Daughters

Daughters, a novel by British author Kirsty Capes, is a story about a journey taken by three women: sisters Mattie and Nora, and Mattie’s daughter Beanie, bearing with them the ashes of world-renowned painter Ingrid Olssen who is also Mattie and Nora’s mother and grandmother to Beanie.But it’s also about the emotional expedition Mattie and Nora take into their past, and how they evaluate and extrapolate those events as a way of making sense of who they are and what choices they can make for the road ahead.It's a marvelous, heartbreaking story of childhood trauma, mental health issues, love, loss and longing. And it’s a novel of joy and happiness and familial connections that can bind people together even when life events threaten that link.Daughters isn’t just a novel about three women: Mattie, Nora and Beanie. It’s also a way for us to think about the people we love, to understand the way our recollections of childhood experiences have informed our adulthood, and the power of love to heal old wounds and strengthen damaged hearts.Thank you to the publisher for my copy of Daughters. All thoughts are my own.

An excellent novel by Kirsty Capes. It follows the emotional journey of two sisters carrying out their mother’s last wish as they come to terms with a childhood of trauma. With well developed characters the story will touch your heart as you laugh and cry along with the sisters. A beautifully written, moving, heartfelt novel.

DAUGHTERS by Kirsty Capes is a bit longer than most novels nowadays, but every word is placed exactly. I loved this book! When world renowned Norwegian painter, Ingrid Olssen is on her deathbed. She begs her daughters to burn all of her works, she doesn’t want them shown, celebrated, or sold. She wants the girls to destroy them. Mattie, the older and more responsible of the two is raising a teenage daughter, Beanie, whom she shares with supportive ever loving Gus. When Ingrid died, Mattie did little more than place all her mother’s works in a storage unit. Nora, on the other hand, is an artist herself who is in the throes of performance art called the ‘control room’ which is basically a live stream of her life. She has struggled in the past and holds deep resentment against Mattie because when she left home, leaving her with a disinterested mother, Mattie never returned to get Nora. Enter Aunt Karoline, who decides that she wants to do an exhibit of their mother’s work. She catches Nora during a low period and has her agree to the exhibit. All this, while her boyfriend is writing a biography on Ingrid’s life and work. Mattie and Nora decide that they must follow their mother’s wishes and as the exhibit opening draws near, they travel up the west coast to raid the storage locker and destroy all their mother’s works. But as they travel, the reality of their past becomes apparent to both and the sisters connect with each other and their mother, whose ashes they carry, in ways they haven’t in years. When they finally reach their destination,Mattie gives up more than just the artwork. If you’ve ever had a sister, this book should resonate with you. It brought back some fond memories for me and made me wish that my own sisters and I could have travelled up the coast together. There is a lot of family dysfunction in this one including abusive boyfriend and stories of Hector, who stole the sun and lived in the walls. Some of these stories made me laugh, while others made me catch my breath. The writing was clear and concise and led to an enjoyable read. I can’t wait to see where Kirsty Capes takes me next.Thank you to NetGalley and Overlook Press for this ARC opportunity. All opinions are my own and given voluntarily.

It took me a bit to get into but once the characters made themselves known, I was hooked. The author made the girls and what happens to them so real that I felt I was there with them. I wish the book could have gone on and on. I sobbed in the end, before the end. This is a deeply told, deeply moving novel. One worth reading.

This book was an emotional journey dealing with mental health issues and growing up in a traumatic childhood that left lasting scars on two sisters. Other than the lack of editing and proofreading, this story was a good read.Mattie and Nora are the daughters of the legendary Ingrid Olssen, world renowned, scandal-prone artist. While she was on her deathbed she made her daughters promise to burn all of her art and scatter her ashes. Two years after her death, Mattie still has the ashes. She hasn't seen her little sister, Nora, since their mother died. Nora didn't even come to the funeral. Mattie is nine years older than Nora and basically raised her herself. Ingrid was always locked away painting and then partying for weeks, sometimes months at a time. Their childhood was awful. Abandoned by both their mom and American father, they had to rely on themselves.Mattie got pregnant when she was just a teenager herself and moved out to live with Gus, the baby's father. She tried getting custody of Nora, but social services thought that they were too young to raise their own child and her sister. Nora was often neglected and developed some of the same emotional problems that their mother suffered from.When their Aunt Karo wants to do a book about her sister's life followed by an exhibition the girls both refuse to give her the paintings. They own them. But after Nora ends up in the psych ward after a psychotic break, her Aunt uses her vulnerable state and gets her to sign away her rights to her mom's art.While Nora is recovering at Mattie's place, the sisters decide to go to America to stop the show and spread her ashes. They fly into Arizona and drive to San Francisco. But Mattie, Beanie, her daughter, and Nora soon learn that it's illegal to spread ashes in the Grand Canyon, so Beanie finds somewhere else to do it. Meanwhile, the sisters finally talk about years of resentment and hatred that their mother inflicted upon them and their relationship. Getting rid of these feelings is like cleansing their bodies of an illness.An emotional read!*I received a complimentary ARC via NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.