For reasons I will keep to myself right now, I’ve been thinking lately about relationships between mothers and daughters. So much so that it seems to have subconsciously influenced what I’ve been reading and watching.

Some of these books were chosen for book group, so they shouldn’t factor into my subconscious book choices, but I’ll mention them anyway, because I definitely focused on the relationships.

• In The Rose Code (bookgroup choice) three women with varying levels of closeness to their mothers become friends. One is born rich with a distracted and often absent mother, one is born poor with a mother who has more children than she can care for, and one whose mother is physically, verbally and emotionally abusive and beyond overprotective.
• In We Were the Mulvaneys (bookgroup choice) the mother is so ashamed that her daughter has been raped, she doesn’t blink an eye when her husband sends the daughter away and never wants to see her again.
• In Pieces of Her (my choice) a widowed mother and her daughter’s close relationship is threatened after they witness a mass shooting at a cafe in a mall and the daughter slowly learns that her mother is not who she thought she was. (I also watched the Netflix series based on this book)
• In The Last Days of Night (bookgroup choice) an actress and professional singer and her seemingly domineering mother have a [necessarily once you learn their secret] close relationship.
• In With Love from London (my choice) a daughter whose mother abandoned her at age 12 is surprised at age 35 when her mother dies and leaves her a bookstore in London.

The one book that I have not read that I should have read in February is You’re Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation. It might be too late, but I’ll add it to my must read books in this year’s reading challenge. It couldn’t hurt.