Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me a copy of this cleverly written novel. Just as I loved Paul in BEST DAY EVER (a man who was also just as easy to despise,) in this book, Jane is similarly a love/hate relationship for me. This author does a fantastic job of making me laugh at the clever way Jane talks/thinks in the story, which helps you not detest her so much. The story drops little pieces of information via Jane's twisted view on life, giving you a glimpse into what her family has put up with for years. Jane's funny, clever, witty, and yes, crazy. And narcissistic. And scary. I could go on, but you get the picture.
Jane's crazy. Or is she? She certainly seems paranoid as her family ditches her one by one, yet you see why they do. She's controlling, self-centered, and a pathological liar. No wonder her husband is cheating on her and her daughters count the days until they can leave home. Told from Jane's POV, we get to be inside her twisted mind, and I found it an entertaining place to be. It's another great read by this author!

The narrator, Jane believes she is a super mom, wife and the best friend someone could as for. Her inner thoughts threw me sometimes, she was a very dis-likable character. At times I found myself not caring about what happens to her.A year ago Jane and her husband lost there oldest daughter in a tragic accident, since then Jane has been taking numerous anti-depressants and hiding out at home. Her husband plans a small memorial service to mark the one year anniversary of Mary's passing, and on this day Jane decides to re join the world.

Jane is delusional, narcissistic , control freak! She spies on her daughter and husband needing to know at all time what they are doing and who they are talking to. Even going so far as putting tracking devices on their car, but she is doing this all out of love. I really disliked Jane, I also disliked many of the other character's as well. It was an entertaining book, plot wise but I need to feel a connection with a least one character and sadly that did not happen for me with this book.

Overall, I enjoyed it and recommend it to readers of mysteries/suspense.

I requested this book from NetGalley based on the blurb. I’ve been really enjoying thriller/suspense novels in the last few years, so this one seemed right up my alley.

Jane’s daughter Mary died one year ago in a tragic accident. She fell to her death while hiking, and her mother hasn’t been the same since. Jane has decided that a year is long enough to be absent in her own family, and she makes strides to break out of her grief and try to be there for her family. Her other daughter, Betsy, is graduating from high school, and Jane knows this relationship has suffered.

The way the blurb reads, Jane is a woman clouded in grief, someone you would be sympathetic for and care about her story. The reality is she is conniving, manipulative, and i didn’t care about her at all. By the end of the novel, it’s clear that this is the point. Jane is intended to be an unreliable narrator and a devious person, and the author does that well. However, I stepped into the novel not expecting that, and by the end of the novel, I was done with Jane.

Even more than that, I felt like none of the other characters had any redeeming qualities, either. It was a cast of characters that I wasn’t invested in, making the whole novel a bit of a struggle for me to get through.

I think the author did well with what she set out to do, but it just didn’t work for me.

I recently The Favorite Daughter and it is definitely a perfect read for those who love mystery, intrigue, suspense, and non stop action. After a tragic accident leaves Jane’s oldest daughter dead , Jane understandably can't recover. After s year of refusing to leave home she's ready to venture out back into her seemingly perfect life and family. But all is not as it seems as secrets hidden behind closed doors all come to light. It's such a twisted and suspensful story, with an unreliable narrator, that I couldn't put down. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

It’s been a year of grieving. Jane’s husband, David can’t seem to understand what she’s going through even though it happened to both of them. She can’t cope. She still needs the pills and the alcohol to prop her up and to propel her forward. Her daughter, Betsy isn’t beautiful and she isn’t all that smart but she is still here. Jane is losing her too little by little. Jane still can’t believe that Mary is dead, her beautiful adopted daughter. Jane is determined to put her life and her family back together one piece at a time. But the pieces just don’t fit.

Kaira Rouda is an exceptional writer. She methodically doles out clues slowly revealing what is going on. Each time, I thought I had it figured out I was so wrong.

I received an advance copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

The narrator of this story was cray-cray, put her in a straight jacket & send her straight to the looney bin crazy! I felt so bad for David, Mary, Betsy and any other character that had to put up with Jane. It was very obvious right from the beginning that I was dealing with an unreliable narrator but I could not have imagined how awful Jane could be. Throughout the story she continually unravels til the ending that I had a feeling was on its way but still had some fun surprises. Another great story from Kaira Rouda!!

