Like Mother, Like Daughter

Like Mother, Like Daughter is a domestic thriller by Kimberly McCreight, author of Reconstructing Amelia (2013) and Where They Found Her (2015). Told in alternating timelines and shifting first-person perspectives, Like Mother, Like Daughter tells the story of New York University student Cleo McHugh, who arrives at her family’s Park Slope home to find dinner burning and her mother, Katrina, missing. In the days before her disappearance, Katrina, a fixer for a prestigious New York City law firm, was dealing with difficult clients, extortion threats, and a resentful husband. As Cleo attempts to unravel what happened to her mother, she learns more about Katrina’s traumatic and tragic past and gains a new appreciation for her. Through Cleo’s and Katrina’s perspectives, Like Mother, Like Daughter explores themes of The Bond Between Mothers and Daughters, The Impact of Past Trauma on the Present, and The Problem With Keeping Secrets.

This guide refers to the 2024 Knopf Kindle edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of sexual harassment, rape, death by suicide, substance use, physical abuse, emotional abuse, graphic violence, child abuse, child death, death, and cursing.

Plot Summary

At the age of four, Katrina McHugh is abandoned by her parents and placed in a group home in New Haven called Haven House. She experiences harassment at the hands of staff and residents. At 14, she finds solace in her creative writing club, led by a Yale University undergraduate named Reed Hastings. Reed uses Katrina’s interest in writing to groom her. On Christmas Eve in 1992, he convinces her to sneak away to his house, where he drugs and rapes her. 

Katrina stabs Reed in the neck and flees to Haven House, believing that she murdered him. The Haven House director helps cover up the assault and arranges for Katrina’s adoption by Gladys Greene, an elderly lady with dementia. Katrina cares for Gladys until her death, when she inherits $3 million.

Katrina attends Columbia Law School in New York City, where she meets her husband, Aidan McHugh, a charming if unsuccessful documentary filmmaker. They have one child, Cleo, whom they raise in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Katrina gets a job as a “fixer,” using unconventional methods to cover up client mistakes for the white-shoe law firm called Blair, Stevenson. Katrina is a dedicated mother when Cleo is young. However, as Cleo gets older and asserts her independence, Katrina feels increasingly unable to give Cleo the love and support she needs.

When Cleo is 14, she has sex with her long-term boyfriend, Charlie. Cleo tells Katrina, who shames her, expressing disgust at her actions. This breaks something in their relationship, which had already been strained. Cleo prefers the laidback, across-the-street neighbor Janine, whose daughter, Annie, is Cleo’s age.

After high school, Cleo becomes an English major at New York University, where she dates Kyle Lynch, a drug dealer. Katrina reads Cleo’s text messages and realizes that she is dealing drugs for Kyle. With the support of an NYPD sergeant she knows, Katrina confronts Kyle and demands that he break up with Cleo. In retaliation, Kyle cuts off Cleo’s clients and demands that she pay him $2,000. Cleo begins dating her poetry professor, Will Butler. 

Meanwhile, Katrina reads Aidan’s text messages and realizes that he is having an affair. They separated and are preparing to divorce, but Katrina decides to keep this information from Cleo. She begins to date Doug Sinclair, an executive at Darden Pharmaceuticals, one of her firm’s clients. 

One morning, Doug receives a text message threatening to reveal that he gave bribes to have his daughter admitted to Amherst. That same day, Aidan contacts Katrina and tells her that Cleo needs $2,000 for unknown reasons. He agrees to find out why if Katrina gives him her $3 million inheritance to keep his documentary film company afloat. Later, Katrina receives an extortion message from an unknown number, threatening to reveal what she did as a teenager at Haven House. The next day, Doug dies in a car crash.

On behalf of her firm, Katrina investigates Doug’s death. Darden Pharmaceuticals claims that he died by suicide because he covered up the dangers of a drug called Xytek. However, Katrina finds out that he was murdered and suspects that Darden might have been involved. She finds evidence that Darden knew that Xytek had adverse effects on pregnant women and their children and that Doug was threatening to blow the whistle on them. Katrina confronts her boss with this information, and Darden’s lawyer threatens her to keep quiet. In retaliation, Katrina gives everything she knows about the coverup to a New York Times reporter.

Meanwhile, Katrina follows her daughter to see if the $2,000 Cleo requested is related to her reconnecting with Kyle. She threatens Kyle to stay away from Cleo. He tells Katrina that he could go to the police and turn Cleo in because he has pictures of her dealing drugs. He also claims to have pictures of Annie buying drugs. Katrina arranges to have Kyle’s phone stolen and then texts Cleo, from whom she is estranged. They agree to have dinner together.

Katrina goes home and begins cooking dinner. Janine comes over, wanting Kyle’s phone because it has pictures of Annie on it, but Katrina makes her leave. Then, Reed Harding enters her house—he did not die when Katrina stabbed him so many years ago. 

He tells her that he is the Will Butler whom Cleo has been dating and is also the one who has been sending her threatening extortion messages. He demands that Katrina give him her $3 million inheritance in exchange for his silence. Katrina logs into her bank account and finds that Aidan has stolen the money. Reed hits Katrina on the head, but her neighbor George arrives, scares Reed off, and hides Katrina in his apartment.

Cleo arrives at the house and finds her mother missing. Through Katrina’s journal and interviews, Cleo learns about her mother’s traumatic past. She also finds a collection of poetry given to Katrina by Reed with an inscription. In addition, Cleo learns that her father is having an affair with Janine and likely stole Katrina’s inheritance. She begins to wonder if Aidan was