THE SOMEDAY DAUGHTER
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From the critically acclaimed author of Seven Percent of Ro Devereux comes another nuanced, heartrending, and ultimately healing novel, about a rising college freshman forced to spend a summer with the self-help superstar mother she’s never felt truly connected to.
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.
some very nice things some very nice people said about this book
“Sophisticated and evocatively wrought. O’Clover employs dry humor to highlight the blurred lines between public and private life in celebrity-obsessed culture, and the messy honesty of Audrey’s relationships supports the slowly evolving character arcs that drive the novel.”
“Audrey’s transformation is portrayed with convincing complexity and appealing measures of both humor and earnestness. Poignant, heartfelt, and often funny.”
“A compelling, beautifully drawn exploration into complicated family and personal relationships, and the frailty and fortitude of a girl simply trying to succeed, love, and thrive. I’m proud to live in a book world where Ellen O’Clover is writing contemporary young adult fiction. The Someday Daughter is a forever treasure.”
“A gorgeously written story about the complicated bond between mothers and daughters, “The Someday Daughter” is a moving portrayal of the myriad ways family can both break and mend us. Ellen O’Clovers’s writing is exceptional: empathetic, funny, heartfelt, and her ability to write love interests who I absolutely adore is unparalleled. Highly recommend!”
““The Someday Daughter” is the perfect combination of slow-burn romance, complicated family relationships and heartfelt friendships all told in beautiful prose that dances on the page. This is not a read someday book. This is a read now book.””
“Ellen O’Clover is one of my favorite new voices in YA. She writes the kind of heartbursting stories that make me want a book to last forever. “The Someday Daughter” had me laughing, crying, and wanting to hug Audrey so tightly. O’Clover’s depiction of the complicated mother-daughter relationship, the struggle with anxiety, the oftentimes confusing feelings tied to falling in love were all handled with such care and honesty. This beautiful book had me feeling all the emotions and has secured its spot on my best-of-the-year shelf!”
““The Someday Daughter” is one of the best depictions I’ve ever read of the beautifully messy “coming of age” experience. Seamlessly weaving together a complex mother-daughter relationship, mental health struggles, and the softest, sweetest romance, O’Clover tells an achingly relatable story of one girl’s journey to learning who she truly is and loving herself for every part of it. I couldn’t put this book down!”
“Heartbreaking, romantic, funny and smart, Ellen O’Clover’s “The Someday Daughter” is a modern road map for figuring out where you truly belong. This beautiful and compassionate book has a permanent place in my heart. You’ll be with Audrey every mile of her journey.”
““The Someday Daughter” delivers a fast-paced and emotional story about the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters, and figuring out who you really aren’t, after a lifetime of being told who you are. Audrey is holding her life together with a white-knuckled grip, and I experienced every single one of her emotions deeply, right along with her, holding my own breath through the waves. The tension between Audrey and her mom is so perfectly crafted, I felt like I needed to do my own Great Unclenching, Saint retreat-style, at the end of each scene. Ellen O’Clover shows them and all their faults, and lets that relationship be exactly what it is—complicated, and fraught with misunderstanding, and yet tender and familiar, with new and surprising layers revealed with each turn of the page. And just when your little heart is thinking it can’t take it anymore, there’s Audrey and Silas, whose every interaction feels taut as a rubber band pulled to its breaking point—and you will be dying to see it snap. They just have it, from the first moment they meet. The Someday Daughter is a surprise gut-punch punctuated with a sweet forehead kiss, an ice pack (and maybe an ice eye mask, with love from Cleo), and a promise that life might not be predictable, but it’ll be what it’ll be. Perfect for anyone who, like me, has spent years chasing the high of “The Truth About Forever.””
“Endlessly compassionate and gracefully written, “The Someday Daughter” is a story about the beautifully messy business of figuring out who you are – or who you’re not, as the case may be. The novel is warm and heartfelt even as it addresses difficult, complex truths, and it’s packed with memorable people and places (not to mention one very enchanting dog). I loved watching Audrey develop the courage to face – and maybe even enjoy – the unknown.”
“Ellen O’Clover has given us a page-turner filled with drama and romance. Audrey’s story gracefully captures not only the complicated moment when a daughter understands that her mother is just as human as she is, but the fumbling journey of figuring out who we really are—not just who we think we should be.”