Perfect Summer Read if you are looking for the perfect Psychological Thriller! Kaira Rouda introduces us to the worlds most narcissistic Mom since. well; “Mommy was Dearest”! The best part was that I was in love with her character. She was thoroughly interesting. The entire family you love to hate,
This book is twisted to the max. It takes place over a few short, quick days and you will be Wow’d!

What do you get when you combine a grieving mother, a distant family and the perfect home in an oceanfront gated community? If you’re author Kaira Rouda, you get the ingredients for a twisted domestic thriller. And if you’re a reader like me, you get THE FAVORITE DAUGHTER. After bursting onto the thriller scene last year with BEST DAY EVER, Rouda once again shows readers how even the most beautiful facade can hide something dark and ugly beneath the surface.

Jane Harris is the perfect wife and mother. Almost. Beautiful and slender, Jane fits in comfortably in her ritzy gated community, and her dedication to her family is just as outwardly perfect as the rest of her. True, she has no friends (they were all too jealous), and the men cannot help but hawk at her (it’s no surprise, she has always turned heads). Other than that, she and her family are perfectly normal, thank you very much.

But one year ago, the Harris family was marked by tragedy when their eldest daughter, Mary, fell off a cliff to her death. Jane and Mary might have been arguing a bit around the time of her passing, but Mary was dutiful and pure, truly Jane’s favorite daughter. Since Mary's fatal fall, Jane has been lost in a haze of grief and pills, but now, with her youngest daughter Betsy’s graduation approaching and her marriage on the rocks, she is ready to return to her family. And what better occasion than the one-year memorial of her daughter’s death?

As Jane returns to the world of the living, so to speak, it becomes clear that her family has moved on without her. Her husband, David, is behaving strangely --- putting on cologne to go to the gym and getting home long after dinner. Betsy, a brooding, moody teenager, is also acting like she hasn’t missed her mother at all over the last year and has become quite secretive. Luckily, Jane has encrypted both David’s and Betsy’s cell phones with tracking devices that allow her to read their text messages. What? It’s just what any concerned mother would do!

With the memorial inching closer, tensions are high in the Harris family. Jane knows secrets about her husband and daughter that could set the entire evening into a tailspin, but she is also aware that she must play the perfectly grieving mother. At the same time, she cannot stop comparing her daughter and everyone else around her to Mary. Of course, Jane won’t admit to the reader (or to herself) that she had a favorite, but her obsession with Mary borders on the extreme, even with the added weight of grief. But at the end of the night, she finds a note in her purse suggesting that Betsy may know more about Mary’s death than she is letting on.

As Jane becomes more and more obsessed with getting her family back on track and figuring out what really happened the day of Mary’s death, her own careful lies start to unravel. Despite her obvious grief and hurt, readers will have to wonder why her own family is so eager to get away from her. All the while, Jane is certain that she can really have it all, as long as she remains perfect.

Early on, readers will notice a certain unreliability to Jane. In the words of a high school English teacher, she does a lot of “telling, not showing.” As the narrator, Jane tells readers constantly how others react to her --- how the men gaze, and how other parents observe her interactions with her daughter with admiration --- but Rouda brilliantly withholds the actual facts from us, so it is difficult to tell if Jane is just a narcissist or if the entire community really is taken with her. Some of her own thoughts about herself are so wildly far-fetched that they straddle the line between horrifying and laugh-out-loud funny. Readers will wonder if anyone can really think so highly of themselves all the time and believe it.

Jane is a character readers will love to hate. Rouda combines domestic suspense with a touch of dark humor for a compulsively readable book set in the mind of a textbook narcissist. THE FAVORITE DAUGHTER has a very STEPFORD WIVES feel to it but with a twist —- the mother-daughter relationship provides the perfect playground for Rouda’s delightfully wicked main character.

Presenting a mother so far removed from what we believe mothers to be is an edgy choice for Rouda --- and one that she handles remarkably well. We have seen countless thrillers featuring evil husbands and manipulative wives, but to villainize a mother requires a keen psychological understanding of the world and some flawless characterizations. Fortunately, for me and all the other favorite daughters out there, Rouda has both.

This was wickedly twisted. The main character, Jane, was great fun to engage with. She's so over the top and likeable in the most despicable way possible. I felt myself rooting for her despite the fact that she is clearly disturbed. Rouda has put out another great novel. I'll definitely recommend this one and purchase a copy. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review this title.

