I really enjoyed this book once it got going. The first half was a little slow however the plot twist!!!

I would be very keen to read more by this author.

The perennially conflicted mother-daughter relationship is a tale as old as time, and a rite of passage that many of us go through … and are still combating well into adulthood. Which is what makes Ellen O’Clover’s The Someday Daughter such an important and relatable book for teenage & young adult girls.

O’Clover’s new novel follows Audrey, the eponymous someday daughter of Camilla, a self-help guru and therapist who became wildly famous after she penned a book, Letters to My Someday Daughter when she was just 24 years old, long before Audrey was even born. Audrey is now here and a teen, and has spent her entire life in the shadow of her mother’s success, labeled time and time again as the “someday daughter.” The weight of being Camilla’s daughter is crushing, and Audrey knows something that no one else does - that being the daughter of the woman with all of the answers is not everything it is cracked up to be.

Audrey has big plans to be a doctor, and has her sights set on spending her summer before college in an intensive pre-med training program, but soon finds her hopes dashed when her mother insists she join her on a cross-country tour to celebrate Letters to My Someday Daughter’s 25th anniversary. There is nothing Audrey would rather do less than spend time with her mother on stage in front of thousands of adoring fans, answering awkward questions with a fake smile plastered across her face.

However, this will prove to be a life-altering summer for Audrey as she begins to learn more about her mother and her choices … and herself. As Audrey preps to head out to college, the stakes are high - this suffocating summer will either make or break her relationship with Camilla. But which will it be?

As soon as I started reading O’Clover’s The Someday Daughter, I knew that I had a winner in my hands. Poignant and reflective right off the bat, I could tell that this was going to be a book with some weight to it; a novel that examined life and relationships through the eyes of an emotionally conflicted teenage girl with the gravitas they deserve. YA fiction has unfortunately, too often, taken a turn for the worse as of late, and often feels as if it is being written with an agenda in mind. The Someday Daughter takes me back to the YA fiction we were getting 10-15 years ago - a time when novels dealt with teens grappling with authentic and relatable emotions and relationships. This book is purely about a complicated mother-daughter relationship, the pressures of going to college and being a perfectionist at the same time, and figuring out love for the first time. These are all things most teenagers face, making this story accessible, but O’Clover has also made her novel intriguing by having her main character play out these feelings with an unwanted spotlight overhead.

Recommended to teenage girls just embarking on their life’s journey - this novel would make a great high school graduation present for all of the avid readers out there!

Couldn’t ever get fully invested in this book. I didn’t find myself connecting with the characters and it dragged a bit.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins for the Advanced Reader Copy!

OOF. This book hits hard (in all the right places!). This Contemporary YA novel follows Audrey St. Vrain, daughter of Camilla St. Vrain who is a famous self-help author, during the summer before her freshman year of college. Audrey had big plans to have a super productive summer by attending a prestigious summer premed program which would set her up for success in college, but she ends up getting roped into joining a summer book tour to promote the 25th anniversary of her mother's book, "Letters to My Someday Daughter," and confront her strained relationship with her. After having to endure the stresses of being in the spotlight and answering questions about her and her mother despite not having the picture-perfect relationship that her mother always boasts about, Audrey finds herself having to acknowledge difficult truths about herself and her family.

While this book was slow to start, it got me in the second half, and that twist shocked me to my core! I audibly gasped! At times Audrey's stubbornness was eye-roll worry and occasionally got on my nerves, but I'm also a 25-year-old who has gone through a lot of therapy! And to be fair, I very much acted like Audrey when I was her age. All the other characters were lovely! Except for Silas, Sadie, and Camilla, the side characters did feel a tad one-noted, but they were still a joy to read and provided a nice comic relief. There is a small bit of romance in this book, BUT "The Someday Daughter" is far beyond a standard YA romance novel. At its core, this novel is about Audrey and her mental health struggles and navigating her relationship with her mother. It's incredibly written and is so beautiful in a raw and vulnerable way. It is worth a read if you are looking for something fresh in the YA world!

I really liked this sweet read by Ellen. It was a completely unexpected twist between mother and daughter on the road with the book tour. I enjoyed the writing flow and all of the characters.

This was my first read by Ellen O'Clover, and it did not disappoint. I love a flawed main character who is not always making the best decisions, and that's exactly how I saw Audrey in this story. I loved the framing of a famous mom and her daughter reluctantly joining her summer book tour. It's a great setup for forced proximity, and it leads to all kinds of revelations. I also appreciate how the author portrayed Audrey's struggles with anxiety and how it was shown on the page. Though the relationship with Silas felt a bit like instalove, it was also understandable given the context of the story. Overall a great, relatable story with lots of nuance.

