Have Mother, Will Travel audiobook

"Have Mother, Will Travel" is a memoir by (perhaps unsurprisingly) a mother/ daughter duo. When they get a chance to go on a month long Amazing Race- esque trip that will take them to many different countries for a litany of experiences, they dive right in. They think that the trip may help to bring them closer together (and it does). This is the second book by the pair. The first book was called "Come Back," which explored the relationship between Claire and Mia as Mia is sent away to sort of a reform school in Europe after being sexual abused and dealing with drugs. I have not read this book and I don't think that you need to in order to enjoy "Have Mother, Will Travel." Although, I do want to read that book now to learn more about Claire and Mia's background. This book takes place about 10 years after "Come Back" and while time has passed, there still seems to be some healing that needed to happen between Claire and Mia I am a big believer in the idea that you don't really know someone until you try to travel with them. You have a front row seat to learning their style, likes, dislikes, idiosycracies, and all sorts of other things that you may not get to see normally. Now obviously since Claire and Mia are mother and daughter, they already know a lot about each other. I really liked reading about how Claire and Mia deal with each other and their new surroundings. Family connections are always something that has interested me. There are a lot of really interesting and beautiful ruminations on this book on the mother and daughter relationship.And of course, I loved reading about all of the fabulous places that Claire and Mia visit. I would so love to go on this kind of a vacation (although it is doubtful that I would ever be able to find a month to drop everything and travel the world; a girl can dream though). Claire and Mia get to experience some really amazing things together, which makes their journey just that much more special.I think this book would be a perfect pick for Mother's Day for anyone that enjoys memoirs and traveling!

This book came to me at the perfect time in my life. At first I simply picked it up because it was recommended when searching for a different book and the title caught my attention because my mother and I have been planning a cross country van trip for years. It sounded like it would get me stoked for that possibility. This book did that but more importantly it inspired me in a difficult time, and as I am the same age now as Mia was when she went on this adventure, it was like she was speaking to the heart of my issues and uncertainties. I am so inspired by them and am striving to work towards a future that is not only better for me but also fits into my picture of a happy fulfilled life. I will be doing the life vision board so that I can fully understand the steps to get there. I truly appreciate the writing and am going to make my mother read it, not only because I feel that it will bring us closer but also because she is having a hard time coping with the lose of her mother and I feel that Claire's expression of her relationship with her mother will help my mother grow and hopefully recover from the recent loss of both of her parents. Thank you both, Mia and Claire for your words, I hope to be as inspiring and adventurous in my future.

Follow up to "Come Back." An American mother-daughter duo heads on an international scavenger hunt trip and subsequent summer in France. The time and the experience help them re-frame their relationship with each other after writing their first book together.After writing "Come Back," in which they duo detail the daughter's spin out of control and placement in a therapeutic boarding school, the pair made a living talking about the book and their pasts. Taking the scavenger trip allows them to piece together what their relationship looks like in the present. Both are contending with major life changes. The mom has moved across country from CA to FL. The daughter is finding her way as a young professional. Neither seems to be thriving in her current situation, so they drop everything to take the trip. Lots of statements about coming of age and mother-daughter relationships. Buy it for your mother or daughter for Mother's Day. It was good.

Memorable, unusual, laugh-out loud funny!Since I am a mother who has twice traveled in Europe with my adult daughter l was drawn to this memoir. Reading it was like being there with them and hearing their individual thoughts as well as their conversations as they discuss their relationship and their feelings of frustration, joy and wonder. In addition to Europe they travel to far off places, such as Nepal, most of us will never see in person. I found the entire book completely captivating! The last chapters take place in Avignon, a place l would love to visit but at this point in my life never will. I am so thankful I got to see it through Claire and Mia’s eyes!

This book was completely different than I expected. It was more of a conversation between them but I really enjoyed it. I loved Claire’s mom chats as I dubbed them. There were times I cried and times I’d be laughing so hard at the gym I’m sure people thought I was nuts. But she really made me think about things and the way I handle situations with my own girls. I’ve travelled a lot with just my girls so I could relate to so much of the banter between them. I want to read Comeback now. Definitely a light read compared to my typical books.

Mother and daughter Claire and Mia start on a scavenger hunt around the world (that really exists!?) before spending a summer in France together to reconnect. It dips from travel essays to personal contemplations of mothers and daughters as they slowly come to respect and trust each other as the strong women they've become. Their dialogues peel away misperceptions each has of the other and dig into old family wounds, and monologues reflect on finding your place in this world and accepting the journey. The plot flows chronologically and along the strengthening relationship of mom and daughter.As a major multi-tasker I like the combination of self-development style reflections on life mixed with travel memoir - it's like a 2 for 1. 10hr 29 minute audiobook. T.

The first part was a more fast-paced narrative focusing on the mother and daughter pair going on the Global Scavenger Hunt, while the second part was a more slow-paced narrative focusing on the pair living together in France. The reflections on their respective identities and relationship were profound and relatable. However, I do wish more anecdotes were given from their travels, as expected of travel memoirs.

I really liked this book ! The ladies do come off as a bit entitled / elitist at times, but I was really pleasantly surprised at some of the thoughtful insights they shared along the way. I listened to the audio book version and could absolutely hear myself and my own mother in their different attitudes towards the same event. Great read!

I really like these women. Mother and daughter have a difficult time when Mia, the daughter, is in her teens. Separate book, Come Home. Now she is in her mid-twenties and they sign up for a 13 country scavenger hunt and then live in France for a month. Very thoughtful, insightful and fun to read.

This book wasmore than just a travel memoir. It was also about the journey this mother daughter duo took for their own relationship ad the journey they both took for themselves. It just happened to take place while they were traveling Europe.

