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You Won't Get Free of It: Stories of Mothers and Daughters
A collection of reported stories that explore the relationship between mothers and daughters by the award-winning author of Strangers to Ourselves.
You Won't Get Free of It tells the stories of mothers and daughters searching for each other (and for themselves), of bonds broken and renewed. With uncanny depth of perception, Aviv explores the complexity of this relationship in six essays, five originally published in The New Yorker and reconceived for this intimate, revelatory book. “I wrote some of these stories feeling, existentially, like a daughter, and now I have returned to them with a different identification,” Aviv writes. “It was as if I had failed to see the drama that was on the mother’s side, too—her particular longings and humiliations and needs.”
Aviv renders one mother searching for her vanished daughter; another who sacrifices herself for her daughters by working as a nanny for other people’s children. In the final story, about the writer Alice Munro’s family, a daughter’s abuse is erased by her family, only to be recast by her mother in stories celebrated around the world. You Won't Get Free of It is an astonishing exploration of the competing dynamics of knowing and unknowing, recognition and refusal, that shape this foundational relationship. Illuminating ineffable registers of human experience, Aviv asks piercing questions about how disowned knowledge can form and deform a family and a life.
You Won't Get Free of It tells the stories of mothers and daughters searching for each other (and for themselves), of bonds broken and renewed. With uncanny depth of perception, Aviv explores the complexity of this relationship in six essays, five originally published in The New Yorker and reconceived for this intimate, revelatory book. “I wrote some of these stories feeling, existentially, like a daughter, and now I have returned to them with a different identification,” Aviv writes. “It was as if I had failed to see the drama that was on the mother’s side, too—her particular longings and humiliations and needs.”
Aviv renders one mother searching for her vanished daughter; another who sacrifices herself for her daughters by working as a nanny for other people’s children. In the final story, about the writer Alice Munro’s family, a daughter’s abuse is erased by her family, only to be recast by her mother in stories celebrated around the world. You Won't Get Free of It is an astonishing exploration of the competing dynamics of knowing and unknowing, recognition and refusal, that shape this foundational relationship. Illuminating ineffable registers of human experience, Aviv asks piercing questions about how disowned knowledge can form and deform a family and a life.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published July 7, 2026
About the author
Rachel Aviv
9 books373 followersRachel Aviv joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2013. She has written for the magazine about a range of subjects including medical ethics, criminal justice, education, and homelessness. She was a finalist for the 2018 National Magazine Award for Public Interest for “The Takeover,” a story about elderly people being stripped of their legal rights, and she won the 2015 Scripps Howard Award for “Your Son Is Deceased,” a story on police shootings in Albuquerque. Her writing on mental health was awarded a Rosalynn Carter Fellowship, an Erikson Institute Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media, and an American Psychoanalytic Association Award for Excellence in Journalism. She has taught courses in narrative medicine at Columbia University Medical Center and the City College of New York. In 2010, she received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. She was a 2019 national fellow at New America.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 171 reviews
July 2, 2026
is there anything more interesting than mothers and daughters
(thanks to the publisher for the copy)
(review to come)
(thanks to the publisher for the copy)
(review to come)
June 23, 2026
4.5 stars.
I tore through this. seven essays, all circling mothers and daughters, though I'd say it's really about how behaviors in mothers and daughters stem from and shape one another.
I really loved the range of topics and dynamics explored: one essay follows a young teacher who experiences recurring fugue states, in which she disappears for long stretches and loses her sense of self, and her mother's efforts to find her. another is about a female psychologist who studies the malleability of memory and at times uses that work to "help" (though she wouldn't call it that) in court cases like Harvey Weinstein's, and the ways her own relationship with her mother may have shaped her life and her work.
my favorite was the final, titular essay, which discusses acclaimed short story writer Alice Munro's relationships with her daughters after her youngest daughter's abuse is overlooked and essentially recast, causing lifelong ramifications in their relationships and family dynamics. it was frustrating and fascinating both, particularly as Aviv drew insight from the thematic parallels running through Munro's own stories.
overall, this collection was fascinating, thought-provoking, reflective, and beautifully explored and written. Aviv combines in-depth research and interviews with brilliant writing and narrative flow (although I suppose that's to be expected, since these originally ran in the New Yorker!) — a very worthwhile (and under 200 pages!) read.
this is out July 7, thank you Knopf and NetGalley for the eARC! :)
I tore through this. seven essays, all circling mothers and daughters, though I'd say it's really about how behaviors in mothers and daughters stem from and shape one another.
