissa is at last in a healthy place, still orbiting around her mother but keeping far enough away to preserve the stable, independent world she has built as a writer and editor. Then Elissa is confronted with the unthinkable: Rita, whose days are spent as a flâneur, traversing Manhattan from the Clinique counters at Bergdorf to Bloomingdale’s and back again, suffers an incapacitating fall, leaving her completely dependent upon her daughter.
Now Elissa is forced to finally confront their profound differences, Rita’s yearning for beauty and glamour, her view of the world through her days in the spotlight, and the money that has mysteriously disappeared in the name of preserving youth. To sustain their fragile mother-daughter bond, Elissa must navigate the turbulent waters of their shared lives, the practical challenges of caregiving for someone who refuses to accept it, the tentacles of narcissism, and the mutual, frenetic obsession that has defined their relationship.
Motherland is a story that touches every home and every life, mapping the ferocity of maternal love, moral obligation, the choices women make about motherhood, and the possibility of healing. Filled with tenderness, wry irreverence, and unforgettable characters, it is an exploration of what it means to escape from the shackles of the past only to have to face them all over again.
Praise for Motherland
"Rarely has a mother-daughter relationship been excavated with such honesty. Elissa Altman is a beautiful, big-hearted writer who mines her most central subject: her gorgeous, tempestuous, difficult mother, and the terrain of their shared life. The result is a testament to the power of love and family." (Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance)
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Poor Man's Feast
- A Love Story of Comfort, Desire, and the Art of Simple Cooking
- By: Elissa Altman
- Narrated by: Elissa Altman
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born and raised in New York to a food-phobic mother and food-fanatical father, Elissa was trained early on that fancy is always best. After a childhood spent dining everywhere from Le Pavillion to La Grenouille, she devoted her life to all things gastronomical, from the rare game birds she served at elaborate dinner parties in an apartment so tiny that guests couldn’t turn around to the eight timbale molds she bought while working at Dean & DeLuca, just so she could make tall food.
-
-
Loved it
- By Wine Smurf on 07-09-23
By: Elissa Altman
-
The Ugly Cry
- A Memoir
- By: Danielle Henderson
- Narrated by: Danielle Henderson
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Abandoned at 10 years old by a mother who chose her drug-addicted, abusive boyfriend, Danielle was raised by grandparents who thought their child-rearing days had ended in the 1960s. She grew up Black, weird, and overwhelmingly uncool in a mostly white neighborhood in upstate New York, which created its own identity crises.
-
-
Both Funny & Heart Wrenching in the Perfect Ratio.
- By Lauren Fisher on 06-30-21
-
Beauty in the Broken Places
- A Memoir of Love, Faith, and Resilience
- By: Allison Pataki, Lee Woodruff, David Levy
- Narrated by: Allison Pataki, Lee Woodruff - foreword, David Levy - epilogue
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the flight to their "babymoon" in Hawaii before their first child arrived, Allison Pataki's husband turned to her to ask if his eye looked strange, and then suddenly lost consciousness. After making an emergency landing, they discovered that Dave, a lifelong, healthy athlete and orthopedic surgery resident at Rush Medical School in Chicago, had suffered a rare, and often fatal, stroke. Dave was one of the lucky ones though, and he survived, but the man who woke up from his coma was not the same man Allison had fallen in love with at Yale.
-
-
A Most Remarkable and Inspirational Story
- By Heidi on 06-19-18
By: Allison Pataki, and others
-
My Mother, Munchausen's and Me
- A True Story of Betrayal and a Shocking Family Secret
- By: Helen Naylor
- Narrated by: Helen Naylor
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ten years ago, Helen Naylor discovered her mother, Elinor, had been faking debilitating illnesses for 30 years. After Elinor’s self-induced death, Helen found her diaries, which Elinor wrote daily for more than 50 years. The diaries reveal not only the inner workings of Elinor’s twisted mind and self-delusion, but also shocking revelations about Helen’s childhood. Everything Helen knew about herself and her upbringing was founded on a lie.
-
-
Excellent book!
- By Robin Loves Reading on 12-02-21
By: Helen Naylor
-
You Could Make This Place Beautiful
- A Memoir
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes.
-
-
Beautiful, relatable, profound
- By Betty Blue on 04-16-23
By: Maggie Smith
-
Stray
- A Memoir
- By: Stephanie Danler
- Narrated by: Alex McKenna
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After selling her first novel - a dream she'd worked long and hard for - Stephanie Danler knew she should be happy. Instead, she found herself driven to face the difficult past she'd left behind a decade ago: a mother disabled by years of alcoholism, further handicapped by a tragic brain aneurysm; a father who abandoned the family when she was three, now a meth addict in and out of recovery.
-
-
Not for me
- By JBird Cook on 09-27-20
By: Stephanie Danler
-
Poor Man's Feast
- A Love Story of Comfort, Desire, and the Art of Simple Cooking
- By: Elissa Altman
- Narrated by: Elissa Altman
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born and raised in New York to a food-phobic mother and food-fanatical father, Elissa was trained early on that fancy is always best. After a childhood spent dining everywhere from Le Pavillion to La Grenouille, she devoted her life to all things gastronomical, from the rare game birds she served at elaborate dinner parties in an apartment so tiny that guests couldn’t turn around to the eight timbale molds she bought while working at Dean & DeLuca, just so she could make tall food.
