Like Mother, Like Daughter is everything a thriller should be. I read Reconstructing Amelia back in 2014 and loved it so much that when I saw Kimberly McCreight had a new book out, I had to snatch it up.

Kat and Cleo’s relationship was truly the center of this story and everything else played off of it. McCreight wrote it in such a wonderful and complex way and I loved getting to see Kat’s POV before and Cleo’s POV of the aftermath. Throw in the different transcripts, articles and journal entries and the way this book was written and set up had me hooked.

McCreight offered up many suspects and red herrings up until the end. When I thought I had something figured out, it went a completely different direction. The only thing I didn’t enjoy about this is that it was a lot of lead up with an incredibly rushed ending. I just needed a little more from the ending, even with all the loose ends tied up.

Overall I would recommend this book and I can’t wait to read her backlist and anything else new that comes out!

2.5 stars

A college age daughter, Cleo, arrives at her parents’ house for dinner and finds food burning and her mother, Kat, nowhere in sight. She then finds a bloody shoe and understandably grows more concerned. So where is Kat?

Alright, I don’t mind unlikable characters in thrillers as they can be fascinating. Unfortunately Cleo is an insufferable brat who really bogs down the story. Mother-daughter dynamics can be complicated, I get it. But Cleo was over the top, self-involved and it wasn’t much fun reading the parts of the story that featured her. A toned down version of Cleo would have helped as the plot itself is decent. Not awesome, but decent.

On a positive note, I did get a jaw dropping moment which is nice to experience when reading a thriller. For what it’s worth, I really liked A Good Marriage, by this author. I just wish Like Mother, Like Daughter had been more of an enjoyable read rather than a frustrating one.

Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight was the second book I have read by this author, and both were solid suspense novels. This one tells the story of Kat, who has suddenly gone missing, and her young adult daughter Cleo, who found her childhood empty when she arrived to have dinner with her mother. Cleo and Kat were somewhat estranged, so Cleo has complicated feelings about what may have happened to her mother.

The book is told through two perspectives: the mother, before the disappearance, and the daughter, after the disappearance as she launches her own investigation of sorts and learns there was a lot more to her mom's life than she knew about.

Both Kat and Cleo were fleshed out as well-rounded characters who grew throughout the book. The writing was solid and I appreciated the twists, but the plot was overly complex. I felt some aspects were not necessary in light of how it eventually resolved.

I will recommend this to readers who like to read about mother/daughter relationships and domestic suspense.

Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Cleo arrives for dinner with her mother, Kat, and finds her missing with evidence of a struggle. The book explores the strained relationship between Cleo and Kat and the many secrets of Kat's life. Kat grew up in foster care and left a group home under mysterious circumstances. In the present day Kat is a corporate lawyer to her family but she is actually a "fixer". What actually happened to Kat? Did her past catch up with her or was she taken care of by one of the corporations she deals with?
This book was fast-paced and alternated between Cleo and Kat's viewpoints. It held my interest, but there were too many different storylines and characters and at times it made my head spin. Several of the characters, including Cleo, were terrible people and I felt bad that Kat had so many awful people in her life. Overall this was a quick and easy read but was definitely not my favorite.

I really wanted to love this book, but it was just okay for me. I enjoyed the aspects of the mother/daughter relationship and how the mystery unraveled but overall, it just did not wow me. But I have seen MANY great reviews for this one, so I think I may just have not been the “right” reader.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC! This book is out now.

Cleo, a NYU student arrives late for dinner, despite her mother’s urging that she arrive quickly. When she does get home, she finds things burning in the kitchen, traces of blood and her mother missing. Cleo doesn’t know where to turn. She and her mother don’t get along very well as their personalities are very different. Unbeknownst to Cleo, her mother is not just a lawyer, she is actually a fixer. Their attempts to protect each other show the truth of their complex relationship. This gripping thriller will keep you riveted until the explosive ending!

Also reviewed on B&N under 1IrishEyes430 and Kobo under IrishEyes430

I went in blind, not sure what I would be getting. But this was definitely a very interesting story. Meet Cleo who is a student at NYU and when she comes home to meet her mother - her mother is nowhere to be found. You go back and forth with alternating POV's along with news articles and transcripts - which I love where there are extra layers like that. The story is also told with a combo of countdown of days before going missing. Lots of suspense build up. Thank you to NETGALLEY and Knopf for this eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Page turner for the first page!!! A missing mother, a defiant daughter and a sketchy husband…my idea of a perfect read!!!

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the chance to read and review this book!!!

Intense story with lots of twists and turns. this unpredictable story will capture you right away and keep you turning the pages to find out more! Wonderful complex characters make this a real page turner and a must read!

imagine coming home to find your mom gone, dinner burning and a bloody shoe in your house.
That was the reality for cleo, who finds that her mom is missing, she is the prime suspect, and her dad is a liar.
while cleo is searching for her mom, she learns of a deep dark secret and more about her rough childhood than she ever knew. But, is her childhood the connection to her disappearance?
Cleo has to find out what the connection is, before it’s too late.
And readers, you will NOT see the connection or twist coming!

