The Mother, the Daughter, and the Ghost

By Patrick Trumpy (Indie author, 2026)

Genre: Who knows?

Pages (Print): 266)

Via: Author request

Note: We received a complimentary copy of this book for honest review.

Well. That’s a coupla days out of our lives we’ll never be able to get back. And to think we coulda been watching a test pattern.

That’s about the size of it in this sarcastic, sardonic debut novel by Patrick Trumpy. Think Lemony Snickett’s Baudelaire orphans meet Eeyore and Sister Bertrille.  With a dash of A Confederacy of Dunces. It may be “darkly humorous” for the first few chapters. But eighteen-year-old Bo’s flippant, glib demeanor and her insufferably sardonic commentary get old after about 6,898 curtain calls. We bailed out at Chapter 14. So, we won’t be rating this book. Here’s why (the short version):

Told in the first person from Bo’s POV, reading The Mother is like finding a beautifully wrapped gift in the mail. You open it to find a tax audit.

“The Mother” may be a reference to Bo’s own estranged mother. Escaping that mum, Bo bolts from her familial home. Jumps in a taxi and shouts to the driver, “This is the way!” (We kept hearing The Mandalorian.) Arriving at a convent, Bo meets another “mother,” whip-wielding Mother Madeline. Or Mother Superior. Bo soon finds herself ensconced in a convent with a group of geriatric nuns who mistake Bo’s arrival as the fulfillment of a prophecy… or… something. She becomes “Bo, the Reluctant Radiant.” Aka: Hermitess of the Rocks.

Here – and pretty much everywhere – Bo spouts impossible lines like, “Do you behest my company in the tillage, or may I scamper off to contemplate?” And, “Your reverent solemness for my holy coronation is uncharacteristically considerate” (to her biological mom when Bo joins the novitiate).

It’s enough to make your hair ache.

Her companion, the ghost, is an unstable partner and certain temptations of urban life beckon.

Meanwhile, the plot moves with the alacrity of a three-toed sloth. On crutches. It’s like, Oh hi, Bo. What nonsense are you spouting today?

Reading this book is like trying to teach a pig to sing. It can’t be done and it annoys the pig.

It’s like the story’s auditioning for a soap opera and forgot to stop. The only thing missing is a PhD in overwriting. Kimber: Is this a book or a canned laugh track for a 1970s sitcom?

We bailed out after about 70 pages or so. Could not force ourselves to turn another page. I mean, really. A mocking, satirical main character who treats the world like it’s an imposition on her coffee break? A self-described animal hater? Kimber: Lost us there, Babe. Never to return.

Here’s the deal. The writing in this book is actually quite good. But we kept seeing Martin Short’s Ed Grimley every time Bo opened her mouth. So it just didn’t flip our pancake. But then, we’re kinda picky about our batter. And our tablemates.

Bottom Line

We simply do not have time for books that don’t grab us. That we don’t enjoy. That try too hard. This checks all those boxes. Besides. We’d rather read something that actually made us want to keep going. This ain’t it. So sayonara, baby!