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100 Must-Read Books About Mothers and Motherhood

"Just like in life, mothers in literature vary in every way imaginable. They vary by race, nationality, and religion. They vary by personality. They vary by sexual orientation and gender identity. Some have always wanted to be mothers. Others had other, conflicting goals. Depending on the genre of book, their stories vary wildly too." Here's Book Riot's list of must-read books about mothers and motherhood. Have you read many of these?
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from bookriot.com · made by AnnaBoots
avg. score: 6 of 100 (6%)
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#1
The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
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The Secret Daughter (Shilpi Somaya Gowda)
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#3
Half of a Yellow Sun (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)
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#4
Paula (Isabel Allende)
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#5
Mom & Me & Mom (Maya Angelou)
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#6
Behind the Scenes at the Museum (Kate Atkinson)
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#7
The Law of Loving Others (Kate Axelrod)
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#8
Those Bones Are Not My Child (Toni Cade Bambara)
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#9
Daughter (Asha Bandele)
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#10
I'm the Vampire, That's Why (Michele Bardsley)
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#11
Are You My Mother? (Alison Bechdel)
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#12
Away (Amy Bloom)
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#13
Stuck in the Middle With You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders (Jennifer Finney Boylan)
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#14
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne Brontë)
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#15
The Runaway Bunny (Margaret Wise Brown)
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#16
Lilith's Brood
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#17
Wild Swans (Jung Chang)
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#18
Sustained (Emma Chase)
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#19
Caramelo (Sandra Cisneros)
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#20
Ramona and Her Mother (Beverly Cleary)
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#21
Little Bee (Chris Cleave)
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#22
Know the Mother (Desiree Cooper)
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#23
Worth the Fall (Claudia Connor)
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#24
Breath, Eyes, Memory (Edwidge Danticat)
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#25
The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother's Hidden Life (Jasmin Darznik)
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#26
Along for the Ride (Sarah Dessen)
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#27
Blue Nights
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#28
Before We Visit the Goddess (Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni)
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#29
Room (Emma Donoghue)
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#30
The Joys of Motherhood (Buchi Emecheta)
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#31
The Painted Drum (Louise Erdrich)
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#32
The Lost Daughter (Elena Ferrante)
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#33
White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
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#34
Sharp Objects (Gillian Flynn)
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#35
The Mother-Daughter Book Club
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#36
The Ladies of Managua (Eleni N.Gage)
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#37
Heart of the Matter
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#38
Another Piece of My Heart
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#39
Home/Birth: A Poemic (Arielle Greenberg and Rachel Zucker)
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#40
Dragonsbane (Barbara Hambly)
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#41
Chocolat (Joanne Harris)
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#42
The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
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#43
Hush!: A Thai Lullaby Book (Minfong Ho)
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#44
Bettyville: A Memoir (George Hodgman)
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#45
Mama Do You Love Me (Barbara M. Joosse)
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#46
Outside Beauty (Cynthia Kadohata)
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#47
At the Bottom of the River
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#48
The Bean Trees (Barbara Kingsolver)
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#49
Life on the Refrigerator Door
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#50
Operating Instructions (Anne Lamott)
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#51
Son (Lois Lowry)
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#52
Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover (Sarah MacLean)
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#53
Fingerprints of You (Kristen-Page Madonia)
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#54
Mama's Saris (Pooja Makhijani)
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#55
The Rice Mother (Rani Manicka)
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#56
Saving Franchesca (Melina Marchetta)
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#57
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (Ayana Mathis)
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#58
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother (James McBride)
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#59
Reconstructing Amelia (Kimberly McCreight)
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#60
Nobody Told Me: The Poetry of Parenthood (Hollie McNish)
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#61
The Good Mother (Sue Miller)
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#62
Big Little Lies (Liane Moriarty)
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#63
Beloved (Toni Morrison)
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#64
One Plus One (Jojo Moyes)
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#65
The Beggar Maid
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#66
Love You Forever (Robert Munsch)
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#67
The Falling Woman
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#68
The Argonauts (Maggie Nelson)
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#69
Heather Has Two Mommies (Lesléa Newman)
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#70
The Patron Saint of Liars (Ann Patchett)
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#71
The Kissing Hand (Audrey Penn)
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#72
Dream a Little Dream
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#73
Things We Left Unsaid (Zoya Pirzad)
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#74
Incarnation (Clare Pollard)
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#75
Every Last One (Anna Quindlen)
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#76
Of Woman Born (Adrienne Rich)
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#77
The Next Always (Nora Roberts)
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#78
Landline (Rainbow Rowell)
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#79
The Stepmother (Claire Seeber)
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#80
Lucky Boy (Shanthi Sekaran)
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#81
Where'd You Go, Bernadette (Maria Semple)
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#82
Out of the Easy (Ruta Sepetys)
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#83
Our Andromeda
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#84
Please Look After Mother by Kyung Sook Shin
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#85
The Wholeness of a Broken Heart (Katie Singer)
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#86
Ordinary Light (Tracy K. Smith)
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#87
The Faraway Nearby
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#88
The Reece Malcolm List (Amy Spalding)
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#89
Wild (Cheryl Strayed)
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#90
My Name Is Lucy Barton (Elizabeth Strout)
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#91
The Kitchen God's Wife (Amy Tan)
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#92
Ladder of Years
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#93
So B.It (Sarah Weeks)
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#94
Little Earthquakes
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#95
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (Rebecca Wells)
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#96
The Ten Year Nap (Meg Wolitzer)
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#97
Pecan Pie Baby (Jacqueline Woodson)
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#98
Everything Everything (Nicola Yoon)
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#99
Mother Mother
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#100
How to Save a Life (Sara Zarr)
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