This book supplies 365 questions to ask your mother. They are designed to get to know her as a person, not just through statistics. They questions vary from simple questions like Did your parent’s family have family reunions to more thought-provoking ones such as How does she think her beliefs have directed her life?

The author states that this book is a source to use when beginning a talk about your mother’s life. I would love to have had the answers to these questions when my mother was alive. Since she is not, I am answering the questions so that my children and grandchildren will know about my life. It is a keepsake for when I have passed.

I recommend this book as a way to start a conversation with your mother to get to know her. You can use all of the questions or just a few. Please get this book and get to know your mother before it is too late to ask.


I received an ARC from BooksGoSocial through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affects my opinion or rating of this book.

I really enjoyed this book. What I enjoyed most was some of the questions were a bit out of the blue. I have a few books that fall into this subject and while some of the questions are across the board I really liked that some are different and unique.

Part-memoir and part non-fiction, this book is also a gift to you, your mother and your family. The woman that raised you is amazing, but not perfect. And woman forget to honor themselves. This book is a loving and positive place to start learning more about your mother and to raise her up.

Author Glenna Mageau’s compassionate and understanding words will encourage you to explore your Mom’s history. This guide is not just a list of routine, factual questions. The author asks us to meet our mother where she is at.

How meaningful it will be to learn more about your Mom’s journey- as her own person, the woman behind the label of “Mom” of “Wife.” We all want to know that we matter. This heartwarming book will help you both understand each other and help you to start a deeper connection with your mother and then keep the conversations going. But the author recognizes that some relationships have much more pain than others.

We forget that times have changed, and each generation faced different challenges and expectations. How illuminating it will be to enter your mother’s world. The author believes it may help you grow, mend, or heal your relationship with your mother.

This book provides a wonderful variety of questions. You don’t have to go through all 365, neither do you have to start at the beginning. Start where you and you Mom will feel comfortable.

My own mother was talkative about her own life and memories. After reading the questions in this book, I know I would have liked to learn more. Here are some of the questions that resounded with me:
Who did she have the most fun with in her family?
When did she learn to drive? Who taught her?
What were her parents’ expectations for her life?
Where does she believe she got her strength from over the years, to deal with all the occurred in her life? What is her advice for getting through tough situations?
Who was the worst boss she ever had?
What is she most proud of in her life?

I recommend this book. It will help you to have a heart to heart talk with your mother about her life, her dreams, and her beliefs. What a gift- to get to know the woman who is your mother.

Thanks to NetGalley and Books Go Social for a review copy. This is my honest review.

I was so kindly provided with an ARC of this book so I could give an honest review and all opinions are my own.

Do You Know Your Mom's Story?: 365 Questions You Need to Ask Her by Glenna Mageau is not what I expected. I thought it would be just endless pages of lists and questions smashed neatly between the covers of yet another do-it-yourself journal, but I was pleasantly surprised at what I found contained within. It is much more than the everyday journal on the shelf. It encourages you to have a real, in-depth conversation with your mother, allowing you to learn about your mother as a person, a woman, a fellow traveler on this journey of ours, and not just as a title, "Mom".

Why is it we assume that is all our mothers are nothing before us? That they don’t have feelings, hopes and dreams. That they weren’t every bit the scared young girl, the frolicking teenager, or the girl on the edge of womanhood, foraging ahead in life much like we are? Moms are people too and as such we have so much we can learn from them, if we take the time to walk their journey too.

The book is broken down into categories based on subjects and different points of their lives. It includes easy to talk about memories and the incredibly difficult ones. Asking these questions allows the relationship with your mother to morph from mother and child to person and person. It allows you to talk as adults, as equals, and understand each other better. It offers the ability to look at your memories from two completely different points of view, and offers growth and advancement of the mother - child relationship.

This is the kind of memoir I would have loved to have found before my father passed away. It would have been nice to preserve his memories, experiences and thoughts of his journey as well.

This is a journal that is worth exploring with your mother, as well as yourself.

I gave this a 4.5 out of 5 star review for the organization of the material presented and the structure laid down for you to follow, as well as the content and questions contained within.

Do you know your mom's story? That's a good question. My mom grew up during very different times than I did. She was born in the 50s, walked to the movies and bought penny candy. My mother-in-law is English and was born much earlier. She has amazing stories of the bombings in London during WWII and the American soldiers who saved her and her sisters in the bomb shelters at that time. I'm lucky to have heard their stories, but i plan to use this book to learn more.