I really loved the range of topics and dynamics explored: one essay follows a young teacher who experiences recurring fugue states, in which she disappears for long stretches and loses her sense of self, and her mother's efforts to find her. another is about a female psychologist who studies the malleability of memory and at times uses that work to "help" (though she wouldn't call it that) in court cases like Harvey Weinstein's, and the ways her own relationship with her mother may have shaped her life and her work.
my favorite was the final, titular essay, which discusses acclaimed short story writer Alice Munro's relationships with her daughters after her youngest daughter's abuse is overlooked and essentially recast, causing lifelong ramifications in their relationships and family dynamics. it was frustrating and fascinating both, particularly as Aviv drew insight from the thematic parallels running through Munro's own stories.
overall, this collection was fascinating, thought-provoking, reflective, and beautifully explored and written. Aviv combines in-depth research and interviews with brilliant writing and narrative flow (although I suppose that's to be expected, since these originally ran in the New Yorker!) — a very worthwhile (and under 200 pages!) read.
this is out July 7, thank you Knopf and NetGalley for the eARC! :)
August 16, 2026
I picked this up after loving Aviv’s Strangers to Ourselves, about how people process and live with mental illness. The six pieces in this book (all previously published in the New Yorker) are equally strong, though they form less of a coherent whole. Despite nominally being about mothers and daughters, only the final, longest essay—about Alice Munro and her daughters—really has those relationships as its primary subject. Four of the six are primarily about the weirdness of the human brain and how this shapes people’s lives, which I suspect is the subject that interests the author most. The fifth is about Filipina immigrants employed in home health care and as domestic workers. All the subjects are women, who of course have mothers and sometimes daughters, but the collection doesn’t strike me as having anything in particular to say about that.
That said, they’re fascinating pieces. “I Wish I Were Her for You” focuses on a young teacher who repeatedly experiences fugue states and vanishes around the beginning of the school year, and how little-understood this rare phenomenon is. This is, however, the piece where a mothers-and-daughters focus seems most misplaced: while Hannah Upp was closer to her mother, who seems far more affected by her disappearances, I suspect it was her father who pushed her over the edge—she was a sensitive, loving person and also queer, he was a relentlessly homophobic missionary, and she spent her summers accompanying him on whirlwind preaching expeditions.
Meanwhile, “Removable Truths” is about a psychologist who studies the way we edit our own memories. “God Knows Where I Am” is a disturbing story of a woman who couldn’t access help without defining herself as mentally ill, which she refused to do. And “Second Life” is especially fascinating, about a woman stuck in psychosis for years, until she developed cancer—and the treatment cured not only her cancer but also her psychosis! This is where our limited understanding of the mind and tendency to diagnose symptoms as illnesses really steers us wrong: a significant minority of people with schizophrenia-like symptoms actually have autoimmune conditions or inflammation affecting the brain. This woman made a full recovery, albeit with a tendency to edit her memories of the time to present her actions as rational, leaving her adult daughters struggling with how to relate to her.
Then there’s “As If They Were My Daughters,” about a Filipina woman who immigrates to the U.S. to earn money, but can’t return home to visit due to her expired visa. She initially intends to make enough to send her daughters to college, and does so, but they grow apart over the decades and she bonds with children she nannies for and a younger immigrant who becomes her surrogate daughter. This is a great one for understanding an experience far from that of most readers.
Finally, there’s “You Won’t Get Free of It,” about Alice Munro and her daughters—particularly the youngest, Andrea, who was sexually abused by her stepfather as a child, and how this tore the family apart. I finished thinking the situation was a tragedy for everyone: Munro experienced many types of abuse in her own life, at a time when no one took it seriously, and wound up psychologically dependent on a man that even she, on some level, knew was bad news. When Andrea told her father and stepmother she’d been abused, the whole family conspired to keep it from Alice, whom they thought couldn’t handle it—which, years later, proved correct.
