Mom & Me: Mother’s Day Book & Film Recommendations 

Overview

Mother’s Day is just around the corner, as I am sure everyone is well aware; likely facing near constant bombardment with advertisements promoting “gifts for mom.” For many this is a celebratory time of year, for others (including myself) it can be deeply triggering. 

This blog post will provide book and film recommendations for this holiday, addressing mothers and motherhood from numerous angles. Whether you have a close and loving relationship with your mom or, on the other end of the spectrum, an abusive (or at the very least) conflicted and complicated relationship, you should be able to find something from this list that resonates with you and your own lived experience. 

For those of you who have lost your mothers or maternal figures, this blog post contains material that can speak to your loss and grief. To be completely transparent, I lost my mom very suddenly nearly 11 years ago, and while this post has been difficult to write, it feels like a sort of tribute to her. I hope it can serve the same cathartic purpose for those of you whose mothers are also no longer living, celebrating them both in life and in death.

Recommendations & Booklists 

Mother’s Day Reads (FICTION): 

Cheerful & Uplifting…Mostly!

6 titles (4 avail. at MML)

Before diving deep into one of the feel-good novels mentioned below, you may want to binge watch the hit 2000-2007 TV series, Gilmore Girls, available streaming on Netflix or through Minerva. (MML doesn’t own the series on DVD or bluray, but we can certainly get it for you upon request from another library in the Minerva consortium). Gilmore Girls pairs nicely with this popular novel which was recently released in paperback: One Italian Summer (Rebecca Serle 2022). If you’d rather listen to it on your morning/afternoon commute, I highly recommend the audiobook version, narrated by none other than Lauren Graham, the actress known for playing Lorelai (the mother) in Gilmore Girls. If you’re not sure yet about One Italian Summer, check out this short (under 2-minute) video interview with the author about her book.

NOTE: All book/movie summaries have been extracted from the Minerva catalog records. Most of these blurbs are from the publishers.

• Moyes, Jojo’s One Plus One (2014) – 55 copies in Minerva (MML – yes). Her husband has done a vanishing act, her teenage stepson is being bullied, and her math whiz daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that she can’t afford to pay for. Jess’s shining knight turns out to be Geeky Ed, the obnoxious tech millionaire whose vacation home she happens to clean, and who has problems of his own. Romance

• O’Farrell, Maggie’s The Hand That First Held Mine (2010) – 2 copies in Minerva (MML – yes). Interweaves the stories of two women from different decades as they navigate the changing relationships that come with motherhood and find their lives influenced by art and family secrets. Historical Fiction

• Patterson, Susan Things I Wish I Told My Mother (2023) – 13 copies in Minerva (MML – no). A mother and daughter on vacation in Paris unpack a lifetime of secrets and hopes. Every daughter has her own distinctive voice, her inimitable style, and her secrets. Laurie is an artist, a collector of experiences. She travels the world with a worn beige duffle bag. Every mother has her own distinctive voice, her inimitable style, and her secrets. “Dr. Liz,” Laurie’s mother, is an elegant perfectionist who travels the world with a matched set of suitcases. When Laurie surprises her mother with a dream vacation, it brings an unexpected sparkle to her eyes. Contemporary Domestic Fiction

• Schine, Cathleen’s The Three Weissmanns of Westport (2010) – 32 copies in Minerva (MML – yes). A modern tale inspired by Sense and Sensibility finds financially strapped literary sisters Miranda and Annie moving in with divorcée Betty in a run-down Connecticut beach cottage, where they find love among the suburban aristocracy. Contemporary Domestic Fiction & Beach Read

• Serle, Rebecca’s One Italian Summer (2022) – 43 copies in Minerva (MML – yes). When Katy’s mother dies, she is left reeling. Carol wasn’t just Katy’s mom, but her best friend and first phone call. To make matters worse, the mother- daughter trip of a lifetime looms: two weeks in Positano. But as soon as she steps foot on the beautiful Amalfi Coast, Katy begins to feel her mother’s spirit. And then Carol appears for real–in the flesh, healthy and sun-tanned … and thirty years old. Contemporary Domestic Fiction & Beach Read

• Weiner, Jennifer’s Little Earthquakes (2004) – 27 copies in Minerva (MML – no). A chef, an event planner, and a basketball player’s wife find their marriages and careers in Philadelphia challenged by new motherhood, difficult schedules, and infidelity. Contemporary Domestic Fiction

Mother’s Day Reads (FICTION):

Off-beat & Quirky with a Hint of Darkness

6 titles (2 avail. at MML & 1 more on order)

