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    Letter to My Daughter: A Novel
    Letter to My Daughter: A Novel
    Letter to My Daughter: A Novel
    Audiobook4 hours

    Letter to My Daughter: A Novel

    Written by George Bishop

    Narrated by Tavia Gilbert

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Dear Elizabeth,

    It's early morning and I'm sitting here wondering where you are, hoping you're all right.

    A fight, ended by a slap, sends Elizabeth out the door of her Baton Rouge home on the eve of her fifteenth birthday. Her mother, Laura, is left to fret and worry-and remember. Wracked with guilt as she awaits Liz's return, Laura begins a letter to her daughter, hoping to convey "everything I've always meant to tell you but never have."

    In her painfully candid confession, Laura shares memories of her own troubled adolescence in rural Louisiana, growing up in an intensely conservative household. She recounts her relationship with a boy she loved despite her parents' disapproval, the fateful events that led to her being sent away to a strict Catholic boarding school, the personal tragedy brought upon her by the Vietnam War, and, finally, the meaning of the enigmatic tattoo below her right hip.

    Absorbing and affirming, George Bishop's magnificent debut brilliantly captures a sense of time and place with a distinct and inviting voice. Letter to My Daughter is a heartwrenching novel of mothers, daughters, and the lessons we all learn when we come of age.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 12, 2010
    ISBN9781400186945
    Letter to My Daughter: A Novel

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    Reviews for Letter to My Daughter