The Someday Daughter by Ellen O'Clover is a beautifully written story centred around mother-daughter relationships. Following the daughter of a self-help author, this one contains a main character who transforms throughout the book and a complicated relationship between a mother and a daughter. Fans of more emotional contemporaries with complex characters will enjoy this one.

As the daughter of the author of a bestselling self-help book called Letters to My Someday Daughter that encourages women to treat themselves with kindness--to treat themselves the way they would treat their daughters--Audrey has a lot to live up to. While the book's readers would say she has the perfect mother, in reality, Audrey doesn't feel connected to her mother at all since she has been sent off to boarding school since age 11. However, to celebrate the book's 25th anniversary, Audrey's mom is heading on tour and asks Audrey to abandon her plans and join her for the summer. As the tour progresses, both women must get to know each other again outside of their Letters to My Someday Daughter identities and learn more about themselves along the way.

I really enjoyed Audrey's character and the ways she changes throughout the book. I really felt for her since she feels feels more like a promotional tool than a daughter for her mother who is barely in her life and deals with pressure to live up to the version of herself that her mother has built a career on. At the beginning of the book, Audrey has carefully made plans to become a doctor and land the perfect summer premed program and is determined to separate herself from everything related to her mother's book. However, when she realizes that life doesn't always go according to plan, she must learn to become more flexible, and I enjoyed watching her as she grows.

My favourite part about this book is Audrey's relationship with her mother. It is difficult for Audrey to pretend that her mother is the perfect parent when they're not close at all, and I loved the opportunity the book tour presents for them to finally talk and try and mend their relationship. Both characters deal with their own struggles, and their complicated relationship is well-written.

The Someday Daughter by Ellen O'Clover is a complex story focused on fame and mother-daughter relationships. I enjoyed the main character's growth throughout the book and the way her relationship with her mother develops. This is a thought-provoking read that fans of more character-driven books will enjoy.

Thank you netgalley and harper teen. I read the authors debut and immediately added this book to tbr I grabbed the audio and while listening my head swivled as I was not sure I was hearing it correctly. I found these characters so incredibly messy it was jolting to hear someone in the book talk about an I dollar coffee.... good coming of age book. Hope the next is another home run

3.5/5

going into this book, i knew there was a high chance i was going to like this book. i’d read o’clover’s debut last year and fell in love with her storytelling. what i wasn’t prepared for was just how much more this book would impact me.

audrey feels so personal and real to me, her fears, her hopes and dreams are so like my own. i kin her so much that it probably says a bit too much about me… but uh… let’s ignore that for now!

no, but in all seriousness. after finishing this book, it’s taken me about a week to actually be able to write this review. i’ve had to sit and process through my emotions about audrey’s story. how much i’ve learned from her growth that i definitely should apply into my own life. but also, you could easily add her to my list of characters i just want to give the biggest hug. tell her that it will be alright.

a lot of this story focuses on her relationship between her and her mom, processing their estranged relationship through the book her mom wrote all those years ago. but we also see audrey struggle with massive fear of failure. a fear to step outside of her plan. this book gets tough. audrey really struggles the entire way with her internal identity the whole way through. slowly questioning many of her choices. and while i’m not easily one to cry while reading, this one got me close a few times. but hey, i’m a sucker for a sad story about a teen prepping for college, apparently??

and while i know audrey as a MC won’t appeal to so many readers, i do hope it finds its readership. audrey isn’t chatty, or bubbly, or really even nice most of the time. she’s quiet, introspective and doesn’t always make the right choice. but i love her so so dearly. and if i were her, it’d take a lot more for me to forgive her mom, to be honest. so she’s already got that on me.

i’m urging you, if you like a story about complicated, messy familial relationships. a teen girl whose plan gets upturned the summer before her first year at college. please go pick this up. it will be worth your time!!

I saw a quote once that said "Be kind to your parents, it is their first time living too", which 1. hit really hard and 2. I was reminded of by this book.

In "The Someday Daughter" we follow Audrey, who grew up in the shadow of her mother. Her mom, Camilla, is a best selling author of the book "Letters to My Someday Daughter", where she wrote several letters addressed to a hypothetical daughter, before Audrey was even born. So Audrey not only grew in the shadow of her mom but with a specific set of expectations laid out in her mother's book.

Now all grown up Audrey realizes that she might not want to be the person, her mom wrote about in those letters. When Audrey is dragged on a book tour to commemorate the anniversary of "Letters to my Someday Daughter" instead of living out her dream of going into a pre-med program with her boyfriend, her world slowly starts to implode and she has to challenge every single expectation of herself around her, including her own.

I personally really loved Ellen O'Clovers debut "Seven Percent of Ro Devereux", so I had really high expectations going into this book. I initially thought the romance would play a bigger role, but I was actually quite happy that it didn't. I feel like this book really encapsulates girlhood and the grief but also joy that seems so omnipresent in every mother-daughter-relationship.

