I think I found a real literary gap and am looking for suggestions
Okay this is SO oddly specific but I am genuinely shocked by how few books exist about stepmothers/non biological maternal figures who are actually like… REAL mothers emotionally???
Not the evil stepmother trope. Not “dad’s new wife.” Not a shallow Hallmark side character situation. I mean relationships where a woman helps raise a girl and the bond becomes deep and life altering and sacred and complicated and emotionally real for BOTH of them.
Like where are the stories about:
“you didn’t give birth to me but you still became one of the most important people in my life”
I keep finding books about absent mothers, biological mothers, adoption, foster care etc but almost nothing about this very specific type of attachment and grief and love that can happen in blended families.
The closest emotional matches I’ve found so far are (maybe) Anne of Green Gables, White Oleander, and The Secret Life of Bees in different ways but somehow there STILL feels like a huge gap here culturally???
Does anyone know books that explore:
- stepmothers becoming real maternal figures
- unconventional mother/daughter relationships
- chosen motherhood
- mothers and daughters reconnecting after distance/estrangement
- that weird ache of relationships that are emotionally maternal but socially hard to define
Literary fiction/contemporary fiction/memoirs all welcome. I feel like this theme has to be more universal and cannot possibly be as underwritten as it seems lol