Mother Daughter Me by Katie Hafner

Mother Daughter Me Reviews

• 
  Erika

  This is one of those books that you have high expectations for...
  And yet, I cannot keep reading, even though I want to.
  I had to put it down and return it to the library because I was getting bored by the author's drama that is not really drama. Really, it is a refusal to see life the way it really is.. And to do something about it. Instead, the author wants to be seen as a saint who can let her mother move back in with her and expect life to be peachy keen. It is not, and the author has no boundaries, just leaving the house and forgetting to tell her daughter she is on a date, for example.
  I am not interested in seeing this play out; there is lots of complaining and self-righteousness, even when her good friends wonder if this is the right thing. Was this the right thing? To write a book about it? If things work out or not, I am not interested enough to stick around and find out. Instead, I just need a break!
• 
  Maile James

  It was well-written, which is the only thing that saved it from being a one star review for me.
  
  I intensely disliked the author and especially Zoe, her rude and obnoxious teenager. I read a review on this very website that said this book would resonate for "educated women." Frankly, this book is not for the educated, it is for the entitled who seem to believe that they are victims of their circumstances and the world owes them something. A very frustrating read.
• 
  Laurie

  I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy of the book through a Good Reads giveaway. The book is a memoir which centers around a summer in the author's life when she attempts to live with both her teenaged daughter and her octogenarian mother. Having a teenaged daughter and senior aged mother myself, I thought the book would appeal to me, but realized after reading it that the book would be a gripping read for anyone.
  
  Katie Hafner is a talented writer with no shortage of experience writing non-fiction. The story is well paced and begins when her mother moves from San Diego to San Francisco to live with she and her teenaged daughter. Frequent flashbacks fill in the back story of Katie's upbringing and her mother's childhood. That's where the story gets really interesting. Katie's parents divorced when she was young, and Katie spent her formative years living with her unpredictable, alcoholic single mother who eventually lost custody of her two daughters. Her mother's childhood was equally fraught with problems and bad parenting. You begin to sympathize with her mother when you learn how she was treated by her parents; basically ignored and then left almost penniless, despite her parents substantial fortune.
  
  The author also describes her courtship and marriage to her husband, and the sad and shocking end to her marriage. The author does a wonderful job of articulating the complicated emotions and thoughts she has about her relationship with her mother throughout the various stages of her life. But Hafner never takes a "woe is me" tone in the book, despite the adversity she has faced.
  
  I found the book fascinating, all the more so because it is true! A great read for anyone.
• 
  Andrea

  I liked this book in the beginning. But the at some point just decided Katie needed to grow up and accept that life is challenging. And lots worse things have happened to others who fought back and worked through. I actually found myself feeling sorry for her mother and the ongoing amount of disrespect she endured from both her daughter and granddaughter.
  
  There was a small amount of resolve in the end but again almost felt that Katie's mother was the bigger person throughout the story. She suffered from the disease of alcoholism, made it out the other side and continues to improve the quality of her life. Really wish I had liked this book more.
• 
  Betsy Robinson

  What Eat Pray Love did for educated women with unhappy love lives who plunge into spiritual abysses, journalist Katie Hafner’s memoir Mother Daughter Me does for rootless educated women with abysmal, possibly alcoholic, mothers. As adults, these women—these daughters of abysmal mothers—can be sandwiched between being mothers themselves and repairing the damage wrought by formerly nightmarish mothers whom they now want to care for.
  
  See my full review at
  http://www.betsyrobinson-writer.com/b...
  
  
  
• 
  Michelle

  Katie Hafner’s MOTHER DAUGHTER ME; a memoir is her poignant recounting of her life as a happy little girl living in Rochester to the present. Her world fell apart when her parents divorced. Her mother was an alcoholic whose daughters were left to fend for themselves, Katie often blaming herself for her mother’s binges. Katie’s life involved many moves, each one with the promise that things would be better, but as a child, not understanding that the problems move with you. Years later while living in San Francisco with her daughter Zoe, Katie’s desire to have a loving relationship with her mother led her to invite her mother to come live with them. Unable to let go of her childhood memories, this turned out to be a disaster for Katie, her mother, and Zoe. What would it take for a loving relationship to emerge from so much bad history?
  Katie Hafner writes with a sprinkle of humor and complete honesty while revealing both the joys and the wounds of her relationship with her mother. MOTHER DAUGHTER ME is a totally engrossing retelling of how a person’s actions, beliefs (whether right or wrong), and memories shape who she becomes, and what it takes to mend the fences built. I highly recommend MOTHER DAUGHTER ME.
  
