Things I Want My Daughters to Know

by Elizabeth Noble

'Honest and beautifully written' Woman & Home

The heartwarming classic about love and family from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Love, Iris will make you both laugh and cry.
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How would you say goodbye to those you love most in the world?

it's time for Barbara to say a final farewell to her four daughters. But how can she find the words? And how can she leave them when they each have so much growing up to do?

There's commitment-phobic Lisa. Brittle, unhappily married Jennifer. Free-spirited traveller Amanda. And teenage Hannah, stumbling her way towards adulthood.

Barbara's answer is to write each daughter a letter, finally expressing the hopes, fears, dreams and secrets she couldn't always say.

These words will touch the girls in different - sometimes shocking - ways, unlocking emotions and passions to set them on their own journey of discovery through life.
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'Enchantingly clever. I cried, I laughed, I couldn't put it down' Penny Vincenzi

'Irresistible' Glamour

• ISBN10: 0141030011
• ISBN13: 9780141030012
• Publish Date: 4 September 2008 (first published 7 February 2008)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 448
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leah]

Things I Want My Daughters To Know is Elizabeth Noble’s fourth novel. It tells the story of a mother (Barbara) who has to say goodbye to those she loves most in the world. She does this via letters expressing her hopes and fears for each daughters as well as a journal. Things I Want My Daughters To Know is quite like Cecelia Ahern’s PS I Love You and Lola Jaye’s By The Time You Read This in the way that we never get to meet the people writing the letters. I enjoyed the previous two I read and also loved this one.

I loved how the writing style wasn’t divided up into chapters but was divided up between the months and the thoughts of each person (Hannah, Amanda, Lisa, Jennifer & Mark) as well as having the odd journal entry from Barbara. It was a very clever way of writing the novel and worked really well.

I thought Elizabeth Noble wrote each character very well and loved how they were all so different from each other. Lisa, the eldest who is terrified of commitment; unhappily married Jennifer; Amanda the traveller; and Hannah a teenager who faces adulthood without her mother.

I felt sympathetic to all four sisters and absolutely loved the different obstacles each sister had to face. My favourite of the sisters had to be Amanda, I loved her flighty nature and yet, when love came calling… I so hoped Jennifer and Amanda would overcome their relationship worries. Hannah was also great and had her own problems to overcome, too.

I thought Mark’s, Barbara’s husband and Hannah’s dad, perspective gave us a different angle on grief and the struggles he faced on how to move on and whether or not it was OK to move on.

I enjoyed reading the letters to each girl – and found a few shocking – and loved the journal entries. While we never met Barbara it did feel like we knew her – through the journal entries and the letters as well as what we learnt from the girls’ and Mark’s point of view – and could also sympathise with how she was finding knowing she was going to die as well as how it impacted on the rest of the family.

There were a few scenes in the book that really lifted the lid on grief and keeping things bottled up in particular a scene where Jennifer is drinking with Mark and she really lets go of herself and lets out some shocking revelations.

Eilizabeth Noble has taken a really difficult subject and made it into a fabulous novel. Light-hearted yet serious and very moving. A lot of books say they are tear-jerkers but this one is actually one that is a tear-jerker! A definite must-read!

Rating: 5/5