Book Club Pick

MomE Club Family- this months book pick is in!

How to Love Your Daughter

by Hila Blum

“What is the harm we’re capable of doing in the name of love? That’s the question at the heart of Hila Blum’s How to Love Your Daughter, which is translated from Hebrew by Daniella Zamir. Centering on the bittersweet ruminations of Yoella, a mother who is estranged from her only child Leah—who left home at 18 and now has two daughters of her own—the novel considers the challenges, joys, and occasional heartbreak of motherhood.”

The seemingly inexplicable estrangement between a woman and her grown daughter opens up a troubling question: What damage do we do in the blindness of love?

Thousands of miles from home, a woman stands on a dark street, peeking through well-lit windows at two little girls. They are the grandchildren she’s never met, daughters of the daughter she has not seen in years.

At the center of this mesmerizing story is the woman’s quest to understand how a relationship that began in bliss—a mother besotted with her only child—arrived at a point of such unfathomable distance. Weaving back and forth in time, she unravels memories and long-buried feelings, retracing the infinite acts of parental care, each so mundane and apparently benign, that in ensemble may have undermined what she most treasured. With exquisite psychological precision, Blum traces the seemingly insignificant missteps and deceptions of family life, where it’s possible to cross the line between protectiveness and possession without even seeing it—and uncertain whether, or how, we can find our way back.

Please join us weekly as we share in discussion of this literature. This pick is a bit different from our normal so I am excited to share in conversation with you, to learn and of course, to grow as a Mother!

See you there!