Description:
From the author of Remember Mia comes the tale of a young woman in search of her past, and the mother who will do anything to keep it hidden...
What if you were the worst crime your mother ever committed?
Dahlia Waller's childhood memories consist of stuffy cars, seedy motels, and a rootless existence traveling the country with her eccentric mother. Now grown, she desperately wants to distance herself from that life. Yet one thing is stopping her from moving forward: she has questions.
In order to understand her past, Dahlia must go back. Back to her mother in the stifling town of Aurora, Texas. Back into the past of a woman on the brink of madness. But after she discovers three grave-like mounds on a neighboring farm, she’ll learn that in her mother s world of secrets, not all questions are meant to be answered...
From the author of Remember Mia comes the tale of a young woman in search of her past, and the mother who will do anything to keep it hidden...
My Take:
2 Stars
This could have been an excellent book, but all the things that were written into this book to sidetrack the reader completely ruined this story. For the first 12 years of Dahlia’s life, her mother had the two of them living their lives on the run, practically out of their vehicle, and also at other times when a hotel needed help and her mother could get paid for working there they would get a motel room to stay at. Dahlia did not even go to school until she was much older. Nothing is ever referred to as to ‘why’ all of this this is in the book, but we get the general idea that something is up and there is a reason for it, which is why when Dahlia had to return home, to fill in the holes of her life because she can’t even get a job since she does not have a social security number, and this even interferes with her ability to attend college! No social security number, NO job OR college! The only problem with this is is that she waited 15 years to return home and confront her mother. We don’t know why she waited so long? At least Dahlia thinks smart and runs into a friend of hers when she gets home, a guy she went to High School with, Bobby. He happens to be a policeman, and their thinking is he can help fill in the gaps if any are needed, at least legally, but at 75% of the book, Bobby has not needed to do a thing. The two of them have even missed clues that stand out like a sore thumb to the reader!
So much of this book just does not make sense in the way the story is told. The timeline of the story, the characters in the story, the secrets that are kept and the FEW that get told about. We, the reader, are left with our heads just spinning with these. Why the author wrote it the way she did just does not make sense, and this truly makes for a not so enjoyable read.
There are some other crazy characters as well. There is another character who seems to be into new age spirituality is called Aella. She is a trip! Then we have a fourth female character named Quinn who was brutally gangraped as a teenager which we get to read the details about that rape over and over again. This is something that is not great reading material. Why is this in this book? HOW does it relate to the story? I don’t know???
For example, there is even a little story about a woman who is comatose that Dahlia stumbles over as she is out jogging, and this little event ends up becoming huge, but it turns out not having anything to do with the story in this book. Why?
Dahlia had had enough of things the way they were, and she because she wanted to improve her life, ended up going through heck trying to do so. Her only way to fix things and make them clear so she could move ahead with her future was to do what she is did with her mother, which resulted in this odd story, and it just confused the heck out of readers.
I cannot give this book a recommendation to read it, I’m sorry, and I am really sad about this, too, because Remember Mia was SO good! Although as a saving grace for this author and for this book, The Good Daughter was not set at such a fast pace as Remember Mia was set at, so that should be taken into consideration if you are going into this book with expectations to read it. This book is set at a very much slower pace, and also has a lot of plot to it which does get confusing for the reader. Perhaps knowing that might make for a more enjoyable read? I hope so! Enjoy!
I would like to thank Berkley and NetGalley for the wonderful opportunity to get to read and review this book for free. No payment of any type was provided in order for me to read this book and write this review, but it was provided to me for free of charge for the sole purpose of reading it to write a review of my own opinion. Thank you for coming by to read this review!
ebook: $11.99
print: $10.77
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