What Kind of Mother — Claire Swinarski

A dynamic, honest, and beautifully written novel about a young mother who returns to her small-town Wisconsin home after living in a cult-like “Mommune,” and what happens with the other women in her family as they each navigate the constraints, complexities, and joys of modern motherhood.

When prodigal daughter Cass Simon returns home after years away, the Simon family's fragile peace is disrupted. Cass, a young mom previously living in a cult-like “Mommune” and working for a popular mom-fluencer, has come back under questionable circumstances, but is intent on starting fresh. As Cass gets work writing advice for a parenting website, her mother and sisters chip in their own wisdom from personal experience -- of troubled pasts, heartache, and issues with infertility.

As the story unfolds through past and present, the Simon family women come to understand their own relationships to mothering and forgiveness -- and what it truly means to be a “good” mother.