Things I Want My Daughters To Know

Things I Want My Daughters To Know
By Elizabeth Noble
Fiction/Drama
Released March 17, 2009
$22.95 or $9.99 Kindle www.amazon.com





Thanks to the women in book club who picked this book! I was hesitant to read this one. It wasn't my normal go-to romance and the premise, "How do you cope in a world without your mother?" seemed downright depressing! I checked it out of the library and gave myself a pep talk, "Sometimes we do it for the team, Ronda! Maybe it will be the best book ever, Ronda! Maybe you can fake it at the meeting and just nod your head in agreement with whatever anyone has to say...."

Sigh. I started in with a mental agreement to myself, that if it was truly horrible, I would stop reading and ban all future book club choices;) Thank goodness, the book was wonderful!

The protagonist (hero or lead) is Barbara, a mother of four daughters, and a woman battling terminal cancer. She decides to write a letter to each daughter  as well as leaving a journal she has kept. The letters and journal become a history; lessons in life, advice for the future and one woman's confessional not just to her children but her husband as well.
Barbara remarried a wonderful, younger man named Mark. He took on the large task of raising Barbara's three daughters as well as their own little girl. Lisa, the oldest, has a fear of commitment. Jennifer, next in line, is extremely uptight. She is stuck in a unhappy and childless marriage and her misery makes her the least likeable character. Amanda, a free spirited, irresponsible sibling. She can't deal with her mother's illness so instead travels abroad for much of her mothers illness. Finally, the youngest, step sister Hanna. She is teenage girl struggling to deal with the loss of her mom at a time in her life when she needs a mom the most.
I completely related with the characters in the novel. I come from a family of many women. Several aunts, two sisters, two daughters, and three nieces. I also have a wonderful stepfather who had to navigate through all these women. From poopie diapers to puberty to marriage.

"Things I Want my Daughters To Know" holds great humor and love. Barbara's family makes me see my family. The struggles of her daughters makes me feel the struggles of my own children. The relationships between the sisters, their failures and successes, all made me think of my own sisters.

I loved that in this book I could see each character not just as the title they were given (mother, daughter, sister ) but the individual story each woman presented. Especially Barbara. It was wonderful to see her not just as the matriarch of the family, not just as a women dying of cancer, but as a woman. All imperfections and love and ugliness, passion,  and secrets,  and parts of her life that had absolutely nothing to do with her kids. And that was important. We all become so absorbed that sometimes we forget there are other lives that exist outside of ours. Events that happen without us. Barbara's journal held secrets that devastated her daughters. Maybe she was cowardly to confess in a journal but it makes you realize that love, while being wonderfully powerful, also motivates us to sometimes make the wrong choices.

If the books would have just been the harrowing goodbyes of mother and daughters, it would have been unbearable.

But this story about death is so full of life with all of it's twists and turns.

I was thrown off a few times by the dialect and lingo of the books (set in Great Britain) but the story is so well written that the distractions were minor.

I look forward to reading more books by Noble and I'm happy that my first book club title was so enjoyable!


Recommend: Yes.

But: It might cause you to shed a few tears, or make a long-distance call to a special woman in your life.


Side note: Shortly after I read this book, I went to a my daughter's school play. My mother met me there and we proudly watched my daughter perform. After the show we walked out to our cars and my mom gave her usual goodbye, "Love you-Bye!" and I replied the same. I thought nothing of it, as my mom and I always end our conversations and visits the same way. A woman came up to me, though, and said, "I heard what you and your mom just said to each other. How lucky you are to be able to say those words ....I wish I could still do that with my mom...."

That pretty much sums up how I feel about this book. I'm so grateful I get to hear my mom's voice and say those words to her.