review: the year my mother came back by alice eve cohen

After sharing her incredible pregnancy story in What I Thought I Knew, Alice Eve Cohen now follows up with The Year My Mother Came Back. The daughter Cohen was pregnant with in the previous memoir is now in middle school and ready to have leg lengthening surgery (for those unfamiliar with What I Thought I Knew, Cohen became pregnant after being told she couldn't conceive and many complications arose) when Cohen learns she must undergo treatment for breast cancer, which her mother also had. Although Cohen's mother has been dead for many years, Cohen starts to experience visions and conversations with her mother. Cohen is candid about the thoughts and feelings she had during a year in which she faced a lot of difficult times (in addition to her cancer and her younger daughter's surgery, her older daughter left for college and also met her birth mother) but keeps the mood light so that rather than be depressing, The Year My Mother Came Back is a touching look at family.
5/5
Review copy provided by the publisher, Algonquin.