• 
  Sarah Obsesses over Books & Cookies

  Sometimes i get when people say they hate memoirs or they are so over them and I can understand why. No everyone has a story that you'd sit through 300 plus pages when there are so many other awesome reads out there. But then again there is something to be said about reading a book, remarkable or not, about someone's life.
  I am so curious about other people's lives that i forget to live my own. And then sometimes I read because so much is happening in my life i just want to sit and watch instead of being on the stage.
  anyway, this book was about three generations of women and how they lived for almost a year in the same house. That's an okay premise but the writing and the way the story was told was readable. You find out about the alcoholism, custody issues, feelings of neglect, sudden death and losing a parent, a sister and how to raise a child solo.
  it's about growing older, finding love accepting situations and getting over the past.
  it wasn't a cookie cutter story and it wasn't anything unique. But I think it was worth the time it took to read it and I will happily read more from the author in the future if she publishes again.
• 
  Alaina Sloo

  Mother Daughter Me is an utterly engrossing book: one of those books you can't help staying up half the night to finish, even though you have to go to work in the morning. There were a few times when I found its honesty uncomfortable, but I couldn't help being grateful to these three women for their courage in letting us watch them try to heal their relationships, even when it means pushing aside the safe zones we create when we make excuses for the sake of getting along at least a little bit.
  
  And all families do this, don't they: make excuses for problems and live with them because family should be a synonym for acceptance and support? Acceptance may sometimes be affectionate tolerance, but as often as not in families it's a wall we erect to protect ourselves. And not only with large problems like the alcoholism that affects Katie Hafner's mother and her family: we do it with smaller things, too. We grit our teeth and tolerate Uncle Al's slightly demeaning needling ("Oh, that's just his way of showing affection") and the mother who always has something critical to say about someone. (Not my mother, mind you.) And in its own way, this keeps us apart as much as it keeps us together.
  
  What I most admire about this book -- what kept me rooting for these three women late into the night -- is its hopefulness. Every step of the way, Katie Hafner is hopeful that she and her mother and daughter can build a more positive relationship. And every time it blows up, they come right back and try again, each in her own way trying to find a way to come together. If they can do it, we can to.
• 
  Kelly

  I wasn't wild about this book at first. The author seemed to TELL a lot, in a way that made it hard for me to get drawn into the story. She also interspersed life events with information about coping with alcoholism, divorce, etc. from research studies, therapists, and self-help type books in a way that was initially off-putting. She talks about the distance that she has always kept between her and her life experiences, preferring the role of observer (journalist, etc.) to that of active participant. I think the book sometimes feels a bit distant from the events.
  
  I stuck with it and ended up getting drawn more deeply into the emotional content of the memoir. I didn't dislike the book in the end, but it's a fairly straightforward tale of a very troubled family who make some small steps towards acknowledging the past, setting boundaries, and understanding each other better. It's competently written but doesn't soar.
• 
  Susie

  I enjoy memoirs in general, but more so when the main characters are likable, or at least sympathetic. I found "Mother," "Daughter," and "Me" in this book all to be people I wouldn't really want to know in real life, which is kind of sad. I know that the people in this memoir have all lived through very unpleasant circumstances, so I should cut them some slack. I recommend this book for people who like to read about terrible childhoods (e.g.,
  The Glass Castle), but otherwise I would choose something else.
• 
  Farrah

  I read this book in three days, which I think speaks to how compelling it was. It was a fascinating story and very well-written. I'd probably give it 4.5 stars if Goodreads did half stars; I just had some minor nitpicks (really wanting to know/hear more about her sister and not really liking some specific choices she made in her life which turned me off) but overall this was a really good book.
• 
  Tonya

