This book made me laugh but also made me cry. We meet 4 sisters, their partners and their step dad/dad. It starts just after their mother has sadly passed away from cancer and follows them for a year. The mum leaves each a letter and her journal that she started at the same time as her cancer journey. You get to see their highs and some of their heartbreaking lows but you also see them overcome these lows and follow their mothers advice or what they think she would have wanted them to do. It ends with Lisa’s wedding which is just over a year since their mother passed, the grief is still there but they are learning to live with it and remember all the happy times they had together

3.5

I really enjoyed this! All of the main characters were likable, at some stage of the book! They were “real” in the sense that they did things we have done and made mistakes I could relate to or at least understand.

The “wisdom” wasn’t over the top or so syrupy it would make you want to gag (actually it boiled down to one simple piece of advice “Love is simple” – which of course, it is not!). There were many nice moments of connection and there were plenty of fights and mistakes, which stopped it being “too much”.

In a way this is chick lit for the “older lady”, Hen Lit, I believe it is unflatteringly called!! It is all about relationships and the search for personal happiness and a place in the world, just not about the search for a man the way the 20something chick lit is.

The end was a bit of a fizzer but there were little endings along the way, with story lines being resolved, so in a way the “non-ending” was appropriate.

This was a read for my book club. I had read this and Danielle Steele's Sisters about the same time and found them earily similar.

Barbara was the perfect mother, and she is dying. She writes a letter to each of her four daughters. Ultimately this book is about family.

Barbara's death from cancer is devastating for her four daughters and their grief proves to be a catalyst for change as each struggles to come to terms with their loss. Knowing her time was short, Barbara wrote each much loved daughter a letter and bequeathed them her diary to share her thoughts and offer them encouragement in moving on with their lives. These gifts are both a source of comfort and distress for the girls, revealing loving truths and family secrets.
Noble deftly avoids the potential for cloying sentimentality, given the premise, with wry observation and a hint of the famous British 'stiff upper lip'. Yet it also lacks the emotional impact I was expecting, leaving me largely unaffected by the fairly conventional storyline. The story unfolds through a combination of Barbara's letters and journal entries, the voices of her daughters' - Lisa, Jen, Amanda and Hannah, and Barbara's husband, Mark in the year following her death. It's an effective story telling technique, allowing each character to share their personal experiences and illustrate their familial relationships. The girls face fairly predictable problems - Lisa is afraid of committing to her boyfriend, Jen's reluctance to have a child is placing a strain on her marriage, Amanda's wanderlust hides her insecurity and Hannah is navigating her teen years without her mother's guidance. These issues are treated with sensitivity though without any marked depth. I did appreciate that Noble carefully exploited her characters flaws which kept me interested, even if not particularly concerned, in the choices they faced and the decisions they made.
Things I Want My Daughter To Know was a rather ordinary read for me despite it's appealing premise. There is nothing particularly wrong with it, it simply failed to capture my imagination.

Had a little trouble getting into it, but it grew on me. Fairly average but kept me interested.

I read this a while back and did a reread last year, when I got this in greek for my mother to read.
Four sisters lose their mother (this is not a spoiler the novel starts with that). Every girl is different and their relationship with their mother was unique. It got emotional when with the opening of the will, the girls get letters from their deceased mother. They contain things she never got the chance to tell them. Through the letters we get the required exposition about the family.

Grab this one for a light reading with a touch of drama but expect a predicted plot.

P.S: After I finished this I went to hug my mom and told her how much I love her...

I had very high expectations for this book. Unfortunately it didn't deliver.

Likeable, but formulaic and predictable.

4.0 stars
The characters are impossible not to care for, you simply root for them and want everything to be happy endings and sunshine for everyone. It does have drama, everyday mistakes and bad decisions like on every family there are secrets that sometimes you believe that they could have continued to be unknown but the family dynamic, I just love this family.
REally enjoyed this story. I felt like the messages the daughters received from their mother and how they managed to take to heart and live by them is... It was just what you might expect, heartwarming. Nothing is perfect especially people but oh love is great, that is the greatest message anyone can receive, and that was the message these lovely sisters got from their mother.