• Ausabel, Ramona’s The Last Animal (2023) – 12 copies in Minerva (MML – not yet, but ordered on May 10th). Jane is a serious scientist on the cutting-edge team of a project looking to “de-extinct” the wooly mammoth. She’s privileged to have been sent to Siberia to hunt for ancient DNA, but there’s a catch: Jane’s two “tagalong” teen daughters are there with her in the Arctic, and they’re bored enough to cause trouble. When Jane’s daughters stumble upon a 4,000-year-old baby mammoth that has been perfectly preserved, their discovery sets off a chain of events that pit Jane against her colleagues. Literary Fiction

• Hogarth, Ainslie’s Motherthing (2022) – 6 copies in Minerva (MML – yes). A darkly funny domestic horror novel about a woman who must take drastic measures to save her husband and herself from the vengeful ghost of her mother-in-law.” Horror/Thriller & Suspense & Humorous Fiction

• Oshetsky, Claire’s Chouette (2021) – 10 copies in Minerva (MML – no). Tiny is pregnant. Her husband is delighted. “You think this baby is going to be like you, but it’s not like you at all,” she warns him. “This baby is an owl-baby.” When Chouette is born small and broken-winged, Tiny works around the clock to meet her daughter’s needs. Left on her own to care for a child who seems more predatory bird than baby, Tiny vows to raise Chouette to be her authentic self. Even in those times when Chouette’s behaviors grow violent and strange, Tiny’s loving commitment to her daughter is unwavering. Literary Fiction

• Semple, Maria’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette? (2012) – 36 copies in Minerva (MML – yes). See also the 2019 film adaptation available at MML & starring Cate Blanchett, among others. (See the trailer!) When her notorious, hilarious, volatile, talented, troubled, and agoraphobic mother goes missing, teenage Bee begins a trip that takes her to the ends of the earth to find her. Contemporary Domestic Fiction & Humorous Fiction

• Stivers, Carole’s The Mother Code (2020) – 8 copies in Minerva (MML – no). It is 2049. When a U.S. attempt at stealth biowarfare goes awry, a team of scientists is engaged to ensure human survival on earth. Their best efforts fail, and they must turn to their last resort: a plan to place genetically engineered children inside the cocoons of large-scale robots–to be incubated, birthed, and raised by these machines, which have been programmed with the latest advances in artificial intelligence: the Mother Code. Kai is born in America’s desert Southwest, his only companion is his robotic Mother, Rho-Z. Equipped with the knowledge and intuition of a human mother, Rho-Z raises Kai and teaches him how to survive. As children like him come of age, their Mothers transform too–in ways that were never predicted. When government survivors decide that the machines who raised the children must be destroyed, Kai must fight to save the only parent he has ever known. Science Fiction

• Yoder, Rachel’s Nightbitch (2021) – 14 copies in Minerva (MML – no). An artist turned stay-at-home mom becomes convinced that she is turning into a dog and, as her symptoms intensify, struggles to keep her alter-canine-identity a secret, until she meets a group of mothers who may also be more than what they seem. Contemporary Domestic Fiction & Humorous Fiction (Satire)

Mother’s Day Reads (FICTION): 

Heavier & Potentially Triggering (Addressing Challenging Issues around Motherhood)

6 titles (5  avail. at MML, 1 more on order)

• Chan, Jessamine’s The School for Good Mothers (2022) – 40 copies in Minerva (MML – no, but replacement copy on order). Frida Liu, a 39-year-old Chinese-American single mother in Philadelphia, loses custody of her 18-month-old daughter, Harriet. To regain custody, Frida must spend a year at a newly-created institution, where she practices parenting with bad mothers from all over the county. There, she learns to love an uncannily life-like toddler girl doll in order to demonstrate her maternal instincts and prove to her family court judge that she deserves a second chance. Literary Fiction, Science Fiction & Humorous Fiction (Satire)

• Dave, Laura’s The Last Thing He Told Me (2021) – 71 copies in Minerva (MML – yes). When her husband of a year disappears, Hannah quickly learns he is not who he said he was and is left to sort out the truth with just one ally- her husband’s teenage daughter, who hates her. Horror/Thriller & Suspense

• Donahue, Emma’s Room (2010) – 44 copies in Minerva (MML – yes). See also the 2016 film adaptation (MML doesn’t own a copy, but 31 other libraries in Minerva do). See, also, the trailer. Narrator Jack and his mother, who was kidnapped seven years earlier when she was a 19-year-old college student, live in a tiny, 11-foot-square shed in the kidnapper’s yard. But Ma, as Jack calls her, proves to be resilient and resourceful–and attempts a nail-biting escape. Contemporary Domestic Fiction