As always, Aviv’s writing is engaging but concise, packed with information and telling detail, curious and empathetic. The book is thoughtful and informative, leaving the reader with plenty to think about, and also a quick read. While it lacks the strong central theme claimed by the marketing, it was well worth the read and I look forward to more from her.
That said, they’re fascinating pieces. “I Wish I Were Her for You” focuses on a young teacher who repeatedly experiences fugue states and vanishes around the beginning of the school year, and how little-understood this rare phenomenon is. This is, however, the piece where a mothers-and-daughters focus seems most misplaced: while Hannah Upp was closer to her mother, who seems far more affected by her disappearances, I suspect it was her father who pushed her over the edge—she was a sensitive, loving person and also queer, he was a relentlessly homophobic missionary, and she spent her summers accompanying him on whirlwind preaching expeditions.
Meanwhile, “Removable Truths” is about a psychologist who studies the way we edit our own memories. “God Knows Where I Am” is a disturbing story of a woman who couldn’t access help without defining herself as mentally ill, which she refused to do. And “Second Life” is especially fascinating, about a woman stuck in psychosis for years, until she developed cancer—and the treatment cured not only her cancer but also her psychosis! This is where our limited understanding of the mind and tendency to diagnose symptoms as illnesses really steers us wrong: a significant minority of people with schizophrenia-like symptoms actually have autoimmune conditions or inflammation affecting the brain. This woman made a full recovery, albeit with a tendency to edit her memories of the time to present her actions as rational, leaving her adult daughters struggling with how to relate to her.
Then there’s “As If They Were My Daughters,” about a Filipina woman who immigrates to the U.S. to earn money, but can’t return home to visit due to her expired visa. She initially intends to make enough to send her daughters to college, and does so, but they grow apart over the decades and she bonds with children she nannies for and a younger immigrant who becomes her surrogate daughter. This is a great one for understanding an experience far from that of most readers.
Finally, there’s “You Won’t Get Free of It,” about Alice Munro and her daughters—particularly the youngest, Andrea, who was sexually abused by her stepfather as a child, and how this tore the family apart. I finished thinking the situation was a tragedy for everyone: Munro experienced many types of abuse in her own life, at a time when no one took it seriously, and wound up psychologically dependent on a man that even she, on some level, knew was bad news. When Andrea told her father and stepmother she’d been abused, the whole family conspired to keep it from Alice, whom they thought couldn’t handle it—which, years later, proved correct.
As always, Aviv’s writing is engaging but concise, packed with information and telling detail, curious and empathetic. The book is thoughtful and informative, leaving the reader with plenty to think about, and also a quick read. While it lacks the strong central theme claimed by the marketing, it was well worth the read and I look forward to more from her.
October 7, 2026
Tai esė rinkinys apie sudėtingus dukterų ir motinų santykius bei problemų (ne)pripažinimą. Į šią temą čia žvelgiama neįprastu kampu – iš motinų perspektyvos. Autorė jokiu būdu neteisina savo herojų, bet ir nekaltina: ji analizuoja aplinkybes ir bando suprasti jų elgesį.
Įdomu tai, kad Rachel Aviv perrašė šias savo jau anksčiau žurnale „The New Yorker“ publikuotas esė, kai pati tapo mama. Jei anksčiau į šias istorijas ji žvelgė iš dukters pozicijos, tai po kelerių metų išvydo ir motinų išgyvenamą dramą.
Knygos ašis – maždaug 40 % apimties užimanti Alice Munro šeimos drama. R. A. atskleidžia, kaip Nobelio premijos laureatė pasirinko likti su vyru, žinodama apie jo vykdytą devynmetės dukros seksualinį išnaudojimą.
Empatiška, psichologinė knyga ir, mano galva, tikrai puikus tiriamosios žurnalistikos pavyzdys.
Įdomu tai, kad Rachel Aviv perrašė šias savo jau anksčiau žurnale „The New Yorker“ publikuotas esė, kai pati tapo mama. Jei anksčiau į šias istorijas ji žvelgė iš dukters pozicijos, tai po kelerių metų išvydo ir motinų išgyvenamą dramą.