-
-
Loved it
- By Wine Smurf on 07-09-23
By: Elissa Altman
-
The Ugly Cry
- A Memoir
- By: Danielle Henderson
- Narrated by: Danielle Henderson
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Abandoned at 10 years old by a mother who chose her drug-addicted, abusive boyfriend, Danielle was raised by grandparents who thought their child-rearing days had ended in the 1960s. She grew up Black, weird, and overwhelmingly uncool in a mostly white neighborhood in upstate New York, which created its own identity crises.
-
-
Both Funny & Heart Wrenching in the Perfect Ratio.
- By Lauren Fisher on 06-30-21
-
Beauty in the Broken Places
- A Memoir of Love, Faith, and Resilience
- By: Allison Pataki, Lee Woodruff, David Levy
- Narrated by: Allison Pataki, Lee Woodruff - foreword, David Levy - epilogue
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the flight to their "babymoon" in Hawaii before their first child arrived, Allison Pataki's husband turned to her to ask if his eye looked strange, and then suddenly lost consciousness. After making an emergency landing, they discovered that Dave, a lifelong, healthy athlete and orthopedic surgery resident at Rush Medical School in Chicago, had suffered a rare, and often fatal, stroke. Dave was one of the lucky ones though, and he survived, but the man who woke up from his coma was not the same man Allison had fallen in love with at Yale.
-
-
A Most Remarkable and Inspirational Story
- By Heidi on 06-19-18
By: Allison Pataki, and others
-
My Mother, Munchausen's and Me
- A True Story of Betrayal and a Shocking Family Secret
- By: Helen Naylor
- Narrated by: Helen Naylor
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ten years ago, Helen Naylor discovered her mother, Elinor, had been faking debilitating illnesses for 30 years. After Elinor’s self-induced death, Helen found her diaries, which Elinor wrote daily for more than 50 years. The diaries reveal not only the inner workings of Elinor’s twisted mind and self-delusion, but also shocking revelations about Helen’s childhood. Everything Helen knew about herself and her upbringing was founded on a lie.
-
-
Excellent book!
- By Robin Loves Reading on 12-02-21
By: Helen Naylor
-
You Could Make This Place Beautiful
- A Memoir
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes.
-
-
Beautiful, relatable, profound
- By Betty Blue on 04-16-23
By: Maggie Smith
-
Stray
- A Memoir
- By: Stephanie Danler
- Narrated by: Alex McKenna
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After selling her first novel - a dream she'd worked long and hard for - Stephanie Danler knew she should be happy. Instead, she found herself driven to face the difficult past she'd left behind a decade ago: a mother disabled by years of alcoholism, further handicapped by a tragic brain aneurysm; a father who abandoned the family when she was three, now a meth addict in and out of recovery.
-
-
Not for me
- By JBird Cook on 09-27-20
By: Stephanie Danler
-
Crying in H Mart
- A Memoir
- By: Michelle Zauner
- Narrated by: Michelle Zauner
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian-American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.
-
-
Broken Korean
- By Tim on 04-21-21
By: Michelle Zauner
-
Strip Tees
- A Memoir of Millennial Los Angeles
- By: Kate Flannery
- Narrated by: Kate Flannery
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the turn of the new millennium, LA is the place to be. “Hipster” is a new word on the scene. Lauren Conrad is living her Cinderella story in the “Hills” on millions of television sets across the country. Paris Hilton tells us “That’s hot” from behind the biggest sunglasses imaginable, while beautiful teenagers fight and fall in love on The O.C. Into this most glittering of supposed utopias, Kate Flannery arrives with a Seven Sisters diploma in hand and a new job at an upstart clothing company called American Apparel.
-
-
A look back in time.
- By The_Real_Ge on 06-21-24
By: Kate Flannery
-
Between Two Kingdoms
- A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
- By: Suleika Jaouad
- Narrated by: Suleika Jaouad
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter “the real world”. She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone. It started with an itch - first on her feet, then up her legs, like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. Then a trip to the doctor and, a few weeks shy of her 23rd birthday, a diagnosis: leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival.
-
-
This was painful.
- By Meredith Nutrition on 07-31-22
By: Suleika Jaouad
-
Everything Nothing Someone
- A Memoir
- By: Alice Carrière
- Narrated by: Alice Carrière
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice Carrière tells the story of her unconventional upbringing in Greenwich Village as the daughter of a remote mother, the renowned artist Jennifer Bartlett, and a charismatic father, European actor Mathieu Carrière. From an early age, Alice is forced to navigate her mother’s recovered memories of ritualized sexual abuse, which she turns into art, and her father’s confusing attentions—her childhood is spent in an adult’s world, with little-to-no boundaries or supervision.
-
-
This book is awful.
