Book Review SHE SAYS SHE'S MY DAUGHTER Lauren North

Thank you to the author Lauren North, publishers Bookouture, and as always NetGalley, for an advance digital copy of SHE SAYS SHE'S MY DAUGHTER.



We’re almost there. Trepidation burns like acid in my veins. Suddenly, I’m not so sure we should be rushing. I’m not so sure I want to know. p249

This but, it turns out, is many things. It is part women's fiction, with the FMC's question throughout the book of healing from loss and hetting to a better place. It is part psychological thriller: who is pulling the strings of the vulnerable characters in this book, and keeps everything moving forward? What motivates them? What ripples might their actions leave behind?

I don't alway care for the armchair psychology like that found in some of the later chapters in this book. Sometimes the narrator and characters accidentally seriously stigmatize common mental illnesses or psychological issues when it seems they are trying to be informative. The book is very good besides that, so I feel it's important to bring this up. Mental illness isn't a red herring for violence whether its used as such or not. Mentally ill people are statistically far more likely to experience violence than to perpetrate it. One of the things I really appreciate about the plot of this piece, is that it bears out this fact at the end of the day. I like books that can find the space in their stories for the truth about mental illness.

Despite the importance of the above genre tropes in this book, the most dominant genre in this one is the domestic thriller, and this is where it thrived. I really admire writers who can write extremely complex characters. Characters who are both dark and shining, tender and extra crisp, predictable and enigmatic... people who have been through hell and rebuilt the road back have complexity. North writes her story full of these sorts of people.

It's not just on the individual character level that North showcases her skill here, but also in their relationships. The characters can't help but tangle together, wisps of cloud uniting, forever unable to retract into the same form again. Like when the daughter returns after being missing for fifteen years, since she was only four, one piece of evidence she uses for her identity is a chicken pox scar on her breast. But the mother, who allready felt bitter about the woman's arrival, couldn't remember the scar or the occurance of the wound that caused it.

A tiny, terrible seed planted between them.

This is an extremely twisty book; honestly it pobably could have been a little shorter. But by the time I reached the end of this book, I only had one guess left about what was going on and it made no sense lol so I wasn't too surprised to learn I was wrong. The ending is a *doo-sey* seriously, I went back three times to reread it again. I just...I just couldn't even....!

I really enjoyed this domestic thriller mystery, excellent debut from Lauren North!

Rating: 🧒🏽🧒🏽🧒🏽🧒🏽 / 5 missing toddlers
Recommend: Definitely!
Finished: July 17 2023 
Format: Advance Digital Copy 
Read this if you like:
🪢Twisty
🔪 Suspenseful
🔥 Slowburn
🧌 Dysfunctional families

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