Cover of The Someday Daughter by Ellen O'Clover. A frustrated looking white teen girls sits on the floor with a book over her face, a small dog next to her.

About the Book

Title: The Someday Daughter
Published: 2024

Cover Story: Aargh!
Drinking Buddy: Meet and Greet
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (alcohol use, adult situations, crude humor)
Talky Talk: This is a Young Adult Romance Novel
Bonus Factor: The Literary Life
Bromance Status: Q&A

Cover Story: Aargh!

Perfectly sums up Audrey’s frustration with her mother and her mother’s book. Also, we get to imagine her face instead of having it shown to us.

The Deal:

Long before Audrey was born, her mother, Camilla, wrote a book called Letters to My Someday Daughter, talking about all the love she had to give to the daughter she would have someday. The book became a hit and rocketed Camilla into a self-help empire. And how lucky is Audrey, having a mother who loved her long before she was even conceived?

Except it’s not like that. Camilla sent Audrey off to boarding school when she was eleven. She’s never had a deep conversation with her mom, never went to her when she was sad. When Audrey had a breakdown at school, Camilla rushed out to see her…and gave an impromptu lecture on sex positivity to her dorm mates. Her publicist ran with that: Audrey’s incredible mother telling her daughter’s peers not to be ashamed of their bodies…while Audrey was crying alone in her room.

And now Camilla wants Audrey to go on a cross-country book tour with her all summer. She even pulled Audrey out of the incredibly competitive pre-med program she was going to attend with her boyfriend, Ethan. God, this is going to be unforgettable. Maybe now the world will find out what it’s really like to have Camilla St. Vrain as a mother.

Drinking Buddy: Meet and Greet

Two pints of beer cheersing

Audrey is incredibly academic and serious, and certainly doesn’t waste time getting drunk or acting foolish. Not that she looks down on people who do that, it’s just not her bag. But accompanying the book tour are several young interns, including Silas, with his devil-may-care attitude, his good looks, and his dog, Puddles. They certainly couldn’t convince her to cut loose. Not like Ethan, who’s already planning ways Audrey can get ahead in her career and improve herself.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 (alcohol use, adult situations, crude humor)

So does Audrey stay with her square boyfriend (who never actually appears in person until the end of the book) or the charming new guy? Gee, I wonder.

And then, when they both finally admit their feelings for each other…Audrey immediately drags him to bed. I was waiting for an innocent little make out session, but instead the shyest, most reserved girl in the world wants to hop in the sack. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it was so out of character and so forced that I felt like I could hear the author’s editor saying ‘Make it sexier.’

Talky Talk: This is a Young Adult Romance Novel

I really liked the idea of this book, about the mother using her daughter as a prop for her career. But the characters just felt flat. The boyfriend had no personality, Silas was tropey, the other interns ran together, and I couldn’t really figure out why Silas was so smitten with Audrey, other than for plot convenience.

Bonus Factor: The Literary Life

So Camilla has the sort of literary career that could drive other writers sick with jealousy. The publisher is paying for her to hit all these cities, where mobs of adoring fans want to ask Audrey what it’s like having such a spectacular mom. Everyone agrees that Camilla is mother of the year…the readers, the interns, even Audrey’s father, who divorced her years ago. And yet Audrey keeps poring over Letters to My Someday Daughter, trying to reconcile the words with the distant, self-centered woman who gave birth to her.

Bromance Status: Q&A

O’Clover has more talent than Camilla, and I enjoyed her last book. I’ll keep an eye out for her next one.

Literary Matchmaking

Thou Shalt Not Road Trip

Antony John’s Thou Shalt Not Road Trip deals with another book tour and an author who may be more hype than substance.

Seven Percent of Ro Devereux

Seven Percent of Ro Devereux, by the same author, was well worth reading.

Literally

In Lucy Keating’s Literally, a girl finds herself the subject of a book. A fiction book.

FTC Full Disclosure: I received a free e-copy of this book, but no compensation or cut of the royalties.

Buy the Book
Order on Bookshop.org Order on Amazon Read Our Affiliates Policy
Categories:
Tags:

Brian wrote his first YA novel when he was down and out in Mexico. He now lives in Missouri with his wonderful wife and daughter. He divides his time between writing and working as a school librarian. Brian still misses the preachy YA books of the eighties.