Knygos ašis – maždaug 40 % apimties užimanti Alice Munro šeimos drama. R. A. atskleidžia, kaip Nobelio premijos laureatė pasirinko likti su vyru, žinodama apie jo vykdytą devynmetės dukros seksualinį išnaudojimą.
Empatiška, psichologinė knyga ir, mano galva, tikrai puikus tiriamosios žurnalistikos pavyzdys.
July 30, 2026
3.5 rounded down. This is a collection of non fiction pieces Rachel Aviv did for the New Yorker that she, after realizing similar themes and learning new information, re edited to bring out a shared through line of mother daughter relationships.
These pieces are all individually great and I’m glad I read them. The stories span from a fantastic opener about a girl who breaks from reality every few years and her mother who is devoted to tracking her down all the way to the closer, a very well researched piece on Alice Munro and her decision to stay with her husband even after he admitted to sexually abusing one of her daughters.
Every story asks an interesting question about motherhood and daughterhood. Can you ever really know your daughter? How do you balance needing to provide financial support and physical presence? Is a mother a mother even if she is not physically there? Is a mother a mother if she is not mentally there? How much can we trust our memory, especially of our childhoods? And how do we as a society treat a mother we know has failed?
These questions are all great ones, and I was glad to read all these stories, especially the opener about fugue states and the Munro dissection. That said, I’m not sure I sensed any real connection between the pieces, so reading this book felt more like spending an afternoon clicking around on the New Yorker rather than consuming something with an intentional theme.
Def had a good, thoughtful time and I’m glad I read it, but not sure how often ill think of this book or any overarching theme in the future
These pieces are all individually great and I’m glad I read them. The stories span from a fantastic opener about a girl who breaks from reality every few years and her mother who is devoted to tracking her down all the way to the closer, a very well researched piece on Alice Munro and her decision to stay with her husband even after he admitted to sexually abusing one of her daughters.
Every story asks an interesting question about motherhood and daughterhood. Can you ever really know your daughter? How do you balance needing to provide financial support and physical presence? Is a mother a mother even if she is not physically there? Is a mother a mother if she is not mentally there? How much can we trust our memory, especially of our childhoods? And how do we as a society treat a mother we know has failed?
These questions are all great ones, and I was glad to read all these stories, especially the opener about fugue states and the Munro dissection. That said, I’m not sure I sensed any real connection between the pieces, so reading this book felt more like spending an afternoon clicking around on the New Yorker rather than consuming something with an intentional theme.
Def had a good, thoughtful time and I’m glad I read it, but not sure how often ill think of this book or any overarching theme in the future
June 25, 2026
ty netgalley for the arc
feels like a collection of essays / case studies that a review cant do justice.. all of the essays resist easy conclusions or interpretations. really feels like rachel aviv is in a league of her own
feels like a collection of essays / case studies that a review cant do justice.. all of the essays resist easy conclusions or interpretations. really feels like rachel aviv is in a league of her own
August 9, 2026
Ripped through this powerful and fascinating collection of essays about daughters, mothers, and trauma/mental illness
Read
September 17, 2026The last essay took the wind out of me y’all. If I had to choose one essay to return to it, it would the last essay about Alice Munro’s (& ultimately the whole family’s) willful neglect of her youngest daughter’s, Andrea’s, sexual abuse at the hands of her second husband and life partner. The details are astonishingly disturbing and yet the insights are piercing. I looked up the version published in the New Yorker to download for future reference but at first glance that version is structurally different from the one published in this book.
All that to say, I was moved reading this. The essays are so immersive that I often lost myself reading them only to emerge in a daze. Some are more captivating than others (the last essay, the one on Elizabeth Droftus and the first one about the teacher who repeatedly enters a fugue state were my favorites. Followed by the one about the mom who experienced a twenty year psychosis, only to emerge “cured” after chemotherapy for a cancer diagnosis).
While the collection strains to fulfill the imposed framework of mothers and daughters, I still found it to be a sharply perceptive and captivating read.
All that to say, I was moved reading this. The essays are so immersive that I often lost myself reading them only to emerge in a daze. Some are more captivating than others (the last essay, the one on Elizabeth Droftus and the first one about the teacher who repeatedly enters a fugue state were my favorites. Followed by the one about the mom who experienced a twenty year psychosis, only to emerge “cured” after chemotherapy for a cancer diagnosis).
