The Sometimes Daughter

The Sometimes Daughter
by Sherri Wood Emmons

As the title says, the sometimes daughter, Judy is sometimes a daughter as her mother is constantly in and out of her life.  

Judy is born in a tent at Woodstock. Her mother Cassie is a flaky flower child, going to protests, eventually getting involved with a cult, drinks, and does drugs.  Judy's father, Kirk, loves Cassie, but he changes, starts going to school to get a law degree and wants a stable home for his daughter.  Cassie and Kirk end up divorcing.

The mother floats in and out of Judy's life causing such a conflict of feelings for Judy.  Judy wonders why she isn't good enough for her mother to stick around.  She wonders if the mother she will see will be the loving, caring, mother or the one who will be selfish, have a crazy rant, and just make life miserable.  

Kirk still loves Cassie, and you see him and Cassie's parents keep trying to help her as she is involved in drugs and then her mind is just really messed up after getting out of the cult and near missing a near mass suicide.  

Cassie didn't have a good relationship with her mother, the few times Cassie's mother is in the book, she comes across as a very cold woman.  Cassie's father seems to care, it just looks like history repeating itself with a father who is home and cares and a mother who does not.

The novel goes from Judy's birth to Judy as a teenager, where she starts making poor decisions.  She gets into drugs, and there is another incident that is another poor choice and I do not agree with how she handles that.  Lucky for Judy through all this she has a father that is there that cares about her, and a stepmother who also genuinely cares.

Spoiler.
Abortion is murder.  Then you find out that Cassie had a baby a couple years before she had Judy and she gave that baby up for adoption.  And then shortly after Judy has an abortion, she finds out that her stepmother is pregnant and they are all happy.  So they are happy about that baby, yet murder the one.  

Overall it was an interesting book, it could be a good book discussion book.