  As a mother, daughter, an adult child of an alcoholic father, a San Franciscan, this resonated with me in so many ways. While Katie's childhood was challenging to say the least, she wrote a memoir that is funny, honest, and hopeful. I have friends that only read to be distracted, they want happiness in everything. I want the truth. Mother, Daughter, Me is true. Thank you for helping me understand my own dearly departed mother just a little better.
• 
  Carolyn

  Such an intriguing story: three generations of women in one household. I looked forward to reading it and read it till the end, but I can't say I enjoyed it. What would have made a good long essay in the New Yorker was padded to the point of suffocation with excessive detail and cliched sentiment.
• 
  Joyce

  Loved this book!
• 
  DonnaJo Pallini

  The writing was good and engaging. It’s very difficult to critique a memoir because it’s someone’s life. I wanted to give the daughter a good throttle but we all make choices depending on life experiences. All in all I think the three women grew and learned and I was pleasantly surprised at the end.
• 
  Dionne

  This book was just so-so. Alcoholic mother; nothing really unusual there. I was hoping for more character depth and psychological background. The problems that resulted from it did not seem all that dramatic to me. I found it to be a disappointing read.
• 
  Kathy Cowie

  Very mixed feelings about this one. Complicated, sad story. But also, many missed opportunities, and an almost narcissistic lack of judgement.
• 
  Stephen Baker

  Excerpt from my review:
  
  I just finished reading Katie's luminous memoir, Mother, Daughter, Me. She takes us along on a cross-generational adventure: a year in San Francisco with her elderly mother and her daughter. It sounds simple enough, but these relationships are twisted and frayed by a history that Katie manages to relate with a blend of unflinching honesty and humor. Her mother, an alcoholic, had largely neglected her two daughters as she dragged them from coast to another. She lost custody of them when Katie was 10. Katie's teenaged daughter, Zoe, had lost her father to a sudden heart attack when she was 8, and then suffered through her mother's failed rebound marriage to one of her teachers. She and her mother clung to each other like two shipwreck survivors. When Katie's mother arrives, the San Francisco home simmers with jealously, guilt, and regrets. Each one of them threads back to history, some of which Katie discovers as she does research for the book.
  
  It's a wonderful read. What was especially interesting to me was how Katie and, especially, her mother, communicated through signals and indirect language. They even carried on a war over flatware. And Zoe appeared not to perceive it. As Katie tells it, she was used to more straight-forward communcation. I've met Zoe, albeit briefly, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if she picked up all sorts of signals but chose, for her own reasons, to bulldoze through them.
  
  
  
  http://thenumerati.net/?postID=952&am...
• 
  Emily

  I received an early copy of this book for review from Library Thing.
  
  I would give this book 3.5 stars.
  
  Katie Hafner grew up with an alcoholic mother. For a large portion of her childhood, she was removed from her mother's custody. Her memories of her mother are not pleasant. Yet, as an adult, she decides to invite her elderly mother to move into her home with Katie and her teenage daughter Zoe. The resulting "experiment" brings up issues and memories long buried in the past. Katie's story explores the complex relationships between mother's and daughters through multiple generations.
  
  As a mother of two young daughters, I always find books about mothers and daughters to be interesting. Especially as I look to the future and wonder about my relationship will be like with my grown daughters. I enjoyed reading Katie's story about both her mother and her daughter and the relationship between the three of them. While not always pleasant, I felt like this book was a testimony to the enduring relationships between mothers and daughters, overcoming even the most difficult moments of the past.
  
  While this was an enjoyable read, I felt like it was a little too long. There didn't quite seem to be enough content to necessitate the length of the book, and I was a little restless during the last half of the book, being eager to finish and move on to something else.
  
  But I am glad I read this book. Katie's story is worth telling, and her writing is worth reading.
• 
  Sally

  Katie Hafner tells about how she invited her mother Helen to move in with her and her teenage daughter, hoping to help her mother and to build a close relationship with her. Flashbacks from the past quickly make it clear that this is a lovely dream, but unlikely to happen. Their past, littered with fallout from Helen's alcoholism, is constantly complicating the present.
  