While the collection strains to fulfill the imposed framework of mothers and daughters, I still found it to be a sharply perceptive and captivating read.
September 22, 2026
Rachel Aviv is a great journalist, with the ability to write clearly and objectively and keep herself out of it, in a way that few modern essayists seem able to do. These are gripping essays, previously published in the New Yorker, about the psychological complexity, grief, and trauma that can exist between mothers and daughters. Haunting and thought-provoking, even if I'd already read a few of them before.
September 1, 2026
4,5*
Het laatste essay alleen al, over de band tussen Andrea en haar moeder Alice Munro, maakt de bundel het lezen waard. Fascinerend en hartverscheurend in één.
Het laatste essay alleen al, over de band tussen Andrea en haar moeder Alice Munro, maakt de bundel het lezen waard. Fascinerend en hartverscheurend in één.
August 13, 2026
I loved this book which of course made me think about my own Mama
Read
August 16, 2026Not as strong of a book as a whole as "Strangers to Ourselves" for me but I'm still amazed how she puts these stories together! I loved the surprise chapter on overseas Filipino workers
August 14, 2026
I feel like a breaching whale, who has managed to loosen another patch of barnacles.
Did Not Finish
August 10, 2026I was really excited about this one. I love Rachel Aviv, and I loved Strangers to Ourselves, and this book seemed like a continuation of that project. However, from the very beginning, I was confused by the subtitle, “Mothers and Daughters.” Granted, the main subject of each essay was a daughter, a mother, or both, but the importance of these roles felt forced onto the storytelling, and it became more and more annoying as I went on.
To me, these were stories about mental health and identity, much like the previous book, and just as I was getting absorbed in an essay, she would bring up the “mom” thing again, even when it didn’t seem any more important to the overall story than any other factor.
Not to mention that the writing is very scattered and often incoherent, and the whole thing feels like it needed some heavy editing. I read more than half of it before deciding to DNF because it was driving me crazy. The entire time, I felt like I was trying to figure out the structure and the point of each individual piece rather than actually engaging with the book.
Anyway, my final impression is that this felt like a very first draft of a book and an idea, not a well-organized or well-edited finished work.
To me, these were stories about mental health and identity, much like the previous book, and just as I was getting absorbed in an essay, she would bring up the “mom” thing again, even when it didn’t seem any more important to the overall story than any other factor.
Not to mention that the writing is very scattered and often incoherent, and the whole thing feels like it needed some heavy editing. I read more than half of it before deciding to DNF because it was driving me crazy. The entire time, I felt like I was trying to figure out the structure and the point of each individual piece rather than actually engaging with the book.
Anyway, my final impression is that this felt like a very first draft of a book and an idea, not a well-organized or well-edited finished work.
September 2, 2026
was really excited about this after loving strangers to ourselves but felt like she just put together a bunch of essays that are really about mental illness and just happen to include mothers and daughters as characters, which would’ve been fine if this wasn’t billed as a collection primarily about mothers and daughters. needed more commentary or analysis rather than just storytelling for this to come together.
July 16, 2026
I’m not sure I understand what this book was trying to do. Each essay was well written, and I can see the thematic connections, but I struggled to identify the main point Aviv is trying to convey. Perhaps the most intimate relationships can be the most painful, especially if we think they are supposed to form a sort of refuge that they do not live up to? Maybe im in the wrong stage of life for this book to really hit home.
July 26, 2026
I don’t usually read nonfiction, yet Rachel Aviv’s essay collection, “You Won’t Get Free of It,” captivated me because of the subject matter (mother-daughter relationships) and her excellent writing. The six essays published in this collection previously appeared in somewhat different forms, in the New Yorker. I read “You Won’t Get Free of It,” in the New Yorker. I was stunned by her writing, it’s so good. Yet, I was completely disgusted and disheartened by the lack of actions taken by Alice Munro, when her daughter clearly was sexually assaulted by Alice’s husband. The essay read like any book of fiction, however, these horrible and heinous acts committed against a young girl, Alice Munro’s daughter, happened. Sad, tragic, and heartbreaking are the essays in this collection. The choices mothers make, to better the lives of their children, have catastrophic consequences for the children. These essays explore some very dark and challenging issues of mental illness, sexual assault, pure neglect and abandonment. For these reasons, they are not what I’d call “light” reading. Yet, the way in which Rachel writes, explores the challenges these mothers face, and presents the decisions these mothers ultimately make, are moving and affecting. Highly recommended.
