Rating: 4 / 5
JUST LIKE MOTHER by Anne Heltzel follows Maeve, a young woman who was raised in a cult, but managed to escape. Maeve hasn’t seen her family since that time. She has built a new life for herself in New York, striving for normalcy and working to get past her upbringing. When she suddenly reunites with her cousin Andrea, things in her world are upended.
Instead of a life of keeping herself at arms length from those around her, Maeve finds herself drawn into Andrea’s world. With Andrea comes ideas of motherhood, work in the fertility industry, and friends and family who feel the same way she does. This all goes against everything Maeve has been striving for as it brings up memories she’s long tried to bury.
Trigger warnings for issues of pregnancy, fertility, motherhood, etc.
This was a very engaging read from the beginning and I was instantly intrigued by Maeve’s story as is often the case with cult type stories. Being inside Maeve’s head was an interesting place to be as we slowly learned more about her past with the way she was raised and also had reveals coming up about things happening in the present. Things get wild fairly quickly!
I did predict a lot of the twists and turns to this one, but that didn’t take away from my interest and I wound up flying through this in about a day! I definitely will look to read more from Anne Heltzel in the future!
DG Reads 