  The writing is excellent; the narrative works well in fitting together past and present chunks of time; and I admire Ms. Hafner for her willingness to work at her relationship with her mother. I also admire her honesty about her own mistakes, including marital infidelity. Yet my respect took a huge blow when she told about divorcing her first husband in order to reconnect with her earlier first love. The magic of memoirs: in telling the parts seen as relevant, one can wave a magic wand and dispense with the other bits. For me, this cool bypass made the other relationships seem suspect: so is love something one can turn on and off at will?!
  
  Even so, I suppose that makes the memoir even more meaningful, in her choice to reach out to her mother. This book made me grateful for my own childhood and family, free from such chaos and damage.
  
  
• 
  Trish Feehan

  INTIMATE, MOVING PORTRAYAL OF FAMILY
  
  MOTHER DAUGHTER ME
  
  Hafner has experienced more than her fair share of life’s sorrows, and though at times I was moved to tears, she doesn’t dwell on misery. In this moving and honest account of her attempt to share a home with her troubled mother and teenage daughter, she goes beyond the present day story. Ever the journalist, Hafner delves into her family’s past for important context and insights. She’s painfully honest at times, and doesn’t flinch even when it comes to her own failings, but there’s a sympathetic wisdom here about dysfunctional families that makes her own so relatable. This book is about parents who -- for one reason or another -- cannot give their children what they need. And the children who continue to wish and hope for that elusive nurturing, even into adulthood. Hafner portrays her mother both truthfully and with compassion, as a woman out of her depth, who suffered as well as wounded. The memoir is a coming of age of sorts, of relinquishing the child’s view of a black and white world in favor of one that is nuanced and complex. Well worth the read.
  
• 
  Lori

  *I received this ARC through a First Reads giveaway*
  
  The author holds no punches in the telling of her bitter upbringing by her alcoholic mother. As her mother ages and is left alone in the world, the author seizes the moment to move her mother in with her and her teenage daughter in the hopes of mending their rocky relationship. Unresolved issues and feelings of abandonment make for a stressful living arrangement, and regular trips to family therapy don’t seem to help. A death in the family, along with the mother’s decision to move out, help to put things in perspective and the women slowly begin to take steps in the right direction. This is a story of heartbreak and how sometimes letting go of anger and hate can bring in understanding and welcome friendship and contentment.
  
  Favorite quotes from this read:
  “considering that, all hatred driven hence, the soul recovers radical innocence.” –William Butler Yeats, “A Prayer for My Daughter”
  
  ”I love you more than my arms could ever stretch.” - Author to her daughter (in the acknowledgements)
• 
  Philip Turner

  Here's the last paragraph of a longer review I wrote on Mother Daughter at my blog.
  I recommend Mother Daughter Me to anyone who’s still trying to riddle out truths about their family; to anyone who’s ever argued with a sibling, child or parent; to anyone with an aging parent who ponders future options for them, from living with you to “aging in place,” a term you will encounter here. I will add that like a particular Vaughan Williams symphony that I love–I believe it’s his 6th–this book winds up with a beautifully orchestrated cascade of multiple endings that transit from tragic to reconciled to fulfilled. If you’re like me, your eyes will be very moist as you finish reading Mother Daughter Me. This is a great book.
  
  If a Goodreads friend wants to read the whole piece, #FridayReads, Oct. 4–Katie Hafner’s Exquisite Memoir “Mother Daughter Me” it's at this link:
  http://bit.ly/19qSoaH
• 
  therese

  This book did a very nice job describing the complexities that can arise when you attempt to put three generations under the same roof. Katie Hafner a widow with a teenage daughter decides to invite her mother to come and live with them. It is her fantasy that the plan will work well and something akin to the Waltons will transpire with everyone ending up at the dinner table happily sharing stories about their day. Unfortunately, this fantasy is soon put to rest and the tension that ensued was almost as painful for me the reader as it clearly was for the author. I appreciated the author's honesty in telling the story. She presented a very balanced picture and avoid painting those involved as complete villains or heroes.