    4/5

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    • 3/5
      From My Blog...George Bishop takes on the task of writing a novel about mother-daughter relationships in his novel, Letter To My Daughter. Bishop does remarkably good job writing from the perspective of a mother and an adolescent girl. The premise of the story is fairly straightforward. One evening 15 year-old Elizabeth gets into an argument with her mother, Laura, culminating in Laura slapping Elizabeth resulting in Elizabeth running away. Laura, while waiting for her daughter to return turns to pen and paper and begins writing down everything she had always wanted to tell her daughter about being an adolescent, especially her own experiences as an adolescent. The letter Laura writes is masterfully written and Bishop receives high marks for this amazing part of the book. The issue I have with the book is the fact a 15-year old would take off in her mother's car and they did not even contemplate ringing up the police or looking for her. Considering their daughter is not only a minor but also not a licensed driver, this part did not ring true to me as the mother of 3 adolescents. I had further difficulties trying to comprehend why the mother of a minor felt she, the mother, would need to earn back her daughter's trust and not the other way around. With that said, the letter Laura pens makes for interesting reading and a rather intriguing look at the tumultuous times of the Vietnam Era and what it was like to be an adolescent during that time frame. From a historical perspective I found the novel to be interesting, but the premise for the novel simply did not ring true to me as a mother. I realise everyone will take something different from this novel, which for it's diminutive size is quite full of intriguing details of love, family relations, desegregation, Vietnam, loss, and teenage angst. Letter To My Daughter would make for rather interesting discussion for a book group.
    • 4/5
      I was a little iffy about picking up this book. I wasn't too sure that a male author could really write a book based from a female's point of view and make me want to read it.
      I was completely surprised to find that Mr. Bishop did exactly that. From the moment I picked this book up I couldn't put it down. As a mother, with a soon to be teen, I felt an instant connection with Laura. I too always said that I would be a better mother to my children than my mother was to me, and have caught myself saying and doing some of the exact things that my mother did when I was a child.
      The book is about Laura and her daughter Liz, there is a fight at the beginning of the book, and Liz takes off. Laura is worried about her, and sits down to write a letter to her daughter. The letter is the whole book, with a few present day things thrown in. I laughed and cried while Laura was writing the letter that started in her freshman year of high school and went on to her senior year. From first loves, to catholic school; tattoos and heartache, I was entranced and even ordered dinner for the kids because I couldn't pull myself away.
      I am so happy that I didn't let the fact that Mr. Bishop was a man stop me from reading!
    • 4/5
      A very quick read. After finishing I spent some time wondering.....
    • 3/5
      Written by a man, the book is actually a letter from a mother to her runaway daughter. The mother is telling the daughter about her own teen years and her struggles with her own parents. I liked the mother's story; I found it harder to understand why she felt it applicable and buying into the idea that this is the way a mother would spend the hours that her daughter was missing.
    • 3/5
      I got this book because I so enjoyed reading George Bishop's most recent novel, Night of the Comet. Letter to my Daughter is just that - a mother writes about her own teenage experiences to her daughter, who has run away from home. The story she tells, of young love, discrimination, and the Vietnam War, is interesting. What didn't work for me was the letter concept. Bishop uses the letter as an excuse to tell the story, but, of course, an excuse is not needed for a good story. We never learn much about the narrator's daughter, and making her a part of the novel only serves to periodically interrupt the narrative. I found that each time that happened it felt like I was thrown back to that point at the beginning of a novel where I don't yet know the characters and am hoping that the book will be good enough to draw me in to another reality. Bishop has a story to tell, but because he keeps interrupting the flow for no good reason, it is not one that I could completely immerse myself in.
    • 3/5
      A teen daughter has run away. Her parents are frantic. Mother decides to write daughter a letter telling her all the things she has wanted to tell her for a long time. She tells of her relationship with her own mother and how that has affected her relationship with her own daughter. Her experiences as a young teen will resonate with many people. I enjoyed the story and have my own idea of how it all turned out.
    • 4/5
      When I got this book in the mail I immediately fell in love with the cover but I was a little skeptical about the content as this book was super thin! I know you can't always judge a book by a cover or its size but I tend to do that.This slim little book is written as a letter that a mother is writing to her daughter who is 15 and has just run away. She is reflecting on the tumultuous relationship that is, and always will be, the one of mother & daughter. She reflects on her own upbringing and the resentments she had of her own mother (and father) and how the one with her own daughter is eerily similar in ways. She writes these letters with the hopes that when her daughter returns she will be able to read them, learn, forgive, and take baby steps toward mending their relationship. The content of this letter reveals the events that shaped the mother's life between the ages of 15-18 that the mother is hoping will show her daughter how much she truly does understood the plight of the teenager & her remorse regarding their relationships present state.I found myself quickly involved in the story and couldn't put it down. The