Happy release day!
Thanks to Graydon House and Wunderprint PR for the free advanced copy in exchange for my honest review
THE FAVORITE DAUGHTER – Kaira Rouda
If you wanna read an excerpt for this book, you can check out that right here!
My Thoughts: 4/5 stars
The newest from Kaira Rouda, THE FAVORITE DAUGHTER is about a grieving mother a year after the death of her eldest daughter, Mary. As someone with a sibling, you always like to think your parents don’t play favorites, but that’s not always the case. Jane and David have two daughters, Mary and Betsy. Mary was the one that excelled at everything she did, while Betsy falls somewhere in the middle. One fateful day only Cash, their dog, came home from a hike with Mary. Days later they find out she fell from a cliff into the ocean – deemed an unfortunate accident.
It’s coming up on the anniversary of the accident and David is wanting to have a celebration of life ceremony for the community. Jane sees this as her “coming out” party of sorts. Her time to show everyone that isn’t hiding in her home, living on pills, and still deep in the grieving process. She wants to be the perfect family once again. A wrench is thrown into her plan when she finds out her husband’s infidelity and how blatantly he’s flaunting it. How had she missed this before? Well, he’ll pay for that, she guarantees it. Then her remaining daughter, Betsy, is keeping a secret about what really happened the day Mary fell to her death.
I enjoyed how Jane was acting as the narrator and how it felt like she was telling us a story. There were times where she made comments like you would when you were having a conversation with someone. We stay solely in her perspective for the entirety of the book, and we get to see how her mental state progresses through the book. Is she losing grip of reality? Is she finally out her pill-induced haze and seeing clearly for the first time? I had times where I liked her and then were I hated her. The definition of a crazy helicopter mom but you felt for her considering what she was still dealing with.
I really enjoyed the little twists that popped up throughout the book and I had some guesses on the ending but Rouda threw in a red herring of sorts to throw the reader off. Plenty of drama, strained relationships, doubting characters, and some suspense kept me flipping through this one in two sittings! If you’re a fan of Rouda, then this will be a no-brainer. I would highly recommend this one and you should add it to your summer TBR.
