Traveling With T’s Thoughts:

OMG. I have adored Kimberly McCreight since I read Reconstructing Amelia years ago (and then met in an awkward way at a Book Expo party- I was turning from the bar, she was coming to the bar and I think I shrieked a bit and may have danced a happy dance- but she was completely gracious)

So, back to Like Mother, Like Daughter. Can I say just how much I LOVED Kat? She was a fixer. She got shit done. I LOVED it.

Her daughter, Cleo, I think needed a major attitude adjustment and to learn some respect; but by the end of the book she seemed to have gotten what she needed.



What I liked:

This cover. It’s a perfect fit for the book. For the atmosphere of the book!

Kat. I have already spoken about my mad love for this character, but it bears repeating again. She took the shards of her young life and built herself into something strong. Loved her.

How Cleo evolved in the book. She began to see why her mom did things the way she did and have some respect and understanding. I like growth in a character!

Bottom line: This book was def a good book to read! It kept me on the edge of my seat!



*This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration. All thoughts and opinions are alon

"𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒅𝒊𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒅. 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒖𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒄𝒕, 𝒖𝒏𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒚, 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒌!𝒍𝒍"

Special thanks to @kimberltmccreight @knopfpublishing and @netgalley for the #gifted eARC.

➡️ swipe for synopsis 👉🏼

𝙈𝙔 𝙍𝙀𝙑𝙄𝙀𝙒:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is my first @kimberlymccreight and I loved it!
I'm instantly sucked into the mom / daughter dynamic. Their current life woes and issues they are "working" through.
I love the bread crumbs mingled inbetween each chapter. Makes me feel more invested like I'm actually in the story
However this is a slow burn 🔥 , but it had me zooming through it. It also has dual POVs and alternating timelines which I ALWAYS love!

𝙋𝙐𝘽 𝘿𝘼𝙔:
July 30, 2024


ℚ𝕆𝕋𝔻❓️⁉️❓️ How did you get your name? Is it after someone in the family, an actress and book?

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#mysteryandthrills #thrillersandsuspense #thrillerfriendsunite #thrillerlover #thrilleraddict #thrillerjunkie #thrillergirlie #bookbuzz #kimberlymccreight #netgalley #likemotherlikedaughter
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Thank you to NetGalley for a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

The plot is attractive. A mother and a daughter have a tense and complicated relationship. The mother goes missing. The daughter, in her attempt to find and save her mother, discovers things about her that help her to understand her mother more and helps to mend the strained relationship.

The execution of the plot was hard to follow. It feels like in an attempt to bury the lede on who is responsible, the author paints a really wide and confusing net. She introduces multiple characters and plots while also incorporating multiple media types to tell the story. It all felt a bit much.

The descriptions she uses to get her point across about the image of the person uses stereotypes rather than simple and direct descriptions. Each time a character was described, I braced for the cringe and ickiness.

The pacing felt off to me. So much exploring side plots to distract or lead the reader only to rush the end. The epilogue, while a summary of some details, left me feeling like I read so much of a story to be rushed in wrapping it up and a way that didn’t match the first 90% of the book, which was quite slow in my opinion.

The casual grazing over the child sexual abuse and characters’ flippancy about it didn’t sit well with me.

Like Mother, Like Daughter
By Kimberly McCreight
Review and Rating 4 ⭐️

I really liked this one! It’s a slow burn thriller with great twists and turns.
Cleo, an NYU college student, arrives home in Brooklyn to find her mother missing. It looks like she left in a hurry and possibly not of her own free will, she left behind burning food in the oven and a bloody shoe under the couch. Cleo must race to uncover her mother’s secret life.
I loved the dual timelines and alternating POVs. I also really loved the messy mother daughter relationship. 3.5 ⭐️ rounded up to 4 ⭐️!
Thanks the author, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, and #Netgalley for the eARC. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight is a cleverly plotted thriller that keeps you guessing until the end.

“I did what I do best: I made the problem go away.”


I’d been putting this one off for no apparent reason and I finally pushed myself to read it and I’m glad I did!