mother/daughter relationship is always one of interest to me and I found the insights honest, relatable, and very delicately handled. The idea of a letter from my mother like this brought tears to my eyes. I wish I could have gotten something like this; perhaps I would have learned to better appreciate my mother when she was still alive. The most amazing thing to me is that this book was written by a man. I am amazed at how he was able to truly capture such complexities of the mother/daughter relationship.My only gripe with this book is that I just wondered why the mother didn't seem to be worried and could be calm enough to sit down and write a letter like this. I would think most mothers would be frantically rushing around and pacing until their daughter came back.I have to be honest. I don't know what drew me to this book when I was browsing the giveaways because it didn't seem like a book that I would normally pick up. However, I'm really glad that I won it.
    • 4/5
      There were several surprises for me when I started reading this book. For some reason, I thought this was going to be a book about letters from a father serving in Vietnam to his daughter. But, it turns out the entire book is one long letter written by a MOTHER to her 15 year old daughter who has just run-away. Mom wants her daughter to know that she understands how it feels to be 15 and misunderstood by the world. The mother gives us what is really her story of growing up, of living in a Catholic girls boarding school where she was sent by her parents to avoid having to go to an integrated school, and to get her away from her boyfriend. How her small acts of rebellion were a constant source of embarrassment to her parents, and a constant thorn in the side of many of her teachers. Having gone to a Catholic girls school myself during that same time period, I was able to relate to the story and particularly to her characterization of some of the nuns.The boyfriend eventually goes to Vietnam and there are letters from him to Mom, which Mom seems able to recreate verbatim after 30 some years.It is actually an endearing and poignant story that pulls the reader in and gently sets us down at the end. A lovely short read. Perhaps the biggest surprise was seeing how well a man could write from a mother's point of view. Recommended.
    • 5/5
      I won Letter to My Daughter from Library Thing's Early Reviewers. As soon as I read the synopsis, I knew it was a book I wanted to read. And I gulped it down super quickly! It's pretty short, just a mere 148 pages, but boy was it good!! The whole book is one long letter that a mother writes to her 15 year old daughter after they've had a big fight and the daughter runs off. In her letter, the mother, Laura, tells her daughter the story of her own adolescence, including the pain of switching high schools mid-year, first loves, and even the bumpy relationship she had with her own parents as a teen. The book is so thoughtfully written that it actually seems as if a real mom is writing this letter, not a middle-aged man. It was the kind of thing I wish my mom would write to me sometimes. Some of this book was actually hard to read because of how painful it was. It's so easy to put myself into Laura's shoes, especially now that I'm no longer a teen and can look back on those years. This isn't a "Vietnam War Era" novel, but the war definitely resonates throughout the letter, which makes the story seem even more real. I cried at least twice while reading this, and I'll probably cry again when I someday reread it (because it's def. worth a reread!). I think this book is a great reminder to teens that their parents were once young and made mistakes too. It's also a great reminder to parents that they used to be young and quite similar to the kids they now have.
    • 2/5
      A sorrowful book filled with a mother’s past and present lamenting. Letter to my daughter is just that- a very long letter addressed to a fifteen year old rebellious girl who has just ran away from home. Laura – hoping, praying, waiting for Elizabeth’s return decides to write about her teenage life and relay to Elizabeth that she too at one time was fifteen and she too faced the struggles of hating her parents and having life fall to pieces around her……A book with a beautiful premise of mother and daughter relationships failed short to showcase the dynamics of mother and daughter and focused more on political agenda. Someone needs to throw this book a bone…the same yammering story over the Vietnam War. The same liberal drivel I’ve heard a thousand times: Young naïve girl whips her panties down for the soft-eyed poor boy, whose only choice after the couple has been torn apart by her racist, bigot Conservative parents is to enlist in the Army and head off to Vietnam.While Tim is off fighting in the war, losing his soul and having his spirit crushed, Laura is at boarding school, being educated by the strength and backbone of investigative journalism, she grows apart (big surprise) from the idea of Tim and Tim himself. The sparkle of a story is defiantly there, luring us in with Laura’s coming of age story, but the political, republican /conservative bashing got so thick I was seriously battling the cotton candy coating over my eyes.
    • 3/5
      I read this book while on vacation and found it a quick and enjoyable read. Although it is presented as a letter from a mother to her teenage daughter, this was sort of forgotten as I read the mother's story. The bulk of the book tells the story of the mother's teenage relationship with her first serious boyfriend. This was quite entertaining and I think the book itself could have worked as just this story. It's interesting that the author is a mail writing as a mother and he does it well.
    • 4/5
      George Bishop does a good job with this touching story about a Mother's love for her daughter. Laura is a Mom of a teenage daughter, Elizabeth. The story starts with a fight and Elizabeth runs away. Laura is upset and thinks back to the time when she was 15 and the decisions she made in her life. She decides to write a letter to Elizabeth. As a daughter and a mother of a daughter and I can relate to each of these characters. Mr. Bishop writes with emotion and I can feel the love Laura has for Elizabeth.I found it fitting that I read this book the week before Mother's day.