"Knowledge is power, they say. And now you know almost the whole story. Almost."

What fun!! From the beginning of this book, I knew Jane Harris was not your ordinary unreliable narrator. She's funny, wicked and actually just a tiny little bit likable! Jane was living the perfect Southern California life until a tragic accident claimed the life of her oldest daughter Mary. Now Jane is slowly coming out of her grieving and ready to reclaim her life back.

Jane basically clawed her way into the wealthy lifestyle she enjoyed before Mary's death and it is clear from the beginning that Jane is a classic narcissist.

"Good old Mom. She taught me everything she knew about how to put yourself first in life. She was ruthless, delighting in bringing others down, including her own daughter. But look around: I’m winning, Mom."

Jane must always be in control of her family and when they step out of line, well, there's hell to pay. Even though Jane was a scheming, controlling mother and wife, I actually felt sympathy for her! Her family did not treat her very nicely, and the author did a fantastic job balancing between suspense and dark humor. Although Mary's death was a tragic accident, Jane remains convinced someone killed Mary. And she'll stop at nothing to prove it.

Part of the fun of this book was listening to Jane rationalize her behavior towards her family. She'll literally stop at nothing to stalk her husband and daughter Betsy. The author slowly reveals the facade that Jane was living behind, but Jane really believes that she should be in charge of everyone. Much like Paul from the fantastic 'The Best Day Ever', Jane slowly reveals the truth about herself. And it is sinister!

"That’s the power of the bond between mothers and daughters. It can never be broken, even in death."

Kathleen McInerney did an outstanding job narrating this story, adding just the right touch of humor to this psychological thriller. Although the ending was not a complete surprise, this was one of those stories that was a completely entertaining journey. Jane Harris was one the most most unreliable narrators ever and I enjoyed every minute!

"I am the lead actor in this house, in this family, I’m reminding him. Every mom is."

This is the first book I read by Kaira Rouda, and it did not disappoint. I was humored by the fact the story took place in Orange County (I live one county over) and really did capture the essence of the OC community. From the start, we learn that Jane Harris’ Daughter Mary died in an unfortunate accident. She is riddled with guilt and it has taken a toll on her relationship with her detached husband David and self-absorbed Daughter Betsy. Jane decides to “get out of the fog” and be the Mom and Wife her family needs. We see her making a lovely dinner for her husband as a show of her changed being and at that point, you are on her side. You think “She’s been through so much, and she’s trying” “Why is her family so mean to her?”. By the end of this book, you will know why. The book is told by Jane’s POV so of course, we are seeing this unfold in her deranged mind. The way the book opened was genius, and the twists and turns will take you on a wild ride. I’m looking forward to reading other books by Kaira Rouda.

If you like your narrators unreliable and crazy as hell, this, dear reader, is the book for you.

It’s easy to dismiss Jane Harris as being nuttier than a Snickers bar, but there is more to her than that, as Kaira Rouda shows you exceptionally well. Your first clue might be Jane’s chronic overuse of exclamation points. The successive clues might be that she doesn’t trust–or like–anyone in her life, including her husband David and daughter Betsy.

You should feel sorry for Jane. After all, her older daughter Mary died a year ago in a tragic (if not initially suspicious, to the police anyway) death. When we first meet her, Jane is emerging from a haze of grief, one that separated her from David and Betsy. She knows she has some work to do to reconnect with them, but within a matter of pages, Kaira Rouda makes you wonder if David and Betsy’s distance isn’t for the best.

Jane narrates the story, and she is so delightfully unhinged that you will love her even as you despise her. You also figure out a fairly important detail relatively quickly, but waiting for the rest of the cast to suss it out makes for quite the wild ride.

It is a testament to Kaira Rouda’s skill that there are times in this book when I actually felt bad for Jane and wanted her to have a win. Of course, at the same time, I wondered with horror what that win would do to homegirl. Would it make her even crazier?

Jane is so deliciously drawn, though, that the other characters seem flat in comparison. They have their roles to play, and in that regard, they fit their slots. But I found myself wanting to be surprised by them, particularly David. It isn’t that I yearned to like these people more than I liked Jane but rather I wanted to be at least as interested in them as I was her.

