Mother Loves Me

I’m not sure where to start with telling you how incredible this book is! I have just put it down and I am still waiting for my heartbeat to return to a normal pace! I’d heard great things about Mother Loves Me and had been meaning to read it for a while. Why did I wait so long? This is easily up there with my favourite reads of all time. I can’t believe this is a debut novel for this author, I am jumping for joy that I already have her second book on my shelf ready to read!

Allergic to sunlight, Mirabelle has lived a very sheltered life in a boarded-up cottage with her mother. Any knowledge she has of the outside world comes from storybooks and things her mother has taught her. Mirabelle is painted and dressed like a doll each day by her mother and has no reason to think that this isn’t normal! That is until she turns 13 and begins to question things a bit more!

Mother loves her ‘little doll’ especially when she is young, naïve and compliant. Mirabelle is growing and changing though, and mother doesn’t like this one bit. So, what does she do? She gets herself a new little doll – Clarabelle. Claiming to have rescued her from an abusive father, she convinces Mirabelle initially that she has done the right thing in bringing her home. With mother being more interested in her new daughter, Mirabelle feels rejected, and as she stumbles across some shocking information, the story takes a dramatic turn!

Wow! What a book this is. The suspense is off the scale! This is the first book I’ve read where every page had me hanging off the edge of my seat! I don’t know how many times I had to remind myself to breathe! I was so engrossed whilst reading on my lunch break the other day, that when a colleague said my name I jumped!

Reading this story through Mirabelle’s eyes increases the tension and suspense tenfold. What a strong, courageous girl she is! Mother, however, is the creepiest character I have ever come across, the thought of her scares the crap out of me and everything she said or did sent a shiver down my spine! The whole book is full of heart-pounding, breath-holding moments and the end had me in tears!

Expertly written, original and insanely good! I will be recommending this book to anyone who will listen. I would give this more than 5 stars if I could!

okay right where the hell do i start i feel like this book consumed me as much as i consumed it!!

first of all the plot: twelve year old mirabelle has never been outside, she has been told she has a light allergy and if she does go outside the light will kill her. she lives alone in a cottage with her mother and is homeschooled, all fairly ordinary if not a little weird. then it’s revealed in the pov of mirabelle that all the windows are not only covered but there’s wooden boards bolted over them, that was where my unease started. the next creepy thing is that everyday without fail the mother paints the little girls face, refers to her as a doll and dresses her like one too, feeling creeped out yet? just wait.

one day on mirabelle’s thirteenth birthday mother announced she has a surprise for her and after leaving the house for a while she returns with a bag and inside that bad is a five year old girl the mother names clarabelle. terrified yet? JUST WAIT

the mother explains to mirabelle that clarabelle was being mistreated and she has rescued her, mirabelle has only ever known this way of life, she has no reason to disbelieve her mother, why would she?

as the story progresses you start to see the cruelty and insanity break through the mothers facade of being perfect and sweet heres just a few examples:

1. she humiliates mirabelle for starting her period, calling her names and claiming it was disgusting that she’s developing

2. A memory is recalled by mirabelle that her mother forced her to get rid of her imaginary friend at the time called Polly (remember that that’s important)

3. She constantly berates her, changed from sweet to sadistic in a matter of seconds, she is emotionally manipulative and the seams of trust between the two characters (mother and daughter) slowly start the unravel.

at first mirabelle thinks she’s just jealous of her mother preferring mirabelle but then seeds of doubt start to creep in, is she really allergic to the light? did mother really save mirabelle? after an explore in the attic when mother is out she discovers that no, she has been abducted and has been missing for A WHOLE DECADE.

*pause for breath*

the fight ignites in ‘mirabelle’ aka polly dalton, her and ‘clarabelle’ who is actually another abductee emma hedges have to escape and if they don’t the mother will kill them after all ‘dolls life short lives’, a sentence that the mother repeats CONSTANTLY!

a lot more happens but I can’t fit it ALL in because it is a harrowing, explosive bone chilling book, with murder, suicide, coercion, drugs, manipulation, cellars, cruelty, death, grief ETC

but here are two pieces of the story that just blew my mind and if you’ve read it maybe you’ll relate.

1. Youre told that Polly was mirabelles imaginary friend but then after her explore in the attic you find that SHE IS POLLY, i think it’s disastrously manipulative and clever for the author to plant that name in the beginning of the book and have it be mirabelles ACTUAL NAME before she was abducted !! and the the reason the mother forced the 6yr old (at the time) to forget that name was because she was coaxing and persuading her to forget her old identity for good!!!

2. The tragic ending revealed that mother had lost her own ‘doll’ (baby) ‘annabelle’ and that was why she was so desperate to ‘rescue’ the other two girls and give them both names that ended with ‘belle’ it was her way of bringing her daughter back to her EVEN THOUGH ITS SO MESSED UP.

as you can probably tell by the length of this review that this book set my brain on fire, it left me on edge, it is in the running to be my favourite book of all time. what a show stopper, what a marvellous telling of a creepy narrative done so cleverly and subtlety !!

JUST WOWOWOWOWO!!!!!

As the title says this book is gripping from the start...tense throughout. Read in a week. I’ve never cried reading a book until this one!