Being motherless affects so much of who I am; I realized this through Edelman's previous book, "Motherless Daughters". I laughed and cried my way through the pages of that book, so I was intrigued by the publication of "Motherless Mothers".

While very informative in many aspects (she begins to deal with the specifics of mothering from pregnancy all the way through grandparenting and so on...), I found many of her statements to be too broad of a stroke to cover the ever so intimate and personal experience of the loss of one's mother: ultimately, there are too many variables in one's life to truly come up with an effective statistic, so many of the ones presented, also, so bleak.

Much like with "Motherless Daughters", I loved Edelman's personal stories (written with SO MUCH LOVE) as well as those of the women she interviewed in "Motherless Mothers". In a sense, reading this book was like revisiting a friend after several years and finding she had grown up, matured and had healed what seemed to be open wounds last time I read her.

Still, would I recommend this book? Not over her previous one, no. There are many parenting books I have found more effective in helping me understand who I am as a parent (as well as improving my parenting skills, a nice consequence of understanding who you are).

Any mother that is trying to navigate the world of parenting without her own mother there to guide her needs to read this book!! I love Edelman's writing style - plain, frank and to the point. Many times reading this book I felt like she was talking right to me....she has captured the profound loss all of us motherless mothers feel. She has a nice balance of writing about her own loss and feelings, along with the experiences of other motherless mothers around the country, with just enough research and statistics thrown in to not be boring. This is a compelling, sometimes heart-wrenching read, but any motherless mother will take comfort while reading this book in knowing that they are not alone. Thank you, Hope, for writing this book for us!!