Like Mother, Like Daughter? 14 stories about girls and their mums

In the title of this delightful collection of 14 stories about mother-daughter relationships the question mark is all important as the girls, directly or implicitly, ask us to look at a bond that can be warm and loving or tense and fragile. All are first-person narratives, told from the daughters’ perspectives. Some of the girls are reflective in their attitudes towards their mothers, others are more concerned about asserting their own identity independent of the maternal bonds, but overall the collection highlights how strong the thread of mother-daughter relationships can be.

Many of the stories take a turning point in the lives of the girls as their starting point, often reflecting first steps into adolescence, like Kendra who knows she will be an MPG, a Mean Popular Girl, if only her mother will buy her the right clothes. On the other hand, Caroline Pitcher strikes a poignant note in the story of a family holiday with a terminally ill mother; Kate Petty’s tale looks at three generations of women in the same family, and Adèle Geras causes a reader to reflect on the qualities of a mother.

Overall, the stories are warm-hearted, often thought-provoking and generally entertaining. This is a good collection to give a sub-teen or young teenager – or maybe the mother of one. VC