October 8, 2026
Utterly fascinating accounts of the consequences of breaking the tie that binds mother to daughter. What happens to the self/identity of the mother and the daugther when the bond is damaged or severed or grows slack? Based on these tellings, there can be a complete disintegration. The title essay, which centers Alice Munro's daughter who was literally abused and tossed aside, was utterly heart-breaking. I greatly appreciate the way that Rachel Aviv both immerses herself and also maintains journalistic objectivity. Quite a feat.
July 23, 2026
The best ever
August 9, 2026
very much so a wggs-psych crossover
September 11, 2026
Rachel Aviv is one of my favorite living journalists writing about psychology. I am in awe of the way she writes with such clarity, somehow marrying beautiful, eloquent prose with precision and directness. I didn’t enjoy this one as much as her first book, but give me anything about mothers and daughters and the complexities of familial relationships and I’m in. Aviv is at her most powerful in the chapters on Alice Munro here and deftly unpacks sexual abuse, fractured memory, and the ways we fail each other. But there’s great stuff in each of these essays.
September 4, 2026
I was so excited to see a new release from Rachel Aviv!
I was vaguely familiar with Elizabeth Loftus's research (discussed during a particularly tedious mandatory psych class in university but hey I remembered something!), and looked her up while reading "Removable Truths”, which focuses on her. It turns out that one of the psychologists who wrote a supporting article for the Corwin paper Loftus was looking into, was the professor I had for that psych class... there’s other personal coincidences here but it was a fun cuckoo bananas moment for me. The world is a tiny oyster.
This collection culminates in “You Won't Get Free of It”, which details the author Alice Munro's relationship with her youngest daughter Andrea, who wrote in 2024 about the abuse she suffered at the hands of Alice's second husband when she was a child, and Alice's own complicity. Aviv revisits this premise and gains further insights from Andrea, her other family members, and Alice’s collaborators. In the end, Alice was more concerned with maintaining her own legacy - “One would like to think that a writer who turns her daughter’s abuse into art will be aesthetically punished, but Alice’s stories became increasingly accomplished. She seemed to be feeling her way into a new kind of form that expressed how a mind can be almost completely closed to the truth, except for a few small pockets of knowing”.
Overall, these stories were deeply thought-provoking and poignant, exactly what I love about Aviv's writing. I’m very happy I read this and will probably read anything she writes.
I was vaguely familiar with Elizabeth Loftus's research (discussed during a particularly tedious mandatory psych class in university but hey I remembered something!), and looked her up while reading "Removable Truths”, which focuses on her. It turns out that one of the psychologists who wrote a supporting article for the Corwin paper Loftus was looking into, was the professor I had for that psych class... there’s other personal coincidences here but it was a fun cuckoo bananas moment for me. The world is a tiny oyster.
This collection culminates in “You Won't Get Free of It”, which details the author Alice Munro's relationship with her youngest daughter Andrea, who wrote in 2024 about the abuse she suffered at the hands of Alice's second husband when she was a child, and Alice's own complicity. Aviv revisits this premise and gains further insights from Andrea, her other family members, and Alice’s collaborators. In the end, Alice was more concerned with maintaining her own legacy - “One would like to think that a writer who turns her daughter’s abuse into art will be aesthetically punished, but Alice’s stories became increasingly accomplished. She seemed to be feeling her way into a new kind of form that expressed how a mind can be almost completely closed to the truth, except for a few small pockets of knowing”.
Overall, these stories were deeply thought-provoking and poignant, exactly what I love about Aviv's writing. I’m very happy I read this and will probably read anything she writes.
September 28, 2026
Mother psychology is not for the weak.
I've never wanted to be a mother, these days due to the disparity between what impresses me as a "good life" and the roles we are forced to live in. In earlier years, it was because I feel it would reduce my existence to a role that I've never held to a very high regard. I've been theoretically drawn to fostering and adoption, however I'm sure that if I read first hand tales of that reality I'd be scared straight back to anti-natalism.
