A Kirkus star!

'My Mother's Daughter' got a dream review. Plus: some book-related save the dates—and an appreciation of feminist author community.

Feb 17, 2026

Y’all! I’m thrilled. My Mother’s Daughter just got a starred Kirkus review and a writeup that distills my book in the most perfect terms. I’m so grateful that I landed with a reviewer who connected with this book that I’ve been working on for nearly four years.

If you’re new around here, I should mention that my book, now available for pre-order, comes out May 5 and it’s about finding my sister through a DNA test, trying to understand our mom’s secret past, and uncovering a bigger story—about shame, family secrets, race, and the control of women’s bodies.

This star is one thing—they’re notoriously rare from Kirkus. The review itself is another. Here’s an excerpt:

The author’s interrogation of her own privilege, her insistence on our shared humanity, and her refusal to inherit shame are a powerful rejection of white-male dominated systems of oppression. Deeply researched and lyrically written, this account will stir the hearts of parents and nonparents alike.
A trenchant and moving memoir about adoption and systemic racism.

That first line! It makes me feel like I did what I came here to do. I successfully delivered my story and message, and in a researched and lyrical way. That means a lot to me for craft reasons, but it also means a lot for mom reasons.

This story is mine, but it is also my story of my mom’s story. It’s my story of her greatest pain and shame: the fact that she placed her daughter, my half-sister Kathy, for adoption after being sent to a home for unwed mothers as a teenager in the sixties.

Maybe you can imagine the cosmic weight of trying to deliver that story and do it justice! In these early pre-publication days, so filled with uncertainty and the desire to control the uncontrollable, this review is a reminder of the gift of telling stories, communicating ideas, and connecting with the right readers.

Speaking of connecting with readers! I have a few event dates that you can officially mark on your calendars:

May 5: Launch day! Mrs. Dalloway’s in Berkeley, California with Alexis Madrigal.
May 7: Books Are Magic in Brooklyn, New York with Irin Carmon.
May 14: Green Apple Books in San Francisco, California with Savala Nolan.
May 15: Skylight Books in Los Angeles, California with Koa Beck.

And, finally, I want to tell you about a little feminist author brunch that I threw at my house over the weekend. There is a group of us here in the Bay Area who all have books coming out in the next few months and our work uncannily circles around similar themes of desire, race, reproductive justice, and notions of “good womanhood.” Clearly, we had to all get together.

We talked for hours and hours about art, feminism, and book publishing. There were pastries and bloody marys involved. We hatched plans for mutual self-promotion and kvetched about TikTok, tiny fuzzy mics, and the like, but we also zeroed in on those things that matter most: connecting meaningfully with readers and… changing lives. Changing lives! It sounds grandiose but it’s what books do every day, and all of ours have the power to do that, I really believe it.

So go buy my friends’ books and prepare to be changed: Good Woman by Savala Nolan, Sexual Pleasure for Dummies by Myisha Battle, and Where the Girls Were by Kate Schatz.

Pre-orders mean everything for a book’s success. It tells booksellers that people want to read it and shows my publisher that this book is going somewhere. Will you take a second right now to pre-order my book? You’ll be an essential part of launching “My Mother’s Daughter” into the world.

Pre-order now!