Enjoyed the book, well written and it wasn't necessary to have read their first book. I don't have a daughter but am a daughter so got me thinking about my relationship with my mother. Actually good to ponder relationship with both parents, as well as with my son.

What a delightful look at the layers of a mother-daughter relationship as it changes told from both perspectives

Claire and Mia have a very dissimilar relationship than I have with my travel buddy daughter, but it was interesting reading about their experiences.

i hope everyone that has a mother and is a daughter could read this book. I love the view about the same issue from both sides.

A post-college daughter and her mother travel together in order to get re-acquainted. First, they go on a Global Scavenger Hunt in the Middle East, then on to Czechoslovakia, where the daughter's grandmother evaded capture to be sent to a concentration camp. Finally, they return for a month together in Avignon, France. They allow themselves to know each other as adults and to re-focus to how they want to go forward in their lives.

This is a book about a mother and daughter going on a journey together, both actually and symbolically. They explore the world and at the same explore their own identities, to themselves and to each other. Despite alternating between mother and daughter, the narrative unfolds in a cohesive way. Lots of food for thought here, and both women can write well, as they demonstrate here. I liked this book a lot. I liked what they had to say, though didn't agree with it all, and I really liked that they obviously had enjoyed working on this project together and found it very meaningful. Cool!Here are a sampling of excerpts that stood out for me... I don't consider these to be spoilers in any way because reading these quotes now will not spoil or detract from the story they are telling:"I should add that I'd never met my grandfather, no had he been much of a presence in any of his kids' lives. My mom rarely spoke of him, so when she called to tell me that she was in West Virginia taking care of her dying father, I was baffled. And when he passed away, I didn't expect her to grieve much for someone she'd barely seen in several years, and whom she didn't seem that close to. If I had been more mature, I would have understood that that gave her even more to grieve about; she wasn't just mourning the loss of what was, she was mourning the loss of what wasn't and now would never be" (words of Mia Fontaine, page 105)."Typically, I think disparagingly about my body at least once a day, and I'm not unique. My girlfriends always lament problem areas, and I almost think it's a way that women bond. What's sad, too, is that when I see college photos of myself, I think I looked really great. Yet at the time I was so self-conscious... I wonder if in ten years I'll look at photos of me now and think the same thing" (words of Mia Fontaine, page 110). I was annoyed with Claire Fontaine's lamenting the decline of the birth rate in most first-world countries. She notes in contrast that "France is one of the only first-world countries that doesn't have a declining birth rate, especially among educated women. It's quite common for a high-powered career woman to have four kids, which is rare in the States" (pp. 193-4) While I appreciate her point about governments and workplaces providing a supportive support system for employed women who are also mothers, I just have to disagree with praising rising birthrates for people of any nationality. The world is over-populated people! We need to deal with this in a responsible way, which does not mean encouraging more over-population. But here I agree with and find so sad these words by her with reference to "a geography of sadness." "Hungary, for example, has long had one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Sabrina, a young Hungarian-American acquaintance who was raised in both countries, reflected on this with me recently, sharing how the temperament is echoed even in their sayings. 'Don't worry,' you tell someone who's just had some really bad luck, 'tomorrow it'll be worse'" (p. 243). Ouch, that's as sad as it is revealing. I also found this very insightful: "One of my biggest lessons as a mother has been that it's not what we do or say that has lasting impact on our children. It's our very essence. We are their instruction manual on how to be a human being. And who we are stems from our core beliefs about ourselves, programmed into us from our own childhood. Our kids, especially our daughters, internalize our beliefs about ourselves and about life from the moment they arrive, the limiting beliefs most of all, because they're unconscious." (Claire Fontaine, page 243).

Claire and Mia Fontaine's Have Mother, Will Travel is a unique blend of memoir that both excites with its armchair travel opportunities and entices with its insights on the complicated, beautiful and challenging relationships between families. The women take turns narrating, each with a distinct voice and focus, we’re frequently treated to the “two sides to every story” lens as Mia and Claire discuss traveling, the past and their future.What I loved most about the book — aside from, you know, the tantalizing descriptions of locales like Cairo and Athens — was how seamlessly the women shift from talking about their relationship to exploring the relationships all women share. As much an exploration of motherhood as a travel memoir, Have Mother, Will Travel offers so much food for thought regarding women’s roles in other nations, our perceptions as Americans (and what it means to be American) and the underlying responsibility humans have to one another.I looked forward to their insights as women abroad as much as their discussions of their personal relationship, though both were fascinating. While reading Come Back isn’t necessary to get the full breadth of Have Mother, Will Travel, I could see where really getting the pair’s back story would help to appreciate just how far they’ve come — and how far they have to go. Still, an introduction in this book helps set the stage for the ladies’ around-the-world adventure; I thought it was very well done. I felt dropped into the story without getting smacked over the head with too much telling, not enough showing.And the story itself? It was interesting. Uplifting, different. Well-paced and well-researched, the Fontaines obviously spent a great deal of time reliving their experiences and expanding on them with local history. I loved the blend of fact and emotion — the swirl of Claire and Mia’s personal dynamics amidst the warm stone of Cairo’s ancient pyramids and the fragrant fields of Avignon. Claire often details their interactions with natives, too, and I loved the little stories of the people they met in remote locales.If you love armchair travel and discussions of the tender but steadfast love fused by motherhood? Well, the Fontaines are ready to let you in. Have Mother, Will Travel was an engrossing read that delved deeper than I expected from the (pretty!) cover, and it’s one I would easily recommend to memoir lovers looking for some international flavor.