This is a novel bursting with nostalgia as Dido tells the story of growing up in England between 1976 and 2000. Dido is aware from a young age that her upbringing isn’t conventional, and there is frustration and mutual longing in abundance in the relationship portrayed between her and her mother, Edie, that is strained to the limit by Edie’s eccentric and difficult behavior. Dido loves her mother, but falls in love with the family that lives next door who seem to have everything in a family that Dido does not.

Eleanor is an odd and addictive character whose behavior can be largely explained by her strange, destructive relationship with her mother. Although we don’t understand the relationship fully until the end, I found myself rooting for Eleanor to break away from the chains that her mother has imprisoned her in and to make her own chosen family. When I finished the book, I missed Eleanor and her brilliant, often cutting, take on life and her interesting routines.

When I read the first chapter of LEONARD AND HUNGRY PAUL, I immediately reread it aloud to the person sitting next to me because I thought it was so brilliant. Including it in this book list is a bit of a cheat because the book is not really about a child-mother relationship. However, the first chapter describes the relationship between Leonard and his mother in great detail, and is so heart-warming and perfectly written, that I feel justified in recommending this gem of a book about two men who lead their lives with kindness and simplicity.

This is one of my favorite reads of 2020. The first chapter is titled “Ma” and describes the day that six-year-old Kya remembers as the day her mother left home. Like everything else in the book, it is described so vividly and with such poignancy that I can still see Ma disappearing into the forest, with her white scarf, her blue case, and her alligator shoes just visible between the trees. Throughout the story, Kya keenly feels her mother’s loss, and longs for her. Not knowing where her mother is, or why she left, is a hurt threaded through the novel very effectively; not defining the story, but touching it always, as grief often does.

If you’re looking for more books on belonging, all of us at Off the Shelf also recommend FAYE, FARAWAY. Faye is all grown up with a husband and kids, but when she steps into a box in the attic, she travels years back in time to the year before her mother died. Now she’s able to reconnect with her mother, and even her own younger self, and visit whenever she wants, but when the box portal begins to break down, she faces an impossible decision: Should she go back to stay her current life or risk leaving it forever for more time with her mother?