Outside-the-Box Mother’s Day Reads
Most moms don’t come straight from central casting. Most moms aren’t like the moms we see in movies, on television or in chapter books from our childhood. Most moms don’t get it right every time. Most moms aren’t like, well, most moms. So, for Mother’s Day, here are four books about and for moms who live and think outside the box.
The Leavers: For the mom who understands that the path through motherhood does not run straight or smooth, and sometimes there is no good choice. Lisa Ko’s PEN/Bellwether Prize winning debut is one of the most anticipated novels of the year. It’s a moving story of how a boy comes into his own when everything he loves is taken away, and how a mother learns to live with the mistakes of the past.
One morning, Deming Guo’s mother, Polly, an undocumented Chinese immigrant, goes to her job at a nail salon—and never comes home. No one can find any trace of her.
With his mother gone, eleven-year-old Deming is left mystified and bereft. Eventually adopted by a pair of well-meaning white professors, Deming is moved from the Bronx to a small town upstate and renamed Daniel Wilkinson. But far from all he’s ever known, Daniel struggles to reconcile his adoptive parents’ desire that he assimilate with his memories of his mother and the community he left behind.
Told from the perspective of both Daniel—as he grows into a directionless young man—and Polly, Ko’s novel gives us one of fiction’s most singular mothers. Loving and selfish, determined and frightened, Polly is forced to make one heartwrenching choice after another.
Set in New York and China, Lisa Ko’s The Leavers shares a vivid examination of borders and belonging, which earned it the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Fiction, awarded by Barbara Kingsolver for a novel that addresses issues of social justice.
“Required reading.” —Ann Patchett
National Book Award finalist
Named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed, Bustle, and Electric Literature
Leave Me: For the mom who understands that the path through motherhood does not run straight or smooth, but that makes the journey no less extraordinary. Super-bestselling novelist Gayle Forman shares the honest, humorous, unforgettable story of Maribeth Klein, who has to run away to find her home.
“In an enthralling novel reminiscent of Anne Tyler’s Ladder of Years, a woman who recently suffered a heart attack runs away to recover her equilibrium.” —O, The Oprah Magazine
Every woman who has ever fantasized about driving past her exit on the highway instead of going home to make dinner, and every woman who has ever dreamed of boarding a train to a place where no one needs constant attention–meet Maribeth Klein. A harried working mother who’s so busy taking care of her husband and twins, she doesn’t even realize she’s had a heart attack.
Surprised to discover that her recuperation seems to be an imposition on those who rely on her, Maribeth does the unthinkable: she packs a bag and leaves. But, as is often the case, once we get where we’re going we see our lives from a different perspective. Far from the demands of family and career and with the help of liberating new friendships, Maribeth is able to own up to secrets she has been keeping from herself and those she loves.
With bighearted characters–husbands, wives, friends, and lovers–who stumble and trip, grow and forgive, Leave Me is about facing the fears we’re all running from. Gayle Forman is a dazzling observer of human nature. She has written an irresistible novel that confronts the ambivalence of modern motherhood head on and asks, what happens when a grown woman runs away from home?
Our Short History: For the mom who understands there is no greater love than a mother’s for her child — and who has a box of Kleenex handy. In Lauren Grodstein’s poignant and witty novel, Karen Neulander faces the last days of her terminal cancer by writing a letter about her life and their life together to her six-year-old son.
Karen Neulander, a successful New York political consultant and single mother, has always been fiercely protective of her son, Jacob, now six. She’s had to be: when Jacob’s father, Dave, found out Karen was pregnant and made it clear that fatherhood wasn’t in his plans, Karen walked out of the relationship, never telling Dave her intention was to raise their child alone.
But now Jake is asking to meet his dad, and with good reason: Karen is dying. When she finally calls her ex, she’s shocked to find Dave ecstatic about the son he never knew he had. First, he can’t meet Jake fast enough, and then he can’t seem to leave him alone. Karen quickly grows anxious as she watches Dave insinuate himself into Jake’s life just as her own strength and hold on Jake grow more tenuous.
As she struggles to play out her last days in the “right” way for Jake, Karen wrestles with the knowledge that the only thing she cannot bring herself to do for her son—let his father become a permanent part of his life—is the thing he needs from her the most. With heart-wrenching poignancy, unexpected wit, and mordant humor, Lauren Grodstein has created an unforgettable story about parenthood, sacrifice, and life itself.
Pre-order author Lauren Grodstein’s new simply can’t-be-missed novel, We Must Not Think of Ourselves, coming November 28, 2023. A truly unforgettable story about the fight for life—and love—in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II.
Things I Wish I Told My Mother: For the mom who understands that being a mother starts with being a daughter. A moving, sparkling Book Club read with a Patterson twist. Now in paperback!
An artist and her perfectionist mother unpack a lifetime of secrets while on vacation in Paris in this moving novel—perfect for fans of One Italian Summer.
A mother and daughter on vacation in Paris unpack a lifetime of secrets and hopes—with a giant Pattersonian twist at the end!
Every daughter has her own distinctive voice, her inimitable style, and her secrets.
Laurie is an artist, a collector of experiences. She travels the world with a worn beige duffel bag.
Every mother has her own distinctive voice, her inimitable style, and her secrets.
“Dr. Liz,” Laurie’s mother, is an elegant perfectionist who travels the world with a matched set of suitcases.
When Laurie surprises her mother with a dream vacation, it brings an unexpected sparkle to her eyes. So begins Things I Wish I Told My Mother. You will wish this novel never ends.