    • 4/5
      If you start this book put aside a few hours to read it cause you won't be able to put it down. As the mother of four daughters I totally related to the tight rope act that mothers and daughters walk through the teenage years. Mr. Bishop does an amazing job of expressing the feelings and emotions in the mother - daughter relationship. If you are the parent of a teenager, this is a must read.
    • 5/5
      This was the best book I have read lately. I believe most mothers have stories that they haven't told their daughters. I enjoyed reading the mother's story. I thought the story had a good mix so that it would be interesting to teens, men, and women. I would recommend it to anyone!
    • 5/5
      I have to say that I loved this book. I was surprised that a man could write so convincingly about a woman's emotions, especially the complicated feelings of first love, loss and adolescence. I found the writing insightful and pure. I highly recommend this book and thought that his depiction of life was just so honest. I really felt like I was reading this private letter between mother and daughter. A truly excellent book!
    • 5/5
      This was a wonderfully written, beautiful, and insightful story about the relationship between a mother and daughter.The format in which the story is told is different and made it so much more personal. It was written, literally, from a mother to her daughter. It followed that long time saying from when we were teenagers..."I'll never be a mom like my mother!"This book threw me through a whirlwind of emotions. I think it's because as a mom and once a teenager, it's impossible NOT to connect to this work. I felt for the teen and for the mom. I will say that this book just FEELS so intimate; almost like you shouldn't be reading into such a bonding moment between the two. BUT, this is what keeps you going! It was just beautiful!I have to say that I was fascinated that a man wrote this book. Maybe, because I never expected a man to "get" the relationship and feelings portrayed. I actually have a guest post from George on that subject coming up a little later. He'll tell us more about that.And to close this up...I'm not sure how many of you are swayed by reviews to go in search of a book. But, if I've ever wanted to be persuasive I hope I've done that here. I truly hope that mom's (and daughter's) will search out this book and read it.
    • 4/5
      'A fight ended with a slap, sends 15 year old Elizabeth out the door with Moms car. Her Mother Laura is left to worry and remember. Wracked with guilt as she awaits her return, Laura, begins a letter, hoping to convey "everything I've always meant to tell you but never have."'This letter, the story of her own painful adolescence and hopes for her own daughter is captivating and I was able to relate to her struggles with her Mother and her daughter. That famous promise to 'Never treat my daughter that way' along with her wish taht she could go back & treat her Mother with more compassion struck home.This is a great first novel for George Bishop. I wish I could do as well with a letter for my daughter. Wanting to share this book with many people, I should give it to my public library, but find I'm not sure I want to part with it.
    • 4/5
      Let me first say, I was surprised a man wrote this, what a beautiful writing style, just real genuine warm feelings. George Bishop did a fabulous job and many women will be pleased that men do know how to communicate their feelings.I enjoyed this story and it immediately made me think about writing letters to my daughter yearly to give to her when she is older.This book is about the emotions a mom and dad have when they don’t know where their child is. Did she run away from home, is she just angry and letting off steam, will she come back, is she hurt, is she with a lover, when do we file a missing person, etc. The mom decides to write a letter to help her through the waiting but also to give to her daughter on her return. It was oh so cute and true on how the father dealt with it.The mom writes about her memories as a teenager, I found this fascinating and it made me question myself. Would I want my daughter to know about my first love, her dad and I’s love journey, about my tattoos, my childhood etc and even minor details about my sex life, yup George Bishop went there but it was touching.We didn’t get to see Elizabeth’s reaction to the letters or even if Laura gave them to her. I would love to know what happens next and this is why I didn’t give it 5 stars, I really missed this part of the story.What was really beautiful was how Elizabeth got her name, which is the kind of thing we should write to our children if it has any story or meaning behind it.If you want a beautifully written story that will make you look at your parenting style and how your childhood affects you, this is for you. Have you ever said I will never be like my mother and then realize you are?This is a fabulous Mother’s Day gift and I don’t think it is only for mothers with daughters, mothers with sons would appreciate it also.
    • 4/5
      It's not often that one wishes a book were longer than it is, but I almost wish there was just a little bit more to this one. After her teenage daughter storms out of the house, Laura sets about writing her a letter in which she hopes to explain that she really does understand what it's like to be a teenager. Bishop manages to pack a lot of emotional depth into this story, while keeping the prose very direct and free of frills.But I do wish the story had been extended just a bit. It's evident that Laura manages to salvage some kind of relationship with her parents; how did that come about? What happened after Laura graduated high school? How did she meet the man we know only as "your father," who is clearly not the boyfriend of Laura's teenage years, but with whom she seems to have a good marriage? It is one thing to let your daughter in on the secret that you were once a teenager too and can understand what she’s going through, but this story might have benefited if Laura were also able to let her daughter see the light at the end of the teenager-tunnel.