I really enjoyed McCreight’s writing and this book was no different. It started off a bit slow, but by the end, I was on the edge of my seat. I thought some of the plot twists were a bit contrived, and I wasn’t thrilled by the ending, but the journey getting there was very good.

I think this author creates really well-embodied characters who have flaws and seem like real people. It’s probably my favorite thing about her books, she does a great job making you care about the characters. I tend to really not enjoy split timeslines in books, which this one has, but I didn’t mind it here because I actually found both prospectives equally interesting. This typically isn’t the case for me.

I liked the bit of mixed media that were added in. Definitely led to a bit more curiosity since the reader doesn’t always have the context for what we’re being shown until later. There were quite a number of things going on and I think dropping one or two may have made the plot a bit stronger, but overall I liked the trip I was taken on!

Will definitely look out for more from this author in the future!

Anyway, I just finished Like Mother, Like Daughter which was a wild psychological thriller about a mom who is missing after leaving behind a bloody shoe and the daughter trying to figure out what happened. The story flips back and forth between before and after the day the daughter found the mom’s bloody shoe, leaving little crumbs of hints along the way. So I will say that this one had me hooked because it was so fast-paced, so many possibilities and I love a little mixed media in my books. It was intense and twisted. But, with an asterisk because there was so much going on - so many side storylines to try and lead me astray, so many characters to keep track of. I was able to stay focused and keep it all sorted in my brain but I think because I read it on my kindle. I think audio could be hard with so many characters and storylines that all seemed so crucial to remember. So my recommendation is maybe not do audio for this one unless you can be hyper focused.

WOW! McCreight has written an excellent mystery/thriller in Like Mother, Like Daughter. This book was unputdownable! I absolutely loved it. The writing is excellent, the mystery is realistic… I actually feel like something like this probably happens a lot. I enjoyed the evolution of the mother-daughter relationship from their separate POVs. There are lots of secrets and red herrings that are maybe not absolutely necessary, but sometimes life does get really messy, I guess. Overall, I throughly enjoyed this!

Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight was one of my favorite books of the month! I loved the story told from both mother and daughter perspective. I was sucked in! I never guessed the twists and turns. The hype for this book is well deserved!

This is my first Kimberly McCreight book, but will not be my last! I look forward to read more of her work in the future. Highly recommend Like Mother, Like Daughter to anyone looking for a fun thriller!

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book was simply un-putdownable! I read the whole thing in nearly one setting. The narrative was compulsive and the plot was an onion as I peeled back layers to get to the answer of "whodunit?". The length of the chapters, the alternating perspectives and timelines, and the interspersing of therapy transcripts and journal entries kept my interest as I turned the pages. The characters were all flawed but McCreight, per usual, highlights their redeemable qualities with appropriate care.

It was both frustrating and exciting to be sent on so many wild goose chases with red herrings throughout but a bit of it felt heavy-handed and unnecessary to the point of confusion at times. However, I do think this contributed to the page-turning nature of the novel. Kimberly McCreight has never failed me with one of her books and this is no different. Though not my favorite by her, this is the thriller of the summer that I will continue to recommend!

I love a good mystery and this was just that. I really liked this story. It was really good and entertaining. Cleo come home from college and finds the stove on and no sign of her mother. She tries to find out what happened to her.

I read once that this author considers her books to be "emotional suspense", which seems to be an excellent description for this novel. Wow! There is a lot going on in this book, with motivations and red herrings coming fast and hard. However, the author manages to keep the many threads from tangling too much (and does not tie up everything in too neat of a bow at the end, either). The many complications of relationships between mothers and daughters become clearer and clearer as we see Cleo in the present and Katrina in the past. Each complication just drew me in more to see both Kat's past and present situations through to the end.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of this book.

When Cleo arrives home, late as usual, she finds her mother missing. They haven't gotten along for some time, but her mother specifically asked her to come over tonight, and even offered to fix dinner. So, where is she? But, on second look, there is an abandoned shoe, one she recognizes as her mother's, and a LOT of blood on the kitchen counter and on the floor. SO, WHERE IS SHE?

As the hours pass, the mystery deepens, and Cleo finds that she knows little to nothing about her mother - her job, her parent's marriage, her mother's past, not much of anything. As she slowly finds pieces of her mother's life, she realizes that her mother is not the monster she has thought she was, and her father is not the hero he pretends to be.

This book was alternately confusing, horrifying, a little "what the heck is going on?", and ultimately a good story. I had to make myself keep going at the beginning, but I am glad I stuck with it. It did go off in a lot of directions, and some of them were not relevant to the main story, but a good red herring just adds to the mystery, right?

When Cleo’s mother Kat goes missing, she races to find out the truth of what happened. To do so, she has to explore both Kat’s past and current life.

There are a lot of stories within the story in this book and sometimes it felt like a lot of unpack. But this was a gripping, fast-paced book that really kept me guessing right to the last page.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Available July 30, 2024.

Overall, I think is a really solid thriller. I liked how the story flipped back and forth between Kat and Cleo's perspectives. I thought the reveal was handled well - I figured it out a little bit before the characters did and that's something I like in a thriller. McCreight set just enough clues for you to see the bigger picture. This was a fun thriller to read on vacation!