Get a good book and a free hat.

Join now for $5.

We’ll make this quick.

First, enter your email. Then choose your move.

By pressing "Pick a book now" or "Pick a book later", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Get a good book and a free hat.

Join now for $5.
undefined

You did it!

Your account is now up to date.

get the appget the app

Our app is where it’s at.

Unlock our Reading Challenge, earn prizes, and get notified of new books on our app.

Our app is where it’s at.

Unlock our Reading Challenge, earn prizes, and get notified of new books on our app.

Download on the App Store
Get it on Google Play

Already have the app? Explore here.

Somebody's Daughter by Ashley C. Ford

Memoir

Somebody's Daughter

Debut

We love supporting debut authors. Congrats, Ashley C. Ford, on your first book!

YEARLY LOOK-BACK

Once a year, we break our own rules and share a book from earlier in the year that wowed us.

by Ashley C. Ford

Excellent choice

Just enter your email to add this book to your box.

By pressing "Add to box", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Volume 0
Volume 0

A free gift for you.

Yes, she’s embroidered. Add her to your first box.

No thanks, just checkout

Quick take

A moving coming of age memoir about the complications of family provides ample testament to the resilience of love.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Emotional

    Emotional

  • Illustrated icon, Inspirational

    Inspirational

  • Illustrated icon, Literary

    Literary

  • Illustrated icon, Critically_Acclaimed

    Critically acclaimed

Synopsis

For as long as she could remember, Ashley has put her father on a pedestal. Despite having only vague memories of seeing him face-to-face, she believes he's the only person in the entire world who understands her. She thinks she understands him too. He's sensitive like her, an artist, and maybe even just as afraid of the dark. She's certain that one day they'll be reunited again, and she'll finally feel complete. There are just a few problems: he's in prison, and she doesn't know what he did to end up there.

Through poverty, puberty, and a fraught relationship with her mother, Ashley returns to her image of her father for hope and encouragement. She doesn't know how to deal with the incessant worries that keep her up at night, or how to handle the changes in her body that draw unwanted attention from men. In her search for unconditional love, Ashley begins dating a boy her mother hates; when the relationship turns sour, he assaults her. Still reeling from the rape, which she keeps secret from her family, Ashley finally finds out why her father is in prison. And that's where the story really begins.

Somebody’s Daughter steps into the world of growing up a poor Black girl, exploring how isolating and complex such a childhood can be. As Ashley battles her body and her environment, she provides a poignant coming-of-age recollection that speaks to finding the threads between who you are and what you were born into, and the complicated familial love that often binds them.

Content warning

This book contains scenes that depict sexual assault and abuse.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of Somebody’s Daughter.

Somebody's Daughter

1

“Just remember, you can always come home.” There it was. I expected and hated when my mother said those words. Two years before this call, I’d moved to Brooklyn from Indiana. Now I lived in Flatbush with my boyfriend, Kelly. Back home in the Midwest, our friends were building four-bedroom houses on one-acre lots with mortgages comparable to the monthly rent of our one-bedroom. After living in the city for a year or two, I marveled at home features I would have called standard before I left. Features like dishwashers, in-unit laundry, and backyards. The apartment we lived in now had one of those, the dishwasher. When it ran, the second phase of the wash cycle shook the floor and walls with a deep rumble. I felt it in my feet while I paced the floor.

I had gotten up from dinner to take the call from my mother. She still lived in Fort Wayne, my hometown. We hadn’t lived in the same city, or the same house, since I left for college eleven years earlier. She called every few weeks—I answered every other call—and we usually had a good time talking for ten to fifteen minutes. I’d taught myself to keep our phone conversations light, or as I liked to think of it, complication-free, without lying. I didn’t want to lie to her. I wanted to be able to talk to my mother the way I could with most other people, as myself. But she wasn’t just anybody. She was my mother, so that was impossible. There were limits. We only dove into subjects that wouldn’t end in arguments, which was mostly whatever would make us both laugh.

When she said that thing to me, that I could always come home, part of me wanted to reply, “Mama, I love you, but I’ll work myself past the white meat, down to the bone, and fistfight every stranger I run across on the street before we live under the same roof again.”

Create a free account!

Sign up to see book details, our quick takes, and more.

By pressing "Sign up", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Why I love it

It is estimated that 113 million Americans have had an immediate family member who was incarcerated and 6.5 million are currently experiencing it. This undoubtedly is one of the most significant molders of the modern American family. What a gift then that we now have Somebody’s Daughter, a lively and rich memoir from someone who experienced it firsthand about grief, love, family, and the grace and creativity it takes to grow into ourselves.

Ashley C. Ford always felt a special bond with her father. But for most of her life she knew him more by his absence than his presence. Having committed a terrible crime when Ashley was only a child, he spent decades of their lives behind bars. But one day after twenty years of few visits and almost no communication, Ashley decides to write to him. That letter then initiates a rich, challenging, but ultimately loving exchange between father and daughter. Alongside this exchange we watch as Ashley grows into a remarkable woman, experiencing many lows and highs, including the eventual release of her father and their joyous reunion.

Do yourself a favor and add Somebody’s Daughter to your cart right now. This memoir is one of the most moving, thoughtful, and beautifully written books of the year. It will challenge you and might elicit a few tears. But boy will you be thankful for its ample delights.

Member ratings (11,329)

Inspirational
What Does It Feel Like?
The Life Impossible
The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
The Same Bright Stars
Joe Nuthin’s Guide to Life
Did I Ever Tell You?
The Last Love Note
The Many Lives of Mama Love
The Connellys of County Down
The Collected Regrets of Clover
A Quiet Life
The Circus Train
We Are the Light
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle
Bittersweet
The Unsinkable Greta James
Peach Blossom Spring
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?
Somebody's Daughter
Will
The Choice
A Little Hope
Send for Me
More Myself
This Close to Okay
The Last Story of Mina Lee
The Beauty in Breaking
The Boyfriend Project
Untamed
Yes No Maybe So
Throw Like a Girl
Full Disclosure
Color Me In
Symptoms of a Heartbreak
Things You Save in a Fire
All the Light We Cannot See
The Girl Who Smiled Beads
The Great Alone
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
The Moor's Account
Inspirational
View all
What Does It Feel Like?
The Life Impossible
The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
The Same Bright Stars
Joe Nuthin’s Guide to Life
Did I Ever Tell You?
The Last Love Note
The Many Lives of Mama Love
The Connellys of County Down
The Collected Regrets of Clover
A Quiet Life
The Circus Train
We Are the Light
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle
Bittersweet
The Unsinkable Greta James
Peach Blossom Spring
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?
Somebody's Daughter
Will
The Choice
A Little Hope
Send for Me
More Myself
This Close to Okay
The Last Story of Mina Lee
The Beauty in Breaking
The Boyfriend Project
Untamed
Yes No Maybe So
Throw Like a Girl
Full Disclosure
Color Me In
Symptoms of a Heartbreak
Things You Save in a Fire
All the Light We Cannot See
The Girl Who Smiled Beads
The Great Alone
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
The Moor's Account