Book Review: Mother, Mother by Koren Zailckas

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Synopsis:

Meet Violet Hurst – sixteen years old, beautiful and brilliant. So why is she being accused of being a danger to herself and others?

Meet her brother Will – the smartest and sweetest twelve-year-old boy around. But does he really need all that medication he is being told to take?

Meet oldest sister Rose – the one who got away. She disappeared one night in her final year of school, never to be heard from again.

And then meet their mother – Josephine. Perhaps it will then all start to make sense.

Mother, Mother is an electrifying debut novel about a mother’s love gone too far.

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My Review:

I’m a bit of a sucker for family crisis stories and this was one of them.

Mother, Mother follows a family in crisis. Josephine is the mother, and is a manipulative narcissist, specialising in keeping her brood on their toes and making them question themselves.

Her children, Rose, Will and Violet are trying to survive her. Rose, managed to escape from the family and away from her mother’s clutches. Violet dabbles in fasting, takes psychedelics and gets committed when she begins to question Josephine. Will is homeschooled and firmly in his mother’s grip. The father might as well not be there, he’s a bystander who doesn’t stand up to his wife for the sake of his children.

The book had me hooked from the beginning, each character had their own story to tell, and I wanted to know them all. So why only three stars? The story was just missing something to really push it over the edge and to four stars for me.

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