The creepy doll face on Anne Heltzel's Just Like Mother tells you all you need to know about what's inside these pages. This is a disturbing, spine-chilling story for the most part, but falls flat in some places.
Maeve and Andrea are close cousins who grew up in a cult run by "mothers." After Maeve escapes, she is adopted by a loving family and tries to have a normal life. She always wonders, however, what happened to her cousin. When they're both adults, Maeve is happy when Andrea finally contacts her. Andrea is a wealthy woman who made her money in the fertility industry. But childhood memories run deep -- this book doesn't have the aforementioned creepy doll face on the cover for no reason.
While the story itself was horror personified, I felt it didn't go deeply enough into the cult aspect. Who were the mothers? What was the purpose of Boy? There were a lot of questions that left me wondering.
That being said, it's been a long time since I actually gasped while reading a book, but Just Like Mother made me do so in many places. It's scary, and above all, one could see a story like this happening in real life (but let's hope not).
MY RATING - 3
