Blue Archipelago

Things I Want My Daughters to Know

Rating

5 stars - a poignant tale of a family learning to survive without their mother

Things I Want My Daughters to Know is about…

A woman who says goodbye to her daughters through a series of letters and a journal in which she expresses her hopes and dreams for their futures and confesses secrets she couldn’t voice in life.

I’d read great things about this book and was patiently waiting for it to be released in paperback. When it finally appeared on the shelf I snapped it up; and was not disappointed.

The novel opens with a letter from Barbara to her daughters, written while she was dying from cancer. The letter gives instructions for her funeral, and it is that even that we are first introduced to the four sisters. Fifteen year old Hannah who faces her adult life without her mother. Twenty three year old Amanda, who avoided her mother’s illness by escaping abroad. Jennifer, the serious and grown up sister who finds herself in an unhappy marriage and Lisa, the oldest sister and a commitment-phobe.

The novel tells the story of each of the sisters and their step-father Mark in the 12 months following the death of their mother as they all seek to continue their lives without her. Tales of love and lies, secrets and betrayal are interwoven with letters from Barbara, and a journal that she wrote to share details of their history and her love for them. The words of their mother touch the girls in different ways as they make their own journeys through life.

This book is both heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time as it covers the sister’s reaction to their mother’s death, and the resulting bond that ties them together much tighter than before.

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