How to Lose Your Mother

A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2025
An Oprah Daily and Town & Country Best Book of the Summer

“Jong-Fast has put to words the tumult of the worst year of her life, captured and harnessed the experience so the rest of us can know that we are not alone. She’s Job with a sense of humor. . . . With propulsive humor and perspective on her annus horribilis, Jong-Fast achieves the memoir’s transformative work of alchemy, arming us all with lines so good you won’t just want to underline them, you will want to cut them out to share.” —The Washington Post

“Grief and rage coincide with comedy and uptown-literati charm. . . . Reading How to Lose Your Mother, one senses that the mother got the very daughter she wanted, even if she had no idea what to do with her when she arrived.” —The New York Times

“Jong-Fast’s book is a valediction.” —The New Yorker

“In the tradition of the finest memoir writing, the author spares no one, herself least of all, as she untangles the bad from the good while still allowing for some tricky knots.” —Los Angeles Times

“A gripping memoir about mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, loss and healing, and what it means to finally accept your past and become an adult. Despite being raised in the shadow of fame, Molly tells a story that is both uniquely specific and utterly, exquisitely relatable.” —Lori Gottlieb

“Often rancorous, sometimes furious, never self-indulgent . . . There’s also love in this book. The imperfect, painful and maddening kind that so many readers will undoubtedly be able to relate to.” —Financial Times

“Jong-Fast pours her heart and soul into this memoir of losing her famous mother. . . . She fights her way through the grief and rage with sharp self-awareness and a sense of humor that never deserts her. You think you’ve got aging parent problems? Let Jong-Fast tell you a story.” —Oprah Daily

“Through all the chaos that Jong’s past choices and current illness have unleashed on her life, Jong-Fast remains staunchly committed to the project being her own person: “I am sober and sort of sane and not my mother,” she writes—words that feel almost like a guiding mantra for the book.” —Vogue

“With deep feeling and clarity, Jong-Fast recalls coming of age with a parent whom she adored but sometimes felt at arms length and the surprising ways in which the parent-child relationship continues to change deep into adulthood.” —Town & Country

“This raw, intimate memoir is a stunning portrait of difficult relationships and how we survive them.” —People

“Jong-Fast gives her mother a profound gift: a breathtakingly honest portrait of her life that invites reflection and redefines her legacy.” —Bustle

“In this frank, exposing memoir, Jong-Fast reflects on her dysfunctional upbringing as her family falls apart.” —The Guardian

“Jong-Fast, a dazzling writer, illuminates the tug of love and loss, as well as the importance of giving grace. She sheds light on a generation often overlooked, torn between caring for children and parents while facing the relentless pressures of life. … Her words lend depth to the endless mystery that is love and how it pummels us with its light, joy, hardships, and countless iterations.” —Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper

“Molly dives deep into her complex relationship—or lack thereof—with Erica in her sharp and beautifully written (no surprise there) new memoir.” —AirMail

“In her memoir of their lives together, Jong-Fast is honest about what it was like growing up with a mother who became addicted to fame—and who lost herself as the public’s attention shifted before dementia nudged her even further from reality.” —Vulture

“For those working through grief in complicated forms or just understanding different types of parental relationships, Molly Jong-Fast’s How to Lose Your Mother is a great read.” —Teen Vogue

“A brave . . . testament to [Jong-Fast’s] own capacity for survival.” —The Observer

“[A] searing, heartbreaking (but also, at times, hilarious) memoir.” —Time Sensitive

“Utterly delicious . . . [Jong-Fast’s] clear-eyed observations and self-discovery make [her] memoir utterly readable.” —Washington Independent Review of Books

“Molly Jong-Fast conveys the mess, terror, loneliness and glory of familial love, in all its riveting complexity.” —Claire Messud

“Molly Jong-Fast’s memoir is mesmerizing, intimate, wise, unputdownable, crazily honest, heartbreaking, funny, illuminating—beautiful and painful at the same time, just like real life.” —Anne Lamott

“I was just bowled over by this book.” —Nigella Lawson

“Resisting tidy sentiment or easy answers, Jong-Fast dives headfirst into the often-difficult ambiguities of parent-child bonds. The results are stunning.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[Jong-Fast’s] honesty, her self-awareness, and her grief keep you on her side, as well as her humor, understated, blunt, and sometimes black. . . . The best book Jong-Fast could have written about the worst year of her life.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)