- By af_90 on 12-17-23
By: Alice Carrière
-
This Will Be Funny Later
- A Memoir
- By: Jenny Pentland
- Narrated by: Jenny Pentland
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Growing up, Jenny Pentland’s life was a literal sitcom. Many of the storylines for her mother’s smash hit series, Roseanne, were drawn from Pentland’s early family life in working-class Denver. But that was only the beginning of the drama. Roseanne Barr’s success as a comedian catapulted the family from the Rockies to star-studded Hollywood—with its toxic culture of money, celebrity, and prying tabloids that was destabilizing for a child in grade school.
-
-
Nepotism baby’s self pity party
- By Summer Sundae on 08-23-22
By: Jenny Pentland
-
Good Morning, Monster
- A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery
- By: Catherine Gildiner
- Narrated by: Deborah Burgess
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this fascinating narrative, therapist Catherine Gildiner presents five of what she calls her most heroic and memorable patients. Among them: A successful, first-generation Chinese immigrant musician suffering sexual dysfunction; a young woman whose father abandoned her at age nine with her younger siblings in an isolated cottage in the depth of winter; and a glamorous workaholic whose narcissistic, negligent mother greeted her each morning of her childhood with "Good morning, Monster". Each patient presents a mystery, one that will only be unpacked over years.
-
-
some things shouldn't be consumed
- By Jess on 12-28-22
-
Group
- How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life
- By: Christie Tate
- Narrated by: Christie Tate
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The refreshingly original and “startlingly hopeful” (Lisa Taddeo) debut memoir of an over-achieving young lawyer who reluctantly agrees to group therapy and gets psychologically and emotionally naked in a room of six complete strangers - and finds human connection, and herself.
-
-
Unrealistic and Unethical
- By Kayla Okarski on 10-29-20
By: Christie Tate
-
Corrections in Ink
- A Memoir
- By: Keri Blakinger
- Narrated by: Keri Blakinger
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Keri Blakinger always lived life at full throttle. Growing up, that meant throwing herself into competitive figure skating with an all-consuming passion that led her to nationals. But when her skating career suddenly fell apart, that meant diving into self-destruction with the intensity she once saved for the ice. For the next nine years, Keri ricocheted from one dark place to the next: living on the streets, selling drugs and sex, and shooting up between classes all while trying to hold herself together enough to finish her degree at Cornell.
-
-
Brutal honesty, great listen
- By Enzo G. on 06-12-22
By: Keri Blakinger
-
All the Women in My Brain
- And Other Concerns
- By: Betty Gilpin
- Narrated by: Betty Gilpin
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
My name is Betty. I have depression. I have passion. I have tits the size of printers. And also: I have a brain full of women. There’s Blanche VonF--kery, Ingrid St. Rash, and a host of others—some cowering in sweatpants, some howling plans for revolution, and one, oh God, and one . . . slowly vomiting up a crow? Worried for her. These women take turns at the wheel. That’s why I feel like a million selves. With a raised eyebrow and a soul-scalpel, I’d like to tell you how I got this way. Because maybe you feel this way too.
-
-
[idk what to put here, but I love this book]
- By Brit Ledger on 09-07-22
By: Betty Gilpin
-
Nowhere Girl
- A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood
- By: Cheryl Diamond
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the time she was in her teens, Diamond had lived dozens of lives and lies, but as she grew older, love and trust turned to fear and violence, and her family—the only people she had in the world—began to unravel. She started to realize that her life itself might be a big con, and the people she loved, the most dangerous of all. With no way out and her identity burned so often that she had no proof she even existed, all that was left was a girl from nowhere.
-
-
As Diamond said in an interview, “It is a horrific story at times, but also absolutely magical.”
- By Teela Klekotka on 02-11-23
By: Cheryl Diamond
-
Summer of '69
- By: Elin Hilderbrand
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the most tumultuous summer of the 20th century. It's 1969, and for the Levin family, the times they are a-changing. Every year, the children have looked forward to spending the summer at their grandmother's historic home in downtown Nantucket. But like so much else in America, nothing is the same.
-
-
great story
- By Amazon Customer on 07-09-19
By: Elin Hilderbrand
-
The House of Eve
- By: Sadeqa Johnson
- Narrated by: Ariel Blake, Nicole Lewis, Sadeqa Johnson
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1950s Philadelphia: fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright. Eleanor Quarles arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University, they fall madly in love. But William hails from one of DC’s elite wealthy Black families, and his parents don’t let just anyone into their fold.
-
-
This could've been good...
