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How to Love Your Daughter

The ‘excellent and unforgettable’ prize-winning novel

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How to Love Your Daughter

By: Hila Blum
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
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Bloomsbury presents How to Love Your Daughter by Hila Blum, read by Cassandra Campbell.

WINNER OF THE SAPIR PRIZE 2022

‘A mesmerising, disquieting tale of family estrangement … Unforgettable’ OBSERVER

‘A striking and memorable novel’ MEG WOLITZER

‘A stone-cold masterwork of psychological tension. Its final pages had me holding my breath’ NEW YORK TIMES

‘Hila Blum is my new favourite writer’ LOUISE KENNEDY

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What damage do we do in the blindness of love?

Thousands of miles from her home, a woman stands on a dark street, peeking through well-lit windows at two little girls. They are the daughters of her only daughter, the grandchildren she’s never met.

At the centre of this mesmerising story is the woman’s quest to understand how a relationship that began in bliss – a mother besotted with her only child – arrived at a point of such unfathomable distance. Weaving back and forth in time, she unravels memories and long-buried feelings, retracing the infinite acts of parental care, each so mundane and apparently benign, that together may have undermined what she most treasured.

With exquisite psychological precision, Blum traces the seemingly insignificant missteps and deceptions of family life, where it’s possible to cross the line between protectiveness and possession without even seeing it – and it’s uncertain whether, or how, we can find our way back.

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'When I read this book, I felt ... that a new and wonderful occurrence has transpired in Israeli literature' Neri Livne, Haaretz©2021 Hila Blum (P)2023 Penguin Random House LLC Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological World Literature Fiction
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Critic reviews

A striking and memorable novel. With single-minded intensity, How to Love Your Daughter reckons with parent-child boundaries: the ones that are clear, and the ones that are sometimes hazy, or dangerously non-existent (Meg Wolitzer)
Hila Blum explores one particular mother-daughter relationship with remarkable acuity. Her novel takes us on a suspenseful psychological journey as she plumbs a great mystery: how the purest maternal love can lead to the most unwanted and even disastrous consequences (Sigrid Nunez)
This mesmerizing, quietly harrowing novel begins with a mother’s complete estrangement from her adult daughter and works backward to reveal the ways that maternal love can strangle when it was only trying to cradle, can recklessly misdirect when it wanted to protect. Excellent and unforgettable (Ann Packer, author of THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE and THE DIVE FROM CLAUDEN'S PIER)
I am not exaggerating when I say that there is a similarity between (Alice) Munro’s and Blum's writing – describing entire lives, understatedly, humbly and reservedly . . . Both Blum and Munro are interested in people first and foremost . . . a gradual seeping of emotions and actions; There are no villains nor angels, but rather a human complexity, to be identified with and feared… These possibilities – for introspection, to open for discussion that which was deemed an axiom, to understand the other – these are the exact signs of fine literature (Noa Limone, Haaretz)
This book wisely strums the delicate strings which connect parents and their children, winds them well and produces an agonizing and alluring piece of music (Yoni Livneh, Yediot Aharonot)
All stars
Most relevant
I listened to this book with interest all the way through, but was disturbed to find that the very last sentence or two was missing! Reloading does not seem to help me to find the missing words it seems to jump.

I am also unable - despite having been a member for so many years books - to find any place where I can report this to, and hopefully have it put right.

It seems a shame to have to ask for a refund and I’ll be happy to keep the book, but to not be able to make a complaint and have it resolved. It’s a shame.

An interesting book, I enjoyed the literary references, appreciated the legend, at the end, where they came from, and the characters developed well through the period of the book.

Sadly the last few sentences of the book are missing

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Getting through this book was hard work. I did not gel with the main character or enjoy how it was read. I think the last time a character left me so frustrated and exasperated was when I read ‘The Idiot’. Not for me!

Exhausting read with infuriating characters

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Never understood what was the point of the book or what the author was trying to convey. wasted time.

lost

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