Title: Little Girl In The Mirror
Author: Tara Mondou
Genre: Biographical Fiction

My Summary: Little Cathy’s mother, picks her up from Eastern Canada, and brings her back home to Southern Ontario, despite Cathy wanting to stay with her Grandmother. Mother and Daughter must lean all about each other’s ways and learn how to live together after being apart for six years. Money is scarce, so they move in with a woman whom Cathy does not like, but for good reason.

Forced from her home in the mid 1950’s, now living in a less than ideal situation, Cathy is alone, and isolated from her family out east. She is desperate to return, but she puts her mother’s needs before her own. Little Cathy makes sacrifices for her mother that most adults do not make. Little Cathy’s only comfort is her friend, the little girl in the mirror, and it is she that Cathy turns to for support.

My Review: I do not know where to begin with this story, and I hope my review does this book justice. I loved this from the bottom of my heart. This book is emotionally charged. It’s a story about: mothers, daughters, women, second chances, strength, and courage. But it is also so much more.

This book is close to my heart for many reasons. It is the same genre that I am writing my book, as it is based on a true story. It involves women strengths and courage, and parts of the book are based in Cities in Southern Ontario that I know well. The author describes the settings beautifully, and as a true representation of how they look.

Little Cathy won my heart at the first page, and when her story ended, I wanted more. The story is well paced, and I read it in two days.  I wanted to finish in one sitting, but life made me do other important things. The author includes enough detail to allow the reader a true experience of the life of the characters, but not too much that it slows the pacing.

Cathy’s mother, Rita is interesting in so many ways. Throughout the story we see her trying to be the best single mother she can be, and we see her internal struggles at having to learn to take care of another person when she has needs of her own. I was frustrated by her many time; because of the decisions she makes, but also understood that I cannot judge her. She is after all a single mother in the 50’s trying to keep not only herself afloat but now also, a daughter.

All the dramas, emotions, and fears that little Cathy faces are well expressed and conveyed, and I cried throughout the book a few times, and long after I turned the last page.

What made this so heartfelt is knowing that this is a true story, and a well expressed one that deserves to be read by many more readers.

Congratulations Tara on your debut book!