- By Speedreader on 10-13-23
By: Sadeqa Johnson
Critic reviews
"A bold, unapologetic look at the most sensitive of relationships, Motherland questions the unhealthy choices we make for love while conducting an unrelenting dissection of one fraught mother-daughter relationship." (Shelf Awareness starred review)
"True to the trajectory of Altman’s literary career thus far, Motherland offers something completely new not only to her own oeuvre, but also to the world of queer literature writ large.... Altman’s gorgeous new memoir makes clear...that many of us ‘want to know,’ that we ‘want to understand,’ but that we have been born into families or circumstances in which secrets and appearances and silences are held close to chest. Motherland lyrically, quietly, but relentlessly seeks out these secrets, trying to know, trying to understand." (Lambda Literary)
"This is the stuff memoirs are made of. Filled with tenderness, irreverence, and unforgettable characters, Motherland is an exploration of what it means to escape from the shackles of the past only to have to face them all over again." (Read It Forward)
Related to this topic
-
One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
-
-
Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
-
On Division
- A Novel
- By: Goldie Goldbloom
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, just a block or two up from the East River on Division Avenue, Surie Eckstein is soon to be a great-grandmother. Her 10 children range in age from 13 to 39. Her in-laws, postwar immigrants from Romania, live on the first floor of their house. Her daughter Tzila Ruchel lives on the second. She and Yidel, a scribe in such demand that he makes only a few Torah scrolls a year, live on the third. Wed when Surie was 16, they have a happy marriage and a full life, and, at the ages of 57 and 62, they are looking forward to some quiet time together.
-
-
A great book
- By Sab on 04-24-20
By: Goldie Goldbloom
-
In the Time of Our History
- By: Susanne Pari
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twelve months after her younger sister Anahita's death, Mitra Jahani reluctantly returns to her parents' home in suburban New Jersey to observe the Iranian custom of "The One Year." Ana is always in Mitra's heart, though they chose very different paths. While Ana, sweet and dutiful, bowed to their domineering father's demands and married, Mitra rebelled, and was banished.
-
-
Enjoyable
- By J. E. Jordan on 05-23-23
By: Susanne Pari
-
The Natural Mother of the Child
- A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood
- By: Krys Malcolm Belc
- Narrated by: Krys Malcolm Belc
- Length: 4 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Krys Malcolm Belc has thought a lot about the interplay between parenthood and gender. As a nonbinary, transmasculine parent, giving birth to his son Samson clarified his gender identity. And yet, when his partner Anna adopted Samson, the legal documents listed Belc as "the natural mother of the child." The Natural Mother of the Child journeys both toward and through common perceptions of what it means to have a body and how that body can influence the perception of a family.
-
-
Excellent
- By Kathryn Bradley on 03-04-23
-
The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna
- A Novel
- By: Juliet Grames
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Stella Fortuna, death has always been a part of life. Stella’s childhood is full of strange, life-threatening incidents - moments where ordinary situations like cooking eggplant or feeding the pigs inexplicably take lethal turns. Even Stella’s own mother is convinced that her daughter is cursed or haunted. When the Fortunas emigrate to America on the cusp of World War II, Stella and her sister, Tina, must come of age side by side in a hostile new world with strict expectations for each of them.
-
-
Misogyny at its worst
- By brenda on 01-15-20
By: Juliet Grames
-
No One Knows Us Here
- A Novel
- By: Rebecca Kelley
- Narrated by: Merritt Hicks
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rosemary Rabourne is already struggling to pay the bills when her recently orphaned half sister, Wendy, shows up at her door. Rosemary will try anything to provide for the traumatized teenager—including offering her services as a high-end escort. Leo Glass is the billionaire CEO of a revolutionary social app. He wants the “girlfriend experience”—someone contractually obligated to love him—and he thinks he’s found the perfect match in Rosemary.
-
-
Good but not uplifting story
- By Kim on 08-02-23
By: Rebecca Kelley
-
One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
-
-
Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
-
On Division
- A Novel
- By: Goldie Goldbloom
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, just a block or two up from the East River on Division Avenue, Surie Eckstein is soon to be a great-grandmother. Her 10 children range in age from 13 to 39. Her in-laws, postwar immigrants from Romania, live on the first floor of their house. Her daughter Tzila Ruchel lives on the second. She and Yidel, a scribe in such demand that he makes only a few Torah scrolls a year, live on the third. Wed when Surie was 16, they have a happy marriage and a full life, and, at the ages of 57 and 62, they are looking forward to some quiet time together.
-
-
A great book
- By Sab on 04-24-20
By: Goldie Goldbloom
-
In the Time of Our History
- By: Susanne Pari
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twelve months after her younger sister Anahita's death, Mitra Jahani reluctantly returns to her parents' home in suburban New Jersey to observe the Iranian custom of "The One Year." Ana is always in Mitra's heart, though they chose very different paths. While Ana, sweet and dutiful, bowed to their domineering father's demands and married, Mitra rebelled, and was banished.
-
-
Enjoyable
- By J. E. Jordan on 05-23-23
By: Susanne Pari
-
The Natural Mother of the Child
- A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood
- By: Krys Malcolm Belc
- Narrated by: Krys Malcolm Belc
- Length: 4 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Krys Malcolm Belc has thought a lot about the interplay between parenthood and gender. As a nonbinary, transmasculine parent, giving birth to his son Samson clarified his gender identity. And yet, when his partner Anna adopted Samson, the legal documents listed Belc as "the natural mother of the child." The Natural Mother of the Child journeys both toward and through common perceptions of what it means to have a body and how that body can influence the perception of a family.