• Morrison, Toni’s Beloved (2004) – 12 copies in Minerva (2004 ed.) (MML – yes, several copies) & 29 copies (MML – no) (1987 first ed.)  ***This is a Readers’ Circle Spring 2023 title*** Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio with her daughter and mother-in-law, is persistently haunted by the ghost of her dead baby girl. Literary Fiction & Historical Fiction

• Shearer, Eleanor’s River, Sing Me Home (2023) – 15 copies in Minerva (MML – yes). A redemptive story of a mother’s gripping journey across the Caribbean to find her stolen children in the aftermath of slavery. Literary Fiction & Historical Fiction

• Strout, Elizabeth’s Amy and Isabelle (1998) – 42 copies in Minerva (MML – yes). Elizabeth Strout evokes a teenager’s alienation from her distant mother-and a parent’s rage at the discovery of her daughter’s sexual secrets. In most ways, Isabelle and Amy are like any mother and her 16-year-old daughter, a fierce mix of love and loathing exchanged in their every glance. That they eat, sleep, and work side by side in the gossip-ridden mill town of Shirley Falls only increases the tension. Literary Fiction, Contemporary Domestic Fiction & Local Author

Mother’s Day Reads (NON-FICTION & MEMOIR): 

Purely Informative (But May be Triggering)

6 titles (4 available at MML)

• Boylan, Jennifer Finney’s Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders (2013) – 17 copies in Minerva (MML – no). Filled with incredibly insightful interviews that examine the relationships with fathers and mothers, this extraordinary memoir about gender and parenting follows the author as she transitioned from a man to a woman and from a father to a mother.

• Grose, Jessica’s Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood (2022) – 20 copies in Minerva (MML – yes). New York Times opinion writer Jessica Grose dismantles two hundred years of unrealistic parenting expectations and empowers today’s mothers to make choices that actually serve themselves, their children, and their communities.

• Imig, Ann’s, ed. Listen to Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now (2015) – 4 copies in Minerva (MML – no). A collection of personal stories celebrating motherhood, featuring #1 New York Times bestselling authors Jenny Lawson and Jennifer Weiner, and many other notable writers. Listen to Your Mother is a fantastic awakening of why our mothers are important, taking readers on a journey through motherhood in all of its complexity, diversity, and humor. Based on the sensational national performance movement, Listen to Your Mother showcases the experiences of ordinary people of all racial, gender, and age backgrounds, from every corner of the country.

• Klein, Jessi’s I’ll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife & Motherhood (2022) – 16 copies in Minerva (MML – yes). The best-selling author and Emmy Award-winning writer and producer hilariously destroys the cultural myths and impossible expectations of modern-day motherhood and explores the humiliations, poignancies, and possibilities of midlife.

• McCurdy, Jennette’s I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022) – 50 copies in Minerva (MML – yes). The iCarly and Sam & Cat star, after her controlling mother dies, gets the help she needs to overcome eating disorders, addiction and unhealthy relationships—and finally decides what she really wants for the first time in her life.

• Strayed, Cheryl’s Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (2012) – 51 copies in Minerva (MML – yes).See also the 2014 film adaptation featuring Reese Witherspoon as Strayed. See trailer. Wild traces the personal crisis the author endured after the death of her mother and a painful divorce, which prompted her ambition to undertake a dangerous 1,100-mile solo hike that both drove her to rock bottom and helped her to heal.

Mother’s Day Watches (MOVIES/TV SERIES)

*** (if referenced above in book form)

Movies

8 titles (4 available at MML)

• Bad Moms (2016) – available at MML (trailer). Three over-stressed moms go on a binge of self-indulgence in an effort to free themselves from their daily responsibilities. Comedy

• Life of the Party (2018) (trailer). When her husband suddenly dumps her, longtime dedicated housewife Deanna turns regret into reset by going back to college, landing in the same class and school as her daughter, who’s not entirely sold on the idea. Plunging headlong into the campus experience, the increasingly outspoken Deanna, now Dee Rock, embraces freedom, fun and frat boys on her own terms, finding her true self in a senior year no one ever expected. Comedy