When you read this one, please hit up the comments and let me know what you think.

Jane Harris has lost her oldest daughter due to a tragic accident. It doesn’t take long in reading this book for readers to see if there’s something strange really wrong with Jane. Of course she’s grieving the loss of her daughter. But what’s more is she’s grieving the loss of her former self. After some time on antidepressants, mixed with difficult memories from her past, Jane is trying to rise up. In so doing she makes very weird statements.

One of the most difficult things to read as the story starts to take form is that her surviving daughter Betsy is certainly not Jane's favorite. Her favorite was Mary. Now Jane will do whatever she can to make Betsy pay for not being the daughter that died. While she’s at it why not make her husband pay for all of his misdeeds too. He has lied and cheated for years. One of his worst travesties has just been revealed to her.

I had to stop a couple of times while reading this book. I was like, 'are you for real Jane?' She is one of the most unreliable characters I have read in a very long time. She takes herself very seriously. Are we the reader supposed to take her seriously? If so, then I feel really bad for her. If not, then I really want to laugh because no one can have the thought process is that she has shown us.

Her memories are interspersed within the narration. To stave off boredom she reads strange articles and quotes from the Internet. Then there is a sudden, sharp twist in the story. It happened so fast, so be careful, because the reader just might miss it. Jane has a plan. A deep, dark, disturbing one. In so doing she is utterly excited, not caring for one moment who she might hurt.

Despite this excitement, the feeling that it’s all going to fall apart, the knowledge that if I ever knew somebody like this in real life I would run in the other direction. With these and other similar thoughts, I must admit to growing tired of Jane and her antics. It seemed to me that no one was ever going to wake up and see what Jane was all about. Nonetheless, I pulled through it and got to see that she really was that bad and then I admit to being eager to see if and when she would be stopped.

Another thing, Jane has no remorse. She knows everything she is saying and doing is wrong, but she simply doesn’t care. I will say that there were some things I didn’t like in this book, such as what happened to Cash, the dog, but I am glad that I got to read something that was just a bit different.

While Jane was planning, admiring herself and and telling about her perfection, and acting upon set plan, she is talking to us the reader at all times. She pulled us into the story whether we want to be there or not. Thank you to the Kaira Rouda for providing a character that everybody is going to hate. To be triggered into those feelings while reading a book says to me, good job. Well done. I definitely look forward to reading much more by Ms. Rouda.

Many thanks to Grayson House and to NetGalley for this ARC for review in exchange for my honest opinion.

Our main star, Jane, is a crazy protective mother and house wife.  How crazy?  Jane would say she is loving, caring, and give you some crazy statistic of how you could randomly die.  She would say everything she does is out of love and all she is doing is protecting her family.  I would say she needs to committed and go under an evaluation because she's just not right.  Jane is what keeps you reading in this one...

I kept reading in awe of Jane would do.  I mean, I seriously still cannot get over how crazy Jane Harris is.  Some background...Jane is a married mother of 2, except one daughter jumped off of a cliff and killed herself (Mary).  Betsy is about to graduate high school and Jane is doing all she can to protect and love her.  When she discovers she may be having a relationship with a tutor from school, ooooo.  The family is FULL of secrets kept from each other.  Sometimes the dialogue between the characters was a little...odd, short, and curt, but overall it's a great read.

This story was a great mystery/thriller.  I did not see quite a bit that was revealed to us toward the end.  I firmly believe this book will keep you guessing and will surprise you with a twist or two!  Her marriage is also a big star in this book as she thinks it is on its way to healing and being whole again.  She really lost it after Mary died and her marriage suffered.  Or has her marriage suffered all along?  Hmmm...it was SO interesting reading this all from Jane's point of view!

This is a must read 4 star read.  It is a mystery that will leave you satisfied at the end with what happens.  I am still in disbelief that Jane thinks she has done NOTHING wrong at the end.  Baffling.  I know she's a fictional character, but O-M-G!  High five to Kaira Rouda for knocking this one out of the park!!

It’s been a year since Jane Harris lost her daughter Mary (her favorite daughter) and she finds herself struggling with a family that seems not to care about her. She is committed to do WHATEVER it takes to keep her daughter Betsy and husband David focused on her. Well my friends, Rouda came out strong in her newest novel. This book was full of messed up characters, funny (in a wicked way), and once again an unreliable narrator telling the story. Jane made me laugh with her obsession with deadly facts but she creeped me out at the same time. If you liked Rouda’s Best Day Ever you’ll definitely love this one!