This was a good thriller, but would have been better with less swearing. I definitely figured out aspects of it but not everything. McCreight did a good job of putting out new evidence or suspects to think about that make you forget about your previous theories. There were a couple surprises!

This is one of those books that has a lot of elements in the writing to present different angles of the conflict where it could feel a bit jumbled.

My opinion of the book largely weighed on how the ending would go— can all these things work together? If the ending would have been unsatisfactory all of those extra elements would have felt distracting and cumbersome, but since I thought the ending went really well, those elements were pulled together in a way that made sense.



I agree with another reviewer that it would be better not to read the full Goodreads summary before reading the book. So here’s the basic plot:

Cleo, a college student, arrives home to find food burning in the oven, blood on the floor, and her mother missing without a trace. The pair had become estranged as Cleo felt her mom, Katrina— who was a corporate lawyer and ‘fixer’, was overbearing and controlling. As Cleo unravels the puzzle of her mother’s life and past, she realizes there was a reason for her mother’s ‘madness.’

“I never saw my mom as a full person separate from me. And now that she’s a person who’s missing, I may never have the chance.”

The book contains ‘present’ chapters from Cleo’s POV— titled by the number of hours her mom had been missing, ‘past’ chapters from Katrina’s POV— titled by the number of days before she disappeared, excerpts from court documents from a case her mother was working, text conversations between a couple unknown people, excerpts from therapy sessions Cleo went to, diary entries from Katrina’s childhood, and a few newspaper and Reddit articles.


The main characters aren’t particularly likeable, but McCreight puts a lot of effort into drawing you in and becoming invested in their story because of their strained relationship. You feel the burden of a mother trying to connect with her daughter, doing everything she can to help her daughter and wanting what’s best for her. You also feel Cleo’s teenage (aka ignorant) resistance to that control and her gradual realization that her mother does care for her and her flaws come from a place of pain that she didn’t know about.

You see where things went wrong and you really want Cleo to find her mom alive so they can become reconciled. As a mom, it’s one of my fears that my kids will grow up and make bad choices or not want to be around me or care what I think about anything so I tended to feel more empathy for Katrina.

I just don’t understand the whole ‘I don’t like how my mom treats me so I’m going to go do the worst things and deal drugs just to piss her off’ kind of thing. Why is this a good idea?! And if you know it’s not, why don’t you care?!

I was glad to see that Cleo wasn’t so stubborn that she would be completely oblivious to the truths she discovered. And even though she made a few questionable choices in her investigation, I’m glad she wasn’t so stupid as to completely leave the police out of everything.

“I try not to squirm under the weight of her stare, knowing I need to come clean. It’s not too late to start telling the actual truth for once in my whole stupid life.”



The title insinuates that the mother and daughter are the same in some way. Their differences are made clear from the start:

Katrina: “I was excellent at doing. I wasn’t so good at feeling.”

Cleo: “I love messy things. I am a messy thing. Messy and confused and irrational and overemotional. But at least I feel things. I feel everything.”

But as the story continues you realize they have some things in common.



This might be a bit of a spoiler: (view spoiler)


Last thing- unless I missed something, I would like to know how the money squabble ended. Did she ever get her money back? That probably should have been included in the Epilogue…



Recommendation

I did enjoy this thriller a lot and read it pretty quickly. Because of all the swearing, I’m not sure if I will read more of hers, but for some reason the swearing didn’t feel as jarring in this context as it has in others. I’m not sure why, but that’s just my initial reflection after reading it.

I always enjoy a thriller that I can’t completely figure out, at least right away.

If you can handle the swearing, I would definitely recommend. If you try to avoid swearing, then this may not be the right book for you, but I’ll let you decide. I’ve definitely read books worse than this in that department but everyone has their own convictions.




[Content Advisory: 65 f-words, 41 s-words, 8 b-words; rape; talk of an affair; a couple very brief sex scenes]

**Received an ARC via NetGalley**

I was really excited about this plot and this author! I knew I'd liked her work and wanted to read another. This mystery gradually unfolds as both mother and daughter's stories were revealed. I just found the first portion incredibly slow despite her disappearance.
I don't think this was a disappointing read like some reviewers have suggested. This was fast-paced, full of twists, compassionate characters, and had a stealthy plot! I certainly suggest this read!

Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight is an intricately plotted thriller that keeps you guessing until the end. Packed with secrets, twists, and emotional depth, it’s a gripping story of family and betrayal.

*3.5
I love a book based of a complicated mother and daughter relationship, being that i have been there myself. This book was good and had me guessing the whole time. Would definitely recommend.

This book was pretty slow and boring to me. It was a standard revenge story that took a daughter down the path of her mother's past to understand why her mom disappeared. Nothing really to grab my attention and want to finish the book in one sitting.

Thank you to NetGalley, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, and author Kimberly McCreight for this gifted copy in exchange for a honest review.

Like Mother, Like Daughter has all the elements of a classic thriller: two POVs, dual timelines, nefarious characters, and plenty of twists. What sets it apart from other books is the exploration of the relationship between the mother, Kat, and the daughter, Cleo. As each of them gets closer to solving the mysterious events around them, the estranged mother and daughter recall moments of closeness during Cleo’s childhood and what tore them apart in her adolescence and come to an understanding of each other’s motivations.

While I guessed the identity of one of the characters, that didn’t prevent me from enjoying the ending. I loved the setting: Park Slope, NYU, Central Park, shops and restaurants in Manhattan and Brooklyn - I’ll read pretty much anything set in NYC!

Like Mother, Like Daughter explores heavy topics like growing up in foster care, drug and alcohol use, sexual assault murder, and infidelity, so tread lightly.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Cleo a student at NYU comes home late for dinner to find food burning in the oven and her lawyer mother missing along with a bloody shoe under the sofa. Turns out mom isn't just a lawyer but a high firm fixer. The story is told in alternating POV's of mother/daughter from 8 days prior to current day. Another one that was a bit over the top but one I flew through. A fun thrilling ride and hit that psychological suspense spot where I just want to be entertained and not think too much about what I am reading.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! No spoilers. Beyond amazing I enjoyed this book so very much. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Could not put down nor did I want to. Truly Amazing and appreciated the whole story. This is going to be a must read for many many readers. Maybe even a book club pick.

This is the first book I’ve read by this author, and I like how she writes. The slow reveal of little nuggets of information here and there, the focus on the mother/daughter relationship and all its complexities, and the spotlight on several characters who could have been the villain hit the right notes for me. This story reads quickly and has lots of twists and turns. A mother trying to protect her daughter and a daughter trying to find her mother, neither of them knowing who they can trust. What’s not to like? I thought some things would merge together more than they did, but maybe that would have been much too unbelievable. Some of the people who turned out to be rock solid surprised me! However, not all of the primary characters in this book are easy to sympathize with, so that kept me at a little bit of a distance emotionally. Even so, there was enough of a sense of urgency that I was invested and was excited to keepturning the pages. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital copy to review.

Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read an early copy of this book. I love the author, but was a bit disappointed in this story. I struggled to get into it and I struggled to connect to the characters.

This was a great read really liked the mother main character. Wasn’t expecting so many twists at the end but they kept coming. Would recommend

This was a good read a little different than I had expected. It's a good missing person thriller but the ending left me a little underwhelmed. Overall an average read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the E-ARC.

All thoughts and opinions are honest and my own.

Like Mother, Like Daughter is a gripping, emotional read about family secrets and the bond between mothers and daughters. The twists kept me hooked, and the characters felt real and relatable. I would recommend checking it out!

I liked it, especially when things finally started coming together toward the end. Multiple POV’s, multiple timelines, and a lot of redirecting meant it took me a while to get my bearings. I had a suspicion about halfway thru that ended up being correct! The characters were not easy to like, they were all fairly unbearable actually. But I was kept entertained thru a particularly busy workweek, which worked well for me.

This was a good little thriller- quite unique and suspenseful. I liked the complex mother-daughter relationship at the center of the story and was invested throughout.

Love the cover, too! Thanks for the digital copy in exchange for an honest reivew!