Mother Loves Me Paperback – Import, 17 September 2020

This book is unsettling and creepy (in a good way) right off the bat, with tension that keeps rising as we worry what is going to happen to the protagonist. Hard to put down as the pace increases and Mother's backstory reveals some disturbing but fascinating dark family history. Excellent writing and a protagonist you can really root for.

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!

Unless you've never read a book, seen a documentary or watched a film before in your life, then OF COURSE stories like Mother Loves Me will draw comparisons to others - but that's not a bad thing. For me, this debut bought back blissful memories of the deliciously insane Annie Wilkes (Misery) and the courageous strength of Steven Stayner (I Know My First Name is Steven). But it's more than a blur of stories or characters - this book can stand on it's own two feet.Some reviewers found the main character immature, angsty and repetitive. She is. She's a 13 year old girl. The story is told solely from her viewpoint. And convincingly too. Others felt it was unrealistic that she'd been locked away for years with no access to another soul yet is well versed and educated - she is. 'Mother' makes her study Shakespeare and write endless essays and corrects her grammar continually. We're told our heroine has read all of the classic children's books, often referring to to what a beloved character did in one of those stories to help her decide what to do in her situation.The biggest complaint appears to be why, having some semblance of what is considered 'normal' through her studies and reading, she does absolutely nothing about her plight until another little girl arrives. Yet it's 'Mothers' decision to do this (in an effort to prolong her delusion) that acts as the catalyst for our heroine's awakening and the rapid unravelling of her Mother. It's actually rather brilliant.I liked the use of short punchy chapters - sometimes only a couple of pages long. It would have made the claustrophobic circumstances incredibly gloomy and suffocating if they'd rambled on endlessly. Instead, they keep things moving at pace I wanted to stick with.There's no real sense of what modern decade this is set in, or where they are geographically, but none of that matters. Our heroine doesn't know, so we don't know.Everyone is entitled to their opinion - I've read many a book that has left me rather disappointed and equally read many that I didn't want to end. But my view is that this is a rather clever debut and a brave effort to break into a market that is swamped with a million others all hailed as having the 'shocking climax you won't see coming' or 'the best thriller you'll read this year'. It's a lot to live up to and this sits rather nicely among them.

What a perfect thriller for the spooky season! Super creepy and very unpredictable.I really ‘enjoyed’ this one as there were so many twists and turns and the tension was maintained pretty much for the entire of the book. The plot raced ahead chapter after chapter and there were very few places where it slowed down.There are some pretty horrible themes within the story and some disturbing scenes which I found uncomfortable to read about especially those involving the abuse of children. Emotional, physical and sexual abuse are all covered within the story as well as kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment so it was a pretty harrowing read at times.That all being said, I really enjoyed how the protagonist’s (a 13 year old girl) character developed throughout the story. I thought the author did a great job of writing the story from her perspective and getting the reader to follow her thought processes. At times she gave empathy to characters that didn’t deserve any and rationalised her emotions, thoughts and actions. You really feel like you’re right there alongside this girl!The twists and turns and which character has the upper hand at different times was so exciting and made it such a tense story!One line from the book I just loved was…‘Black is evil. A colour that murdered other colours.’It just sounds so dark yet so poetic at the same time. It really stood out to me!Abby Davies is a really talented author. This is her first published novel and she worked so hard to get to this point. Her inspiration came from two other books; Room by Emma Donoghue and Carrie by Stephen King and I can definitely see how certain aspects of both of those stories were incorporated into Mother Loves Me. I would definitely recommend this to thriller lovers and encourage them to buy this book to support a newly published author 🙌

Really looked forward to reading this book, and it started so well, very gripping. Unfortunately didn’t work for me as it progressed, too many incredible co incidences, and implausible plot twists. A good author, but found it hard to suspend belief to get through to the end...which I did..hmm