-
-
Excellent
- By Kathryn Bradley on 03-04-23
-
The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna
- A Novel
- By: Juliet Grames
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Stella Fortuna, death has always been a part of life. Stella’s childhood is full of strange, life-threatening incidents - moments where ordinary situations like cooking eggplant or feeding the pigs inexplicably take lethal turns. Even Stella’s own mother is convinced that her daughter is cursed or haunted. When the Fortunas emigrate to America on the cusp of World War II, Stella and her sister, Tina, must come of age side by side in a hostile new world with strict expectations for each of them.
-
-
Misogyny at its worst
- By brenda on 01-15-20
By: Juliet Grames
-
No One Knows Us Here
- A Novel
- By: Rebecca Kelley
- Narrated by: Merritt Hicks
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rosemary Rabourne is already struggling to pay the bills when her recently orphaned half sister, Wendy, shows up at her door. Rosemary will try anything to provide for the traumatized teenager—including offering her services as a high-end escort. Leo Glass is the billionaire CEO of a revolutionary social app. He wants the “girlfriend experience”—someone contractually obligated to love him—and he thinks he’s found the perfect match in Rosemary.
-
-
Good but not uplifting story
- By Kim on 08-02-23
By: Rebecca Kelley
-
Up from Orchard Street
- By: Eleanor Widmer
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three generations of Roths live together in a crowded tenement flat. Long-widowed Manya is the family's head and its heart. But Manya is no soft touch, except, perhaps, where her granddaughter Elka is concerned. Precocious Elka is her closest companion and confidante. Through Elka's eyes we come to know the fascinating characters who move in and out of the Roths' lives.
-
-
Tenement Life From a Child's Point of View
- By Sara on 08-10-14
By: Eleanor Widmer
-
Family Secrets
- A Novel
- By: Nancy Thayer
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Though Diane Randall’s jewelry business is a great success, her marriage is not, and she finds herself growing lonely as her children near adulthood. Meanwhile, her eighteen-year-old daughter Julia is falling dangerously in love, and Diane’s mother, Jean, is relishing her newfound freedom as a single woman in Europe. Distracted by their individual concerns, the three women are ill-prepared for the crisis that suddenly appears on Diane’s doorstep in the form of a handsome FBI agent asking about an explosive secret that’s laid buried for decades.
-
-
Nancy! Is there a sequel? What?
- By PattieLynn on 12-02-22
By: Nancy Thayer
-
In Polite Company
- A Novel
- By: Gervais Hagerty
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tourists think they see the real Charleston, but Simons Smythe knows there’s more to her hometown than sweet tea and Southern hospitality. Behind the walled gardens, inside the fabled historic homes, live Charleston’s elite. Simons was born into this powerful aristocracy that has quietly ruled the city for centuries.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Sarah A on 08-31-21
By: Gervais Hagerty
-
Chanel Bonfire
- By: Wendy Lawless
- Narrated by: Wendy Lawless
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the time Wendy Lawless turned 17, she'd known for quite some time that she didn't have a normal mother. But that didn't stop her from wanting one.... Georgann Rea didn't bake cookies or go to PTA meetings; she wore a mink coat and always had a lit Dunhill plugged into her cigarette holder. She went through men like Kleenex, and didn't like dogs or children. Georgann had the ice queen beauty of a Hitchcock heroine and the cold heart to match.
-
-
Not an Engaging Listen
- By Sobriquet on 03-13-13
By: Wendy Lawless
-
The Time Traveler's Wife
- By: Audrey Niffenegger
- Narrated by: Fred Berman, Phoebe Strole
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Clare and Henry have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was 36. They were married when Clare was 23 and Henry was 31. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing.
-
-
One of my favorite books
- By Joey on 01-13-08
-
He Came in with It
- A Portrait of Motherhood and Madness
- By: Miriam Feldman
- Narrated by: Ann Richardson
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an idyllic Los Angeles neighborhood, where generations enjoy deep roots in old homes, the O’Rourke family fits right in. Miriam and Craig are both artists and their four children carry on the legacy. When their teenage son, Nick, is diagnosed with schizophrenia, a tumultuous decade ensues in which the family careens off the conventional course. Like the 10 Biblical plagues, they are hit by one catastrophe after another: violence, evictions, arrests, a suicide attempt, a near-drowning - even cancer and a brain tumor - play against the backdrop of a wild teenage bacchanal.
-
-
So Beautifully Written
- By Michael on 08-01-22
By: Miriam Feldman
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Power of Adrienne Rich
- A Biography
- By: Hilary Holladay
- Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed
- Length: 18 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adrienne Rich was the female face of American poetry for decades. Her forceful, uncompromising writing has more than stood the test of time, and the life of the woman behind the words is equally impressive. Motivated by personal revelations, Rich transformed herself from a traditional, Radcliffe-educated lyric poet and married mother of three sons into a path-breaking lesbian-feminist author of prose as well as poetry.