A year ago, Jane Harris' daughter, Mary, died tragically. Ever since, Jane has been lost in a cloud of grief and anti-depressants. But with a ceremony celebrating Mary's life coming up, Jane feels it's time for her to reemerge and reengage with her family: husband David and daughter, Betsy, who is about to graduate from high school. The family lives in a gorgeous house in Orange County, California. But Jane quickly realizes that David is always busy--with work or the gym he claims--and Betsy is distant and angry. Jane adored Mary, her eldest, who had finished her first year of college before she died. But at the ceremony for Mary, she receives a note, claiming Mary's death wasn't an accident. Does someone know what happened to her daughter--and are they right? Was Mary's death not an accident?

"After a year of grieving, it's time to step back into my family, or what remains of it and that's precisely my plan."

So this review is going to be a little unpopular, perhaps, based on others I've seen. I'd like to point out that it's not a negative review, per se, just not a gushing review as so many others seem to be. I just felt a little let down by this one; it left me a little flat. I found a lot of the twists predictable and while I found the book a very compelling read, there was just something "off" that didn't make it a "wow" read.

Still, as mentioned, this is a very readable book, and it will keep you engaged. Jane is an interesting character, to say the least, even if I sometimes found her more clueless than diabolical. She is, of course, an unreliable narrator, and we are only allowed to learn things as Jane reveals them to us. As a result, we're left a little confused, never quite sure where we stand. One of the things I liked most about this book was how easy it is to get sucked into Jane's delusional world as the novel is told in a very conversational style, with her sometimes speaking directly to the reader. She's also a pretty terrible person and yet oddly fascinating.

"Without Mary to place my biggest hopes and dreams on, I'm left with Betsy."

Her relationship with her daughters is pretty messed up, to say the least, and as a result, the book can be pretty creepy and bizarre. It's definitely quite a wild ride. Still, I was a little disappointed at how much I figured out ahead of time; I would have liked to have been more surprised.

Overall, this is a quick read and it's pretty intriguing. You'll get caught up in Jane's delusions pretty easily, even if some of them are fairly easily telegraphed. Others really rave about this one, so hopefully you'll enjoy it even more than me. I still recommend it; it's an interesting read. 3 stars.

Wow what a roller coaster ride! This novel is told from Jane’s point of view and she is unpredictable and unreliable at best! She is a character you will hate, or love to hate, and she kind of grows on you. It was interesting for sure to be told the story from her perspective and to see the story unfold through her eyes. There were times she made me laugh and other times I was shocked by her.

A great novel that will have you immersed in the pages as you read this crazy ride of a book, with a lot of thrills and surprises. Full of drama, secrets, lies and betrayal, it is the perfect recipe for a thriller.

The Favorite Daughter is another book that I seen consistently pop up on my social media, so I decided to give it a read! Once again, I must say that it didn’t give me the feels that it seemed to give other fellow readers. I thought this book had the potential to be great due to certain characters; Jane’s character is obsessed with controlling her husband and children, she’s constantly thinking of deadly statistics, and she’s always knowing how to manipulate those she’s around. Her daughter, Betsy is sneaky, seems to be one step ahead of Jane, and seems to be a source of conflict between her parents. With the author’s choices in characters, the plot had plenty of ways of unfolding. However, the plot was flat out boring! To me, there was never a moment of surprise; the true culprit was predictable early on and I didn’t get any plot twists or an element of surprise while reading it. I honestly almost filed it away as DNF.

Thanks to Netgalley and Graydon House Publishing for our free copy of this book. All opinions are my own. I was a HUGE fan of Rouda’s debut novel, The Best Day Ever, so I eagerly dove into this novel. Jane was a total sociopath, but I found this book to be more predictable than the last story. Minor spoiler, but had the murderer of Jane’s daughter actually gotten away with it, I think it would have been a better book.

This was a tough book for me. The Characters were all kinds of crazy. I had a hard time with the characters. I think if you are not into thrillers this would be a good one to start with. I just felt like the characters were a little too crazy.

Didn't love this book but I also didn't hate it. Not every book is for everyone.