The discussion of anxiety and letting go of past versions of yourself and those around you made me feel all the feels and the romance aspects of the story only added to my experience. If you are wanting to read this book I would advise to really stick with Audrey. I say this because Audrey's character development did feel a little bit slow and I didn't like her in the first 40% of the book AT ALL. I say you have to stick with her because the resolution of the plot and her character development is really beautiful and with it in the end.

i read this author’s debut last year and really enjoyed it, so i was disappointed that the different plotlines in this one felt disconnected. the premise of the MC’s mother being an influencer and how that affected her life didn’t feel as detailed as it needed to be to carry the entire book. thank you to harpercollins for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was a great coming-of-age story about a mother-daughter duo who both ultimately have regrets and pieces of themselves they are keeping close to their hearts. Audrey has lived her entire life according to her mother's expectations as well as all of the adoring fans who have read her book. Stuffed into a picture-perfect box of how their relationship is nothing short of perfect she is stifled by Camila and all the thoughts and emotions they do not say. Camila lives her life flawlessly and boasts about the Letters to her Someday Daughter that she wrote before she ever had a child. So when her daughter came along her path was already clearly written.

Audrey was all set to create her own bubble during a medical internship that was disrupted when her mother decided she was to travel on a book tour with her during the summer. It is the single most annoying thing her mother has done but ultimately sheds light on the silent pain the duo has been experiencing all these years of living up to unrealistic expectations of one another and from the shadow of her mother's self-help book. She learns many things about herself along the journey as well as begins to let go of the weight of the book she has always felt. Opens her heart to get to know her mother and learn some of the secrets along the way. I enjoyed reading this book and thought the struggles were very realistic. As the only child, she was often with adults so the maturing quickly aspect is something I am sure others can identify in either as a firstborn or only child. Seeing another side to her mom helped to humanize the experiences and show another side to the creation of the self-help book that propelled her into a sort of guru in the parenting community.

I have really mixed feelings about this. I loved listening to the audiobook; it was easy to listen to and intriguing. I thought it was an interesting look into all the different relationships we can have, such as…
- Mother/daughter
- daughter and absent dad
- the summer after high school couple
- the old lover and the new flame
- student/professor and how professors are multi faceted beings

I liked the story, the romance, the depth. But I hated the main characters. Audrey was whiney and immature. Camila was an asshole. I couldn’t relate to either of them, and I wasn’t overly impressed with their growth.

Audrey is on tour with her author mother this summer celebrating the 25th anniversary of her book, Letters to My Someday Daughter. Audrey had a plan this summer and it wasn't upending her life to go all over the country with a mom who only wants to spend time with her for show. She was accepted into a program that would help her in college as premed. When her mom cancels the deposit, and the school fills her slot, she has no choice but to come along.
Audrey doesn't understand why her mother wants her with her on this tour, but she is bound and determined to not let it affect her studies. When she meets the interns, specifically Silas, she has a feelings all of her carefully laid plans would go out the window.
This was a beautiful story about communication, or lack there of, a mother's love and a girl who has to find her place in life. Audrey is rigid and when things don't go as planned she has a hard time dealing with what to do next. This summer is about to get her completely out of her comfort zone and it's in the best way.
There was even a big twist that, while I did see coming, was still super emotional and had me tearing up at the end. I loved every character in this book.
Thanks to Ellen O'Clover, Netgalley and Harper Collins for an early copy.

3.5 stars

Thank you so much for the publisher for the free eARC!

After Seven Percent of Ro Devereux I knew I have to read Ellen O’Clover’s next book too. It was just as entertaining as the author’s previous book, but this one was a bit deeper than what I expected. I enjoyed it, but there were a few parts that I did not like at all. I’ll talk about those, and since they are spoilers I’ll do a warning before.

Audrey’s mother wrote Letters to My Someday Daughter years before her birth. The book shaped both Audrey’s life and her relationship with her mother. For the 25th anniversary the publisher and Camilla decided to do an 8-week long US promo tour. And Audrey is expected to be there, even though she already had plans for the summer, attending a prestigious premed program.

I wanted to give Camilla the benefit of doubt, but after one point I no longer cared about her reasons.


SPOILERS!

She cancelled Audrey’s tuition for the premed program without her knowledge/approval. I’m sorry, but no, you don’t do this to your own daughter, especially when you know she wanted this more than anything. You don’t make decisions for your adult daughter behind her back, this is just unacceptable. After this move, Camilla was lost for me, I didn’t care about her reasoning. I actually had to stop reading, I was so mad.

SPOILERS OVER!


I loved the interns, Mick was the kind of friend I’d love to have, Silas was... let’s just say I shipped him and Audrey from the first page. But while I loved the boys I had issues with Cleo. She seemed the kind of person who can’t accept that others might enjoy different things in life and this does not sit well with me. So what if someone rather spends their Saturday night in the comfort of a hotel room studying than going out to a club? What if someone isn’t a dog person and doesn’t want to be near one? Does it hurt you in some way that different people live their lives in different ways?