-
-
Coherent & Worthwhile
- By AS st on 02-19-22
By: Hilary Holladay
-
What We Wish Were True
- Reflections on Nurturing Life and Facing Death
- By: Tallu Schuyler Quinn
- Narrated by: Allyson Ryan, Tallu Schuyler Quinn
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In What We Wish Were True, Quinn achingly grapples with the possibility of leaving behind the husband and children she adores, and what it means to live with a terminal diagnosis and still find meaning. “I think about how my purpose may be the same in death as it continues to be in life—surrendering to the hope that our weaknesses can be made strong, that what is broken can be made whole,” she writes.
-
-
For facing death & living life
- By Georgia on 04-21-22
-
Home/Land
- A Memoir of Departure and Return
- By: Rebecca Mead
- Narrated by: Rebecca Mead
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the New Yorker writer Rebecca Mead relocated to her birth city, London, with her family in the summer of 2018, she was both fleeing the political situation in America and seeking to expose her son to a wider world. With a keen sense of what she’d given up as she left New York, her home of thirty years, she tried to knit herself into the fabric of a changed London. The move raised poignant questions about place: What does it mean to leave the place you have adopted as home and country? And what is the value and cost of uprooting yourself?
-
-
Memoir by writer Rebecca Mead
- By Betsy Fowler on 09-12-24
By: Rebecca Mead
-
Flirting with Danger
- The Mysterious Life of Marguerite Harrison, Socialite Spy
- By: Janet Wallach
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born a privileged child of America’s Gilded Age, Marguerite Harrison rebelled against her mother’s ambitions, married the man she loved, was widowed at thirty-seven, and set off on a life of adventure. Hired as a society reporter, when America entered World War I she applied to Military Intelligence to work as a spy. Over a decade, Harrison’s mysterious adventures took her to Europe, Baghdad, and the Far East, as a socialite, secret agent, and documentary filmmaker. Janet Wallach captures Harrison’s daring and glamour in this stranger-than-fiction history of a woman drawn to the impossible.
-
-
The rich descriptions of the characters brought them to life.
- By askmurphy on 07-10-24
By: Janet Wallach
-
The Night the Lights Went Out
- A Memoir of Life After Brain Damage
- By: Drew Magary
- Narrated by: Drew Magary, Cassandra Campbell, Joseph Castillo-Midyett, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A fascinating, darkly funny comeback story of learning to live with a broken mind after a near-fatal traumatic brain injury - from the acclaimed author of The Hike.
-
-
Seriously
- By James Luxbacher on 10-29-21
By: Drew Magary
-
Burnt
- A Memoir of Fighting Fire
- By: Clare Frank
- Narrated by: Clare Frank
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Burnt is a book about finding your calling, even if it's an unexpected one. It's about finding your home, even if you aren't immediately welcomed. And it's about reaching the top and making a difference, even if you don't look like you fit in.
-
-
Badass
- By SkoGirl on 08-21-24
By: Clare Frank
-
The Power of Adrienne Rich
- A Biography
- By: Hilary Holladay
- Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed
- Length: 18 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adrienne Rich was the female face of American poetry for decades. Her forceful, uncompromising writing has more than stood the test of time, and the life of the woman behind the words is equally impressive. Motivated by personal revelations, Rich transformed herself from a traditional, Radcliffe-educated lyric poet and married mother of three sons into a path-breaking lesbian-feminist author of prose as well as poetry.
-
-
Coherent & Worthwhile
- By AS st on 02-19-22
By: Hilary Holladay
-
What We Wish Were True
- Reflections on Nurturing Life and Facing Death
- By: Tallu Schuyler Quinn
- Narrated by: Allyson Ryan, Tallu Schuyler Quinn
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In What We Wish Were True, Quinn achingly grapples with the possibility of leaving behind the husband and children she adores, and what it means to live with a terminal diagnosis and still find meaning. “I think about how my purpose may be the same in death as it continues to be in life—surrendering to the hope that our weaknesses can be made strong, that what is broken can be made whole,” she writes.
-
-
For facing death & living life
- By Georgia on 04-21-22
-
Home/Land
- A Memoir of Departure and Return
- By: Rebecca Mead
- Narrated by: Rebecca Mead
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the New Yorker writer Rebecca Mead relocated to her birth city, London, with her family in the summer of 2018, she was both fleeing the political situation in America and seeking to expose her son to a wider world. With a keen sense of what she’d given up as she left New York, her home of thirty years, she tried to knit herself into the fabric of a changed London. The move raised poignant questions about place: What does it mean to leave the place you have adopted as home and country? And what is the value and cost of uprooting yourself?
-
-
Memoir by writer Rebecca Mead
- By Betsy Fowler on 09-12-24
By: Rebecca Mead
-
Flirting with Danger
- The Mysterious Life of Marguerite Harrison, Socialite Spy
- By: Janet Wallach
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born a privileged child of America’s Gilded Age, Marguerite Harrison rebelled against her mother’s ambitions, married the man she loved, was widowed at thirty-seven, and set off on a life of adventure. Hired as a society reporter, when America entered World War I she applied to Military Intelligence to work as a spy. Over a decade, Harrison’s mysterious adventures took her to Europe, Baghdad, and the Far East, as a socialite, secret agent, and documentary filmmaker. Janet Wallach captures Harrison’s daring and glamour in this stranger-than-fiction history of a woman drawn to the impossible.