• Little Women (1994) & Little Women (2020) – the 2020 version avail. at MML (trailer – 1994 version & trailer – 2020 version). Story about the March family of four daughters and a strong mother (Sarandon – in the 1994 version) who, because her husband is away serving in the Army during the Civil War, must raise her “little women” on her own. Through the years, as they become women, the sisters share their most cherished and painful moments of self-discovery as their mother’s pride and strength guide them through questions of independence, romance and virtue. Based on the 1868-1869 serialized novel by Louisa May Alcott. Historical Drama

• Mother’s Day (2016) (trailer). This celebration of mothers everywhere invites all to enjoy the laughter, tears and love as three generations come together in the week leading up to Mother’s Day. Romantic Comedy

• Room (2016) *** (trailer). After five-year old Jack and his Mom escape from the enclosed environment that Jack has known his entire life, the boy makes a miraculous discovery: the outside world. Drama

• Stepmom (1998) (trailer). Anna and Ben, the two children of Jackie and Luke, have to cope with the fact that their parents divorced and that there is a new woman in their father’s life: Isabel, a successful photographer. She does her best to treat the kids in a way that makes them still feel at home when being with their dad, but also loves her work and does not plan to give it up. But Jackie, a full-time-mother, regards Isabel’s efforts as offensively insufficient. She can’t understand that work can be important to her as well as the kids. The conflict between them is deepened by the sudden diagnosis of cancer, which might be deadly for Jackie. They all have to learn a little in order to grow together. Drama

• Where’d You Go, Bernadette? (2019) *** – available at MML (trailer). Bernadette Fox, a loving mom, becomes compelled to reconnect with her creative passions after years of sacrificing herself for her family. Bernadette’s leap of faith takes her on an epic adventure that jump-starts her life and leads to her triumphant rediscovery. Comedy/Drama

• Wild (2014) ***  – available at MML (trailer). After years of reckless behavior, a heroin addiction, and the destruction of her marriage, Cheryl Strayed makes a rash decision. Haunted by memories of her mother Bobbi and with absolutely no experience, she sets out to hike more than a thousand miles on the Pacific Crest Trail all on her own. Drama

TV Series

2 titles (neither available at MML, but 1 available through Minerva)

• Gilmore Girls (season 1, 2000) (season 1 trailer). Lorelai and Rory are a mother and daughter who are sharing life’s ups and downs in a small town in Connecticut. This heartfelt, humorous drama appeals to young and old alike with its blend of traditional family issues and hip attitude. Comedy/Drama

• Workin’ Moms (season 1, 2017) *a Netflix original series, only available streaming on Netflix* (season 1 trailer). Warm, loyal PR executive Kate and her longtime friend, no-nonsense psychiatrist Anne, attend a judgmental mommies’ group, where they meet timid IT tech Jenny and blindly optimistic real estate agent Frankie. The four quickly form an unlikely friendship, sharing struggles of urban motherhood filled with the chaos of toddlers, tantrums, careers, and identity crises, all while trying to achieve the holy grail: a sense of self. The ensemble comedy is largely drawn from the personal experiences of star/co-creator Catherine Reitman (“Blackish,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”). Comedy/Drama

In Conclusion

While substantial, the book recommendations listed above are not, by any means, comprehensive. For MORE suggestions (watch out for potential overlap), see the following links:

• 100 Must-Read Books About Mothers and Motherhood (source – Book Riot)
• For Mother’s Day, 10 Books That Celebrate Every Part of Motherhood (source – NPR)
• 12 Novels That Celebrate the Joys and Challenges of Motherhood (source – Off the Shelf) 
• 10 Fiction Books About Motherhood That Will Make You Feel Seen (source – She Does the City)

Finally, keep your eye out for this queer novella about motherhood by a Catalan author, Eva Baltasar’s Boulder. (If you aren’t sure what Catalan means, think of Barcelona in Northern Spain. Catalan is a regional identity and culture). This book has been shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize (learn more here). As of now only 2 libraries in Minerva have it on order, likely with more to come. This year, there’s a second book about “ambivalent motherhood” that’s been shortlisted for the Booker Prize (learn more here): Guadalupe Nettel’s Still Born. Currently it is not held by any libraries in the Minerva consortium, but stay tuned, as this is likely to change as soon as the book is published this coming August! (In the meantime, consider reading Nettel’s 2018 novel in translation, After the Winter, which is available here at MML).

Enjoy your Mother’s Day reads and/or watches. If you want more suggestions, don’t hesitate to reach out to me, Courtney Kleftis, the Adult Services Librarian at ckleftis@yarmouthlibrary.org. Perhaps these books and films will give you a fresh perspective on motherhood, whether or not you yourself are (or plan to be) a mother.