This book was a huge disappointment , it promised so much but failed to deliver. The words and actions of the characters were contrived and predicable. This book is chick lit trying to be adult but fails miserably. ( )

I received this book as part of the Early Reviewers program, and I've tried several times to get into it, but it's just not happening. The very first chapter contains an argument between Bay, one of the reuniting sisters in this novel, and her teenage daughter Ashley that is just so cringe-worthy I found it very tough to get past. A novel so heavily dependent upon dialogue requires characters with authenticity and believeability, which takes a very skilled writer to create... and I don't feel like the writer pulled it off here at all. By Chapter 6, after meeting most, if not all, of the characters I was going to meet in this book, I decided I just didn't "buy" what any of them were saying (or how they were saying it, I suppose) and had to stop torturing myself and move on to another in my TBR pile.

An engaging book about the complicated relationship between mother and daughter, this book evokes small town Nova Scotia quite convincingly. I would have liked to see the prodigal sister's character fleshed out a bit more but, overall really enjoyed this book. ( )

Her Mother's Daughter is set in Louisburg, Cape Breton, and chronicles the lives and loves of two sisters and their friends and family throughout a tumultuous series of events. Although this was a sweet little story, it was really predictable and because of that it was hard to take it seriously. Most of the plot points were so telegraphed you could see them coming from a mile away, and the characters weren't engaging enough to make me forget this. This was a quick read, suitable for a lazy Sunday afternoon, but not much else. ( )

I found the writing style of this novel stilted and unnatural to the point where it was difficult not to laugh out loud at the ridiculous manner in which things were presented and described. If this novel were a television show, it would have been a soap opera. And just like a soap opera can suck you in, the twists and turns in the plot kept me reading, despite the bad writing. The characters were inconsistent in their actions, and their thought processes were rarely explained. Just as one example of bizarre behaviour, you have Gertie, a fat woman, walking home with her groceries one day and her best friend explaining that Gertie does that because she overspends on food to the point of not being able to pay for gas for her car. As unlikely as this might be on its own, it becomes even more inexplicable when Gertie is coaxed into starting a walking program to lose weight but becomes overtaxed by even a short walk. If walking were such a problem for her, how does it make any sense that she'd walk to and from the grocery store? The book is fraught with such bizarre behaviours and actions. Luckily there was a decent plot to keep me somewhat interested despite the very bad writing. ( )