-
-
The rich descriptions of the characters brought them to life.
- By askmurphy on 07-10-24
By: Janet Wallach
-
The Night the Lights Went Out
- A Memoir of Life After Brain Damage
- By: Drew Magary
- Narrated by: Drew Magary, Cassandra Campbell, Joseph Castillo-Midyett, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A fascinating, darkly funny comeback story of learning to live with a broken mind after a near-fatal traumatic brain injury - from the acclaimed author of The Hike.
-
-
Seriously
- By James Luxbacher on 10-29-21
By: Drew Magary
-
Burnt
- A Memoir of Fighting Fire
- By: Clare Frank
- Narrated by: Clare Frank
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Burnt is a book about finding your calling, even if it's an unexpected one. It's about finding your home, even if you aren't immediately welcomed. And it's about reaching the top and making a difference, even if you don't look like you fit in.
-
-
Badass
- By SkoGirl on 08-21-24
By: Clare Frank
-
Move Like Water
- My Story of the Sea
- By: Hannah Stowe
- Narrated by: Anna Rust
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a young girl, Hannah Stowe was raised at the tide’s edge on the Pembrokeshire coast of Wales, falling asleep to the sweep of the lighthouse beam. Now in her midtwenties, working as a marine biologist and sailor, Stowe draws on her professional experiences sailing tens of thousands of miles in the North Sea, North Atlantic, Mediterranean, Celtic Sea, and the Caribbean to explore the human relationship with wild waters. Why is it, she asks, that she and so many others have been drawn to life at sea—and what might the water around us be able to teach us?
-
-
Every sentence is so beautiful
- By Raleigh on 11-16-23
By: Hannah Stowe
-
A Light Through the Cracks
- A Climber's Story
- By: Beth Rodden
- Narrated by: Beth Rodden
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Renowned rock climber Beth Rodden’s inspiring memoir about overcoming devastating trauma, refusing to be held hostage by fear, and taking a leap toward healing.
-
-
Raw self reflection
- By Heather on 10-10-24
By: Beth Rodden
-
Fear Is Just a Word
- A Missing Daughter, a Violent Cartel, and a Mother's Quest for Vengeance
- By: Azam Ahmed
- Narrated by: Sheldon Romero
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fear Is Just a Word begins on an international bridge between Mexico and the United States, as fifty-six-year-old Miriam Rodríguez stalks one of the men she believes was involved in the murder of her daughter Karen. He is her target number eleven, a member of the drug cartel that has terrorized and controlled what was once Miriam’s quiet hometown of San Fernando, Mexico, almost one hundred miles from the U.S. border. Having dyed her hair red as a disguise, Miriam watches, waits, and then orchestrates the arrest of this man, exacting her own version of justice.
-
-
Terrible narration, wish I’d read the print book instead
- By BC2 on 10-21-23
By: Azam Ahmed
-
The Visionaries
- Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil, and the Power of Philosophy in Dark Times
- By: Wolfram Eilenberger, Shaun Whiteside
- Narrated by: Hannah Curtis
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The period from 1933 to 1943 was one of the darkest and most chaotic in human history, as the Second World War unfolded with unthinkable cruelty. It was also a crucial decade in the dramatic, intersecting lives of some of history’s greatest philosophers. There were four women, in particular, whose parallel ideas would come to dominate the twentieth century—at once in necessary dialogue and in striking contrast with one another.
-
-
Satire and Beauvoir’s problematic behavior; Simone Weil’s problematic self-immolation
- By Louise Beecher on 03-24-24
By: Wolfram Eilenberger, and others
-
Better Broken
- The Hidden Advantage of a Challenging Life
- By: Sean J. Rogers
- Narrated by: Sean J. Rogers
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From enduring an abusive childhood to fighting as a Special Forces Green Beret in the war in Afghanistan, Sean Rogers has come away from his hardships with the tools necessary to not only survive but thrive. He knows firsthand what it means to face your trauma and use it as a source for incredible strength.
-
-
A universal message.
- By Anonymous User on 03-26-24
By: Sean J. Rogers
-
Father and Son
- A Memoir
- By: Jonathan Raban
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In June 2011, just days before his sixty-ninth birthday, Jonathan Raban was sitting down to dinner with his daughter when he found he couldn’t move his knife to his plate. Later that night, at the hospital, doctors confirmed what all had suspected: that he had suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke, paralyzing the right side of his body. Once he became stable, Raban embarked on an extended stay at a rehabilitation center. Woven into this book is an account of a second battle, one that his own father faced in the trenches during World War II.