SPOILERS!


And when she (and also Mick followed her) grabbed a bite from Audrey’s food without asking her permission. I understand that she, Mick and Silas are longtime friends, but Audrey knows them for less than a month at that point. They are basically still strangers at the time! And no, you don’t eat from someone’s food without asking them first. For me this showed how much Cloe doesn’t care about Audrey’s boundaries.

SPOILERS OVER!


Puddles was the best character in the whole book, and I’m not a dog person. She was just adorable.

Audrey’s anxiety and perfectionism got displayed throughout the whole book, and I loved when she confessed to her mother. She has a lot to learn, but that scene was heartbreaking.

Did I see the big plot twist coming? I had my guesses and theories, but somehow I missed the connection between them. Still, this made the last chapters even more exciting for me.
In conclusion, I had issues with the story, but despite them I really enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to read more from Ellen O’Clover.

A coming of age YA mother-daughter story with a love triangle and a fame angle that didn't really work for me. There was a love triangle and a secret sister but I didn't love the romantic relationships.
I did like the anxiety and panic attack rep however on the whole this was a bit of a miss for me which was disappointing because I really enjoyed the author's debut last year. Recommended for fans of authors like Emma Lord. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

The Someday Daughter is a book that you’ll want to pick up if you like shows like
Gilmore Girls, movies like Lady Bird, or basically anything dealing with complex mother and daughter relationships. While
This book does have a sweet love story in it. The discussions and portraits of the mother and daughter dynamic in this story and how messy things can be really sell this story and steal the show honestly. While I do love a good love story, it is really nice to read books that focus on family relationships and the complex emotions between parents and children rather than solely on a romantic story. This book does again have a nice love story in it, if you are looking for more than that then you’ll wanna read this book.

I don’t read a lot of contemporary fiction these days, but I really enjoyed this one! It’s the author’s sophomore novel and I was extremely impressed by the writing, character development, and depth of emotion.

This book had so many layers — Audrey’s complicated relationships with her mother, Ethan, Silas, and most importantly, herself, made for a satisfying, eye-opening and cathartic finish.

I felt so seen as Audrey described all the things she believed about herself and her anxieties and fears. I may not have a complicated relationship with my mother, but I do understand what it’s like to not know who you are without the people and places that shaped you, and this is a core theme of The Someday Daughter.

I saw a couple of reviews complaining that Audrey was annoying because instead of using her words to describe how she feels, she runs away. I want to point out that this is a huge part of Audrey’s character as we first meet her. This is a real struggle that many people face and I, for one, want real characters! I want characters that grow and don’t remain exactly the same from the beginning to the end, but I want characters with real-life struggles.

Lastly, I saw people mention that the plot twist at the end was dramatic, and I have to say I slightly agree, but I can also understand why Audrey felt the way she did, so it didn’t bother me too much. I’ve seen worse third act shenanigans, haha.

Thanks again to Harper Teen for the eARC!

I read O'Clover's debut novel last year and really enjoyed it, so I was excited to see what she came up with next, and I'll say that she didn't disappoint. I feel like this novel falls more under the category of coming-of-age and family-centric than 7% of Ro Devereaux, but I still enjoyed the romance subplot here. I should note that recently I've started an DNF'ed two YA contemporary novels, so it was nice that I actually finished this one, and even thoroughly enjoyed it. Audrey felt like a real character, and while she was messy it wasn't overdone. As someone who has anxiety and has experience panic attacks before it was also an excellent representation of both conditions, which I really appreciated. I think in the end Audrey probably could have used some therapy, but it made sense for her character to not have any, so I can forgive O'Clover for not including that element in her story. My only real complaint (aside from the therapy part, but that can be forgiven because it makes sense for the narrative) was the big reveal was a little...dramatic? idk. It seemed just a little much. But then again the main story was fairly unrealistic (Audrey's mom is basically a self-help book author who has achieved great fame, ala...Dr. Phil, I guess. So it's not like her experiences are 100% relatable to anyone, but the core elements are certainly there) so again, I'm willing to forgive. I also saw the reveal coming from the first small crumb that was mentioned. Overall it was just a fantastic sophomore novel though, and I will have no problem recommending this to anyone looking for a great YA contemporary, especially teens. If I had to choose between the two books I would probably put Ro Devereaux slightly above this one, but this one does get points for an amazing older pug and great mental health rep. Either way I can't wait to see what O'Clover comes up with for book three, and she's certainly solidified herself as an aut0-buy author for me.

Unfortunately I never could connect with this book. The daughter gets upset and runs off instead of using her words and expressing how she is feeling. This basically happens on repeat for several chapters. At this point I decided this book was not for me.