Though clearly intended for women who've lost their mothers, this book is full of insights for someone like me, the father of a motherless daughter. It reveals much that I suspected and even more that had not occurred to me about the difficulties and opportunities presented to a daughter with the loss of her mother. Hope Edelman surveyed many women who had lost their mothers and drew some valuable conclusions about the effect of such a loss on both the child and the adult daughter. ( )

Looks at the effect losing their ,others at an early age affects daughters.

Although a mother's mortality is inevitable, no earlier book had discussed the profound, lasting and far-reaching effects of this loss.

Although a mother's mortality is inevitable, no book had discussed the profound, lasting, and far-reaching effects of this loss until "Motherless Daughters," which became an instant classic.

I started reading this book nearly ten years ago, when the grief counselor recommended it to me after my mother died. I read most of it then, and put it down with only a few pages to go, until an hour ago.

The book is mainly geared to women who lost their mothers when they were very young. I was 47 when my 87 year old mother died, so a lot of the book didn’t seem to fit my circumstances. That’s why I put it down and never finished it; it enlightened me to some things, like how one will always miss their mother (unless the relationship is very bad) even when they are adults. I had been told by a number of people “Well, you know your parents will die before you; it’s the way life works”; while that is true in most cases, it doesn’t take the pain away.

But near the end is a section devoted to how the motherless daughter raises her own children, and suddenly I related to the book: my mother lost her own mother when she was only nine. And my mother fit almost exactly the character of the motherless daughter as a mother herself. Suddenly, I understood a lot of things about her- and about myself. I might not have been the intended audience for the book, but it still struck a chord.

The book is a combination of autobiography and psychological analysis. The author did her own survey of women who had lost their mothers; it was a small sample (154 respondents) but she gathered a lot of information from other people’s research as well. I think the book is well done and well worth reading by any woman who lost her mother young or whose mother lost hers young. ( )