Nevertheless, I wish I could give the daughters in this story the mother they all deserve.
I read once somewhere that we can only do about 10% better than our parents did, and I theorize the illusion of breaking the cycle is a way to find contentedness in a task that is rarely ever as rewarding as parents proport. Yet, every non-parent's perspective is taken as a slight to those who believe themselves more capable of child rearing than ourselves. Perhaps my opinion would be different, if it was not my choice to not have children. If fate had dealt me a bad hand, and I tried unsuccessfully, I wonder how I would come to terms with that.
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
[...]
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
I've never wanted to be a mother, these days due to the disparity between what impresses me as a "good life" and the roles we are forced to live in. In earlier years, it was because I feel it would reduce my existence to a role that I've never held to a very high regard. I've been theoretically drawn to fostering and adoption, however I'm sure that if I read first hand tales of that reality I'd be scared straight back to anti-natalism.
Nevertheless, I wish I could give the daughters in this story the mother they all deserve.
I read once somewhere that we can only do about 10% better than our parents did, and I theorize the illusion of breaking the cycle is a way to find contentedness in a task that is rarely ever as rewarding as parents proport. Yet, every non-parent's perspective is taken as a slight to those who believe themselves more capable of child rearing than ourselves. Perhaps my opinion would be different, if it was not my choice to not have children. If fate had dealt me a bad hand, and I tried unsuccessfully, I wonder how I would come to terms with that.
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
[...]
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
September 30, 2026
This was a good series of short stories by psychiatric journalist Rachel Aviv. She does a good job of weaving the varied parts of a person’s identity without reducing its complexity. The story I found the most interesting was “Removable Truths,” which was about Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist who testified for Harvey Weinstein and other child molesters, under the premise that memories are remade by the language used in court. Aviv connects Loftus’s research to her own childhood, where it was ambiguous whether her mom had intentionally killed herself or not. This flexibility of truth that Loftus operated on served as the basis for court cases where she defended people who were clearly guilty. It’s also the larger theme of the book— the way that truth or memory of a situation fluctuates between mothers and daughters and how we constantly see past each other and only sometimes unite in understanding.
September 24, 2026
really powerful and poignant. rachel aviv writes so brilliantly and empathetically of the connections between mothers and daughters here, though i do feel the overarching theme here not is moreso the complexities of the human brain and how mental illness impacts people's lives, including their relationships, with the exception of the essay on alice munro and her daughters and the essay on filipina nannies working in america. but still, such a fascinating, moving book, and i can't wait to read more from aviv
4.5 stars
4.5 stars
August 5, 2026
You won't be able to stop reading these real life stories centred on the mother-daughter dynamic. This intergenerational relationship is both complicated and made compelling by the fact that it is nearly impossible to hold a single point of view. It shape shifts with time, and defies our definitions of selfhood.
August 19, 2026
Heel goed geschreven door Aviv, zes verhalen over moeders en dochters. Ik vind de verhalen over psychisch zieke moeders het interessantst. Iemand die na 20 jaar herstelt van een psychose. En een dochter die fuges heeft en twee keer verdwijnt op de dag dat een doodgeboren broertje was verwacht. Ze doet heel uitgebreid onderzoek, van dagboeken en dossiers.
September 14, 2026
wow wow wow wow wow wow holy sht this book was just sooooooo moving and thought provoking and stunning. A collection of “short stories” (many of these stories had been partially told in previously written pieces and articles) about mothers and daughters and it was truly maddening but also at the same time…almost reassuring??? to read these narratives 5/5⭐️
July 30, 2026
I know only a couple women who have uncomplicated relationships with their mothers. This book is for the rest of us. Let the stories of these brutally tested bonds trouble and comfort you. Then give it to your daughter, or the sister who helped you survive or mother, or to the very woman herself.
September 2, 2026
I preferred ‘Strangers to Ourselves’ but this was very good. I wish there were more stories included in this. Perhaps she could have expanded on the theme in between stories as she does in the preface. There are multiple viewpoints of psychosis that I found to be thoughtful and informative.
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