    • 4/5
      A mother has an argument with her daughter and the daughter leaves. The mother writes a hearfelt letter to her daugther talking about her life growing up. This book was a great read and I got through it in a couple sittings. I was able to feel the connection between mother and daughter.
    • 4/5
      Very simple story written in letter form by a mother whose daughter has run away. As the mother waits for her return, she writes of her relationship with her parents, and the events in her teen years that made her the adult she is now.Interesting that the author is male. I felt he used the female voice/emotion very well.
    • 4/5
      When I had seen this book around the blogosphere, I noted that the author was male and I assumed the story was about a father writing a letter to his daughter. So, imagine my surprise when I began the story...and it was the mother who was the narrator, and author of the letter. I was not only surprised, but delighted as the story took hold of me, and I met Laura Jenkins; first as a worried mother of a runaway teenager, then going back in time to her adolescence, getting to know her during the most painful years of her life. In the letter to her daughter Liz, she reveals secrets that she has kept for decades. She outlines her life beginning when she was her daughter's age, fifteen, and what she endured growing up. She keeps reminding her daughter in the letter that things were "not that much different" between she and her parents than they were between Liz and her parents.This is a book that can be read straight through...in one sitting. Yes, it's that good. George Bishop is a very talented and gifted author. He accomplishes the amazing task of verbalizing the special relationship between a mother and her daughter so beautifully. I can honestly say that I was very satisfied with the end of the story. Have a box of tissues handy while you are reading this ...you'll need them.
    • 3/5
      I can’t say that I dislike the book, but neither can I say it met my expectations. There are many fine images and turns of phrase, and it’s of a downright dainty length, which I appreciate. But without a review to turn in, I doubt I would have stayed with it, let alone read it in one night. There are two poignant stories here, of two young girls apparently left pretty much on their own to figure out how life works or drown in its sea of troubles. That one is the mother of the other, and seems to offer her little insight from her own experience, is perhaps the saddest thing about the book. We never actually get to know much about the daughter’s situation, certainly never get to hear her side, but beyond the mother telling of when she was 15 and writing to her 15-year-old daughter, there seem few points of connection between the two (stories or women)Laura begins to tell her story in the expectation that Liz will return within hours. But as those hours turn into full days (at least two; only the start is clearly labeled), Laura’s story goes on to its logical end, when she’s 18. For Liz, it’s 2004, but there is no amber alert raised. In fact, her parents don’t call authorities until she’s been missing 24 hours, and even then are mostly shrugged off. This is an only child, only daughter, 15 years old, in Baton Rouge Louisiana, which I must now wonder might be the only place where a 15-year-old is handled by the police as an adult. While Laura distracts herself with her writing, Liz’s father mows the lawn, tinkers with eyeglass repair, and assumes it will be all right. In a time when we seem obsessed with missing children, I wanted to slap someone for not worrying more about this child. What is most disconnected, though, is Laura’s story, touching as it might be. Of course, it centers around a boy, a boy of whom her parents disapprove. He is a senior while she is a freshman. And at the first chance they get, they strip and have sex on the floor of a public room of her parents’ house. Most shockingly, Laura tells her daughter that “what we did was a good thing.” Even I can hardly blame Laura’s father for throwing Tim out, beaten bloody and still naked, into the night. The book includes plenty of romantic moments and developments. What is apparently meant to be the dramatic denouement involves a line from Elizabeth Barrett Browning that Laura shared only with a conspiratorial nun, and one of two incarnated mementos that Liz has seen on her mother’s body but never been told full stories of. But there’s too much of an epilogue, Bishop scrambling to prevent the drama from having as much impact on Laura’s life as it does on the surface of her body. We are left wondering why Laura would tell her daughter about it and what lesson Liz could possibly learn from her mother’s story. But mostly, I’m afraid, I adopt the practiced shrug of Laura's Tim and move on.
    • 5/5
      Letters to my Daughter by George Bishop is a remarkable little novel. Written from the perspective of a mom worried about her teenaged daughter and hoping not to turn into her mother, it’s really hard to imagine a male author hitting the marks as well as this book does. I even spent some moments remembering the Nancy Drew books I read as a kid, where Nancy’s girlfriend is called George, and I convinced myself that George Bishop was a woman. (Even though the back of the book only refers to him as him or he.) I googled, and nope, as the bookcover states, he is who he is. Hmmm…okay, now I’m convinced he grew up in a household with at least 5 sisters. This guy knows mother/daughter relationships in a way that’s almost spooky. Of course its no secret that all mom’s want a close relationship with their daughters, and its not always something that we can attain. The line between mom and friend is a difficult one to straddle, and as mom’s we frequently keep so much of our pasts from our kids. It’s not because we think they are destined to repeat our mistakes, or even that we think they will or won’t learn from our mistakes. It’s more a desire to protect them from the things that can hurt them. When we expose the heartbreaking parts of our lives, the really painful things that we’ve either done or had done to us, will it help our kids understand we have empathy for them and open the lines of communication? Or will it merely make our kids look at us with a more jaundiced eye, make us lose stature in their eyes? I think these questions are ones that most parents grapple with at one point in time.Letters to my Daughter doesn’t try to answer these big questions. Instead it gives us a personal peek into the life of a mother who is frantic with worry about her daughter and not sure how to help her. This book has a slightly ambiguous ending, but it really works for it. It’s a novel I’d wholeheartedly recommend to anyone, especially the moms and grandmas of teenaged girls, and to the girls themselves. Laura’s story might not be their mothers, but it shows that we all have stories, unspoken and unheard.(Review copy provided by Random House Publishing Group)