I realized one day that I had so many questions to ask my mom but unfortunately she was not here to ask. I wanted to read this to give me ideas for topics to discuss with my own children so they would not have to experience that realization when I am gone. This has everything you could possible think of to talk about. It was easy to read and reference.

Lately I've been thinking how much I would love to be able to talk to my grandparents again. I would love to ask them about their childhoods, their teen years, how things changed during their lives, etc. These thoughts led me to realize I need to be asking my mother these questions now while I still can. I was so happy to find this book that gives so many suggestions about what to ask. I think many of these subjects would never have crossed my mind. Overall, a very helpful book.

I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book so I could give an honest review.

Do You Know Your Mom's Story?: 365 Questions You Need to Ask Her by Glenna Mageau is not what I expected. I thought it would be just pages and pages of lists of questions. It is much more than that. It encourages you to have a conversation with your mother. It allows you to learn about your mother as a person and not just as a title, "Mom".

While being a mom is a huge part of me, it is not all of me. Why do we assume that is all our mothers are?

The book is broken down into categories based on subjects and different points of their lives. It includes easy to talk about memories and the incredibly difficult ones. Asking these questions honestly helped change my relationship with my mother to morph from mother and daughter to person and person. It allowed us to talk as adults, as equals, and understand each other better. Memories were shared but from two completely different points of view.

I would have liked to have found something similar before my father passed away. It would have been nice to preserve his memories and thoughts of being more than just a dad.

This is a great idea for a book. I am not sure how much I will achieve with my own mother regarding getting her to talk about her past but it also made me think about what information and gems I will tell my own (now adult) children to pass on down the coming generations. I would prefer to have this book in a physical format rather than digital so I may consider buying it once published.

This is a fantastic book! There are so many really great questions in here to really learn about your mother and I love how it has more substance to help guide the reader on how to really connect with their mom while asking these questions rather than just a list of questions. They are also separated into categories based on subjects/different life points. This is a great buy and could become an essential part of your family history passed on! Do this for you and your descendants as these kind of things are often one of the most cherished heirlooms!

Lovely book full or interesting and conversation starting questions to discover more about your mothers life before you. We often don’t ask our families about the stuff before we are around and that’s a shame as our thoughts, hopes and dreams can help us discover an even greater closeness to the ones we love. This book is a great place to start.

This book was a surprising read for me. I expected a ho-hum journal type book, but it is so much more. It gives you topics you might wish to use as starting points for conversations with your mom. I so wish i had thought of something like this before my parents went to be with God, have written memories or pictures and in their own words. Shared memories and often times hard topics to broach that might lead to better understanding events that may have happened you've always felt one way about or remembered differently and if discussed can bring a greater understanding and healing of a relationship. I would hope that anyone with children would read this book and begin to write, journal etc your stories and preserve memories for your children. Hopefully get to speak with your parents about those memories. This is a good idea for all parents and children to get to know and understand one another better.

I was given an ARC from the publisher through netgalley and the opinion is my own.

DO YOU KNOW YOUR MOM'S STORY?: 365 QUESTIONS YOU NEED TO ASK HER
Written by Glenna Mageau
2018; Quadessence Press (220 pages)
Genre: nonfiction, memoir, biography, writing

(Review Not on Blog)

RATING: 4 STARS

This a great book to start a conversation with your mom. It not only helps you learn more about your own family stories but know more about your mother. This book can also help you ask further questions - I found the questions in this book well done, but I had further questions , or follow up questions. I wanted to request this book as I have always wanted to know more about my mom and have wanted to write it down. My grandmother died of dementia so this seems more urgent than I ever thought.

***I received an eARC from NETGALLEY***

This is a great book to record family history and memories through your mother’s eyes and either reconnect a bond or make one even stronger.
I wish I had this book years ago when my mom was still alive. I thought we still had plenty of time together, but she died unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm. Now I am left trying to put together pieces of her life from other relatives’ memories. It is definitely not the same as her personal account, but with this book as a guide, I will be able to reconstruct her life’s journey.

This is a great idea, and makes for some intense moments. It is written in an easy to read style and gives you great ideas as well as actual questions to ask.

Unfortunately my mum, who has dementia, can't involve herself as much as I would like but I plan to use this book as a base for a memoir to give my own children instead.

I was able to read a copy of this book thanks to Netgalley and the publishers and would recommend it to anyone who wants to be able to answer the question of the title.