-
-
Beautiful writing, great personal account of World War II
- By Gordon on 11-19-23
By: Jonathan Raban
-
The Lives of Lucian Freud
- Fame, 1968-2011
- By: William Feaver
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 19 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucian Freud (1922-2011) is one of the most influential figurative painters of the 20th century. His paintings are in every major museum and many private collections here and abroad. William Feaver's daily calls from 1973 until Freud died in 2011, as well as interviews with family and friends, were crucial sources for this book. Freud had ferocious energy, worked day and night, but his circle was broad, including not just other well-known artists but writers, bluebloods, royals in England and Europe, drag queens, fashion models gamblers, bookies, and gangsters like the Kray twins.
-
-
Perfect
- By Travis Carl on 05-29-21
By: William Feaver
-
By the Time You Read This
- The Space Between Cheslie's Smile and Mental Illness—Her Story in Her Own Words
- By: April Simpkins
- Narrated by: April Simpkins, Emana Rachelle
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the Time You Read This shares the manuscript Cheslie wrote before her passing, her story in her own words—from the highest highs of passing two bar exams, winning Miss USA, and beginning an exciting career as an entertainment journalist to the lowest lows of heartbreak, betrayal, and persistent depression. When Cheslie’s mother, April Simpkins, picks up the narrative, she shares for the first time what she experienced in the aftermath of Cheslie’s suicide. When faced with such a devastating loss, how does a mother find a way to carry on?
-
-
Powerful and Sobering
- By Amazon Customer on 05-08-24
By: April Simpkins
-
Landlines
- The Remarkable Story of a Thousand-Mile Journey Across Britain
- By: Raynor Winn
- Narrated by: Raynor Winn
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Cape Wrath Trail is hundreds of miles of grueling terrain through Scotland's remotest mountains and lochs. But the lure of the wilderness and the beguiling beauty of the awaiting glens draw them northwards. Being one with nature saved them in their darkest hour years earlier—and their hope is that this experience can work its magic again.
-
-
Incredible
- By Matthew R Atkinson on 10-26-24
By: Raynor Winn
-
Dancing on the Edge
- A Journey of Living, Loving, and Tumbling Through Hollywood
- By: Russ Tamblyn, Sarah Tomlinson
- Narrated by: Russ Tamblyn
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Perfect for old and new fans alike, Dancing on the Edge is an intimate and powerful story about the singular life of one of our most gifted storytellers, artists, and stars of the silver screen.
-
-
Moving
- By Alena on 06-13-24
By: Russ Tamblyn, and others
-
A Night at the Sweet Gum Head
- Drag, Drugs, Disco, and Atlanta's Gay Revolution
- By: Martin Padgett
- Narrated by: Martin Padgett
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An electric and intimate story of 1970s gay Atlanta through its bedazzling drag clubs and burgeoning rights activism.
-
-
Wonderful History
- By Anthony Norris on 07-24-22
By: Martin Padgett
-
12 Trips in 12 Months
- Make Your Own Solo Travel Magic
- By: Jen Ruiz
- Narrated by: Jen Ruiz
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year before her thirtieth birthday, Jen Ruiz decided to change everything. Despite being professionally accomplished and contributing to the world as an attorney at a nonprofit, she had yet to achieve the most important goal, according to society: becoming a wife and mother. So, after more ghostings than a graveyard, tired of dating apps and sitting in a windowless office, Jen embarked on an epic challenge to send her twenties out in style. Twelve months, twelve trips, no excuses.
-
-
Jen’s amazing storytelling
- By Corey Huffman on 06-24-24
By: Jen Ruiz
What listeners say about Motherland
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lorilee R.
- 09-21-20
Honest & resilient
I loved how authentic and vulnerable this love story is written of a daughters journey through life up to present day. I highly recommend for anyone looking at their own story and relationships growing up with family, guardians, caregivers, etc. It was an interesting, lovely, relatable and resilient read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- E.A. Poe
- 08-03-24
Bravo!
I LOVED this book. For the very first time in a very long time, I felt that I was not alone. I am an only child who grew up emeshed in a codependent relationship with my mother. Setting boundaries in adulthood turned the relationship toxic. Now, I am navigating the caretaking of an elderly parent and finding it very difficult. This book gave me respite.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- NMwritergal
- 11-17-21
One of the best memoirs of 2021
I read about 300 books a year and as of mid-November 2021, I think I've only rated about 10 books 5 stars, this was one of them and since I didn't get it from the library, I can review it. (Pssst: Also read Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang). Heard the author on NPR, and they rarely steer me wrong so I bought it.
As far as I'm concerned, everyone has an interesting enough life to write a memoir--yes, it helps if you have an unusual story, but it's all in the execution, and Altman delivers a short, tightly written memoir about her certifiably narcissistic mother and what that relationship means to her, has cost her, and the love that is still there despite everything.
Altman's writing is so strong, strong enough that I actually understood how she could still love a mother who I'm frankly surprised that nobody killed in a blind rage. Her mother is that bad.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rebecca Rice-Wilson
- 09-09-19
Amazing!
Finished it in a couple days. it was riveting!
Thank you for your vulnerability! Loved it
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Daina
- 08-17-19
individual therapy
if you have a mommy dearest relationship, you might find solace here in this story. Mother is a trainwreck of a mother; daughter is trying work through this individual matter in her public writing. I wouldn't recommend for general consumption.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful