The Someday Daughter by Ellen O’Clover | Review

I previously loved Seven Percent of Ro Devereux, Ellen O’Clover’s debut, so I was extremely excited to also receive The Someday Daughter from the publisher! Continue reading to find out if it met my expectations.

Synopsis

Years before Audrey St. Vrain was born, her mother, Camilla, shot to fame with Letters to My Someday Daughter, a self-help book encouraging women to treat themselves with the same love and care they’d treat their own daughters. While the world considers Audrey lucky to have Camilla for a mother, the truth is that Audrey knows a different side of being the someday daughter. Shipped off to boarding school when she was eleven, she feels more like a promotional tool than a member of Camilla’s family.
Audrey is determined to create her own identity aside from being Camilla’s daughter, and she’s looking forward to a prestigious summer premed program with her boyfriend before heading to college and finally breaking free from her mother’s world. But when Camilla asks Audrey to go on tour with her to promote the book’s anniversary, Audrey can’t help but think that this is the last, best chance to figure out how they fit into each other’s lives—not as the someday daughter and someday mother, but as themselves, just as they are.
What Audrey doesn’t know is that spending the summer with Camilla and her tour staff—including the disarmingly honest, distressingly cute video intern, Silas—will upset everything she’s so carefully planned for her life.

Book: The Someday Daughter | Author: Ellen O’Clover | Publisher: HarperTeen | Published: 20.02.2024 | Genre: contemporary YA | Pages: 335

Review

Why is it always so hard to write a review for a book I absolutely loved? Why can’t I just say “please for the love of god read this book because I love it so much” and call it a day? Because this is what I want to say about The Someday Daughter. I apparently forgot how well Ellen O’Clover can write because I was sucked into this story quicker than I could blink. The first chapter already introduces the central problems and characters of the story and I immediately wanted to know more about each.

I really liked Audrey as a main character and she told the story. I could understand how she feels and why she does so. She is, without realizing at first, searchign for her true self. Thanks to her upbringing, school and interests, she feels like she has to fit certain rules and basically wears a mask all the time, making her unsure of who she really is. Very early on in the story that mask cracks though, and she realizes that there is much more to her and the people around her than she thought.

I liked how Audrey’s relationships with the other characters developed, how over the course of the summer they get to truly know each other. This icludes her relationship with herself as well and her journey to accept her flaws but also see others’ perspectives. Those developments were really well written, with ups and downs, realizations and set backs, with forgiveness, love, trust and insecurities. The relationships felt very real and I loved how they each were explored. There is the mother-daughter relationship that is strained but discussed in depth. Then there are the romantic aspects and how they develop, how one person might be right for a certain stage in life but not for another, how growing close changes perspectives and allows for new trust. I also enjoyed how the friendships in The Someday Daughter were portrayed. There was so much love between the characters, boundaries were respected and everyone kept strengthening each other despite their hurts or refusals. Generally, there was so much love between those characters. In very different forms, sometimes established, other times taking its time to grow. And each character was written with so much love, too. I enjoyed the whole cast immensely.

The Someday Daughter made me feel a lot of emotions. I cried a couple of times but my heart was mended each time. It’s such a beautiful story with amazingly written relationships. It’s a love letter to familial relationships, a portray of self discovery and self acceptance as well as understanding yourself and the people surrounding you. The Someday Daughter was definitely one of my favourite reads this year and I’m highly excited to read more by Ellen O’Clover. Her books seem to hit my heart right in the middle each time.

Rating:

YOU MIGHT ENJOY THE SOMEDAY DAUGHTER IF YOU LIKE…

complex family relationships | friend groups | self acceptance | self discovery | emotions | mental health | celebrities | friends to lovers | dogs | hurt & comfort

Have you read The Someday Daughter or Seven Percent of Ro Devereux or plan to? What’s your favourite YA with a focus on familial relationships?

Until next time,