The Someday Daughter
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Perfect for fans of Rachel Lynn Solomon, Mary H. K. Choi, and Alex Light! From the critically acclaimed author of Seven Percent of Ro Devereux comes another heartrending and nuanced novel about family, love, and the cost of ambition.
“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.” —Laura Taylor Namey, New York Times bestselling author of A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow
Audrey St. Vrain has grown up in the shadow of someone who doesn’t actually exist. Before she was born, her mother, Camilla St. Vrain, wrote the bestselling book Letters to My Someday Daughter, a guide to self-love that advises treating yourself like you would your own hypothetical future daughter. The book made Audrey’s mother a household name, and she built an empire around it.
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ambition strains a mother-daughter relationship in this sophisticated and evocatively wrought novel by O'Clover (Seven Percent of Ro Devereux). Eighteen-year-old Audrey St. Vrain planned on spending the summer at a pre-college biomedical science intensive with her boyfriend, not touring the country as "the flustered daughter of a woo-woo celebrity" to promote her mother's self-help book, Letters to My Someday Daughter. The public expects Audrey, the eponymous someday daughter, to have an "idyllic, beatific bond" with her mother, but in reality, she's been at boarding school since sixth grade, pursuing her academic goals while her mother built her wellness empire. As the tour shines an uncomfortable spotlight on the pair's estrangement, Audrey tries to focus on studying with her doctor mentor Sadie Stone, but intense anxiety, growing closeness to Dr. Stone's laid-back intern Silas Acheson, and a latent desire to connect with her mother challenge her plans for the future and understanding of the past. 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. Main characters follow a white default. Ages 13–up.