    • 5/5
      Excellent book! When her daughter runs away from home after a heated arguement, Laura decides to write her daughter a letter while she waits for word of where her daughter is. She tells about her teenage years and why she is the mother she is to her daughter. This book was written beautifully by George Bishop who does a great job capturing the dynamics of a mother/daughter relationship. I read this book in one sitting!
    • 4/5
      Letter to My Daughter is a very short novel at only 160 pages. The length and the conversational tone of the letter make it a very fast read despite the very emotional content. Laura's letter to her daughter, Liz, is filled with the powerful emotion of a mother worrying for her daughter as well as the emotions she felt as a teenager. The book was less about the relationship between mother and daughter as it was the experience of being a daughter and being a mother. We never actually meet Liz, only seeing her through her mother's eyes, and we never meet Laura's mother but see her through the eyes of her daughter. Laura is both the author and the central character as this is her story.Letter to My Daughter is honest, straightforward, and filled with the pain and confusion of being a teenager. Laura fully reveals herself to her daughter in this letter yet, for this book, whether Liz actually reads the letter and gains a deeper understanding of her mother is irrelevant. It is enough that Laura finally told her story.
    • 4/5
      When do mothers share with their daughters the seminal events of young adulthood that shaped their lives? That made them reconsider the world and those around them? For Laura, it was writing a letter while waiting for word about runaway daughter, Liz.This is a poignant story of love, hurt, and hope. How easily those feelings and fears of high school can come back! Yes, dear daughter, I remember. And, I survived.If you want to talk with your daughter, or want to talk with your mom, this might be the book to leave out on the lamp table. Hopefully no one person's story is quite so chock-full, but it might help open the space to begin the conversation.
    • 4/5
      When fifteen year old Liz runs away from home, her mother, Laura, sits down and writes a letter to her. This is Laura’s way of coping with the worry and explaining some things to Liz. In the letter, Laura tells Liz how much she loves her, how she’d hoped to have a better relationship with her daughter, and about her own life as a teenager.George Bishop does a remarkable job writing Letter to My Daughter from a female point of view. He does such a remarkable job evoking emotion that I felt that I was sitting at the table with Laura while she was struggling with pain and doubt and pouring her heart out.Liz’s mother was few years older than me, but I can still remember what it was like when she writes of her youth - a time when our country was struggling with prejudices and the Vietnam War divided us.I love the unique way this story is told and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a fast, but emotional, read and I found myself engrossed in it. I shed quite a few tears while reading Letter to My Daughter, so be prepared with tissues when you read it. This book made me think too, because I found myself relating to Laura both as a mother and as a daughter.
    • 4/5
      Thank you to Random House Publishing for the opportunity to read and review the Advance Reader's Edition of Letter to My Daughter by George Bishop. I read this book in just one reading and found myself transported to my own teen years. The scenarios painted by Mr. Bishop were amazingly on target and interestingly intuitive as this was a female story from start to finish.The book is one very long letter from a distraught mother to her fifteen year old daughter. The two had a fight which ended with the mother slapping the daughter and the daughter leaving the house without telling her parents where she was going or when she was coming back. Haven't we all been there on one level or another? The mother then waits for her daughter to come home and writes her a letter telling her about her own adolescence. The letter takes the reader back to the late 1960s and the VietNam war. And the angst of being in love for the first time. Beyond the basic story, the author leads the reader to think about the war and the effects on young men who were there. In addition, I thought about the legacy we leave our children, in spite of our best efforts not to repeat mistakes of our parents.This was a very short book, but I tore through it - needing to hear the entire history of the mother as well as the fate of the daughter. This is a fascinating debut novel and I look forward to more from Mr. Bishop.
    • 4/5
      I won an advanced copy on Firstsreads, and I wasn't expecting much. The book was awfully thin, and the cover, title, and premise seemed a little frilly at first. I, however, was pleasantly surprised. This was a quick read I completed in a couple of hours. The story, once I started, drew me in. I am still shocked that such a touching little novel was written by a man. It was pretty accurate in its depictions of a mother-daughter relationship, and it made me wonder about my own mother's mysterious tattoo.....anyway, my only wish was that it was longer. The writing was good and the story was realistic, but I'm still wanting more. That perhaps is a good thing. Nothing earth-shattering but if you are looking for a quick, feel-good read, I recommmend Letter to My Daughter.