Certain Things about My Mother: Daughters Speak

Two compilations of essays and poems deal with growing up and asserting oneself. Seven women revisit often-turbulent memories about their adolescent years and their relationships with their mothers in Certain Things About My Mother: Daughters Speak, edited by Susan Musgrave. As in her other titles, You Be Me and Nerves Out Loud, Musgrave includes powerful essays that delve into the emotional struggles of teenage girls. In her essay, Priscila Uppal describes a girl's anger at her mother's abandonment: ""What kind of mother prepared lunch, put her daughter on the bus, kissed her husband good-bye on his way to work, brewed tea, and then packed her bags and boarded a plane to London's Heathrow Airport?""