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Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight

Thriller

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Repeat author

Kimberly McCreight is back at Book of the Month – other BOTMs include A Good Marriage.

by Kimberly McCreight

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Quick take

When her mother abruptly goes missing, a college student must quickly piece together the mystery left in her wake.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Multiple_Viewpoints

    Multiple viewpoints

  • Illustrated icon, Nonlinear_Timeline

    Nonlinear timeline

  • Illustrated icon, Mama_Drama

    Mama drama

  • Illustrated icon, NYC

    NYC

Synopsis

When Cleo, a student at NYU, arrives late for dinner at her childhood home in Brooklyn, she finds food burning in the oven and no sign of her mother, Kat. Then Cleo discovers her mom’s bloody shoe under the sofa. Something terrible has happened.

But what? The polar opposite of Cleo, whose “out of control” emotions and “unsafe” behavior have created a seemingly unbridgeable rift between mother and daughter, Kat is the essence of Park Slope perfection: a happily married, successful corporate lawyer. Or so Cleo thinks.

Kat has been lying. She’s not just a lawyer; she’s her firm’s fixer. She’s damn good at it, too. Growing up in a dangerous group home taught her how to think fast, stay calm under pressure, and recognize a real threat when she sees one. And in the days leading up her disappearance, Kat has become aware of multiple threats: demands for money from her unfaithful soon-to-be ex-husband; evidence that Cleo has slipped back into a relationship that’s far riskier than she understands; and menacing anonymous messages from her past—all of which she’s kept hidden from Cleo...

Content warning

This book contains scenes that depict sexual assault and mentions of child abuse.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of Like Mother, Like Daughter.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

PROLOGUE

As soon as you begin to show, the lies start. They will be well-meaning, all of them. Friends, family, doctors, total strangers—pretty much anyone who spies your pregnant belly will tell you:

Don’t worry, you’ll know what to do when the time comes.

Don’t worry, your maternal instincts will kick right in.

Don’t worry, your body will bounce right back.

Don’t worry, you’re going to be an amazing mother.

Don’t worry, it’s not as hard as it looks.

Don’t worry, being a mother is the most rewarding job in the world.

Don’t worry, you will love them more than you ever thought possible.

The last one is true, if dangerously oversimplified.

It is indeed a ferocious love you feel the second you hold your child, hot and wriggling, against your naked chest. You will die to protect that child. You suspect, uncomfortably, that you could also kill. You have never thought of yourself as this person before—wild, animalistic. It will make you feel both powerful and afraid.

This is your first true introduction to motherhood, this study in contradictions.

And then there is the cost of this boundless love that no one warns you about: the worry and sleepless nights. The fear that they will get sick or grow up sad or be forever lonely. And that it will be your fault. Or that someday they might stop returning your calls. After all, just because you love them without condition does not obligate them to love you back.

Oh, and you will get so much of it wrong. Partly because there is no right answer, to any of it. And on that rare occasion when you do knock it out of the park? That will only make you believe that other mothers must be doing it right all the time. You will commit to trying harder.

You will try until your eyes burn and your arms ache. Until your heart crumbles to dust.

You will do whatever it takes. Even when you don’t know what that is. Especially then. And get ready, because this will be your job forever, this fixing of everything, including the things that cannot be fixed.

For as long as you both shall live.

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Why I love it

People lie. It is as immutable an element of the universe as death and taxes. But things can get interesting when the lies get big, unsettling our sense of people and places. Like Mother, Like Daughter knows this in its bones. This is a twist-and lies-filled thriller with a forceful pulse.

One night NYU student Cleo heads to her childhood home in Brooklyn for dinner with her mother. But when she arrives, her mother is nowhere to be found, and there is a chicken burning in the oven. She quickly surmises that something is amiss and that perhaps her mother, Kat, has been keeping some major secrets from her. Thus begins a hectic search for answers and her mother. It soon turn out that the seemingly perfect and staid Kat was not just a lawyer but actually a fixer. But it is now on her daughter to fix a complicated mess of her making.

Kimberly McCreight, who also wrote A Good Marriage, is a careful student of human mendacity. The way our lies can form perilous Jenga towers with fraught fallout. I could not tear through the pages of this novel fast enough. Each brought with it surprising new revelations and propulsive action. You won’t want to miss out! Read on.

Member ratings (12,187)

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The Boyfriend
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First Lie Wins
House of Glass
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Listen for the Lie
A Talent for Murder
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Someone in the Attic
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Like Mother, Like Daughter
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The Other Mothers
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A Flicker in the Dark
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The Paris Apartment
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Dark Places
Pieces of Her
The Wife Between Us
Sharp Objects
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The Silent Patient
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Thriller
View all
The Boyfriend
The Last One at the Wedding
Sleep Tight
First Lie Wins
House of Glass
Middle of the Night
Listen for the Lie
A Talent for Murder
Beautiful Ugly
Someone in the Attic
One Perfect Couple
Like Mother, Like Daughter
Kill for Me, Kill for You
Bad Tourists
Murder Road
Daughter of Mine
The Fury
The Other Mothers
When I’m Dead
The Soulmate
What Lies in the Woods
She Started It
The Only One Left
Dark Corners
Blacktop Wasteland
All the Dangerous Things
The Only Survivors
The Broken Girls
The Family Game
The Push
We Were Never Here
Things We Do in the Dark
The Golden Couple
The Stranger Upstairs
Gone Tonight
Too Good to Be True
The Last Word
You Are Not Alone
Rock Paper Scissors
Not a Happy Family
A Flicker in the Dark
Reckless Girls
The House Across the Lake
The Last Thing He Told Me
The Maidens
Everything We Didn't Say
The Paris Apartment
You're Invited
The Last Party
Dark Places
Pieces of Her
The Wife Between Us
Sharp Objects
None of This Is True
The Silent Patient
The Other Woman
Necessary People
The Family Upstairs
The Night Swim
Girl A
The Hunting Wives
Just Another Missing Person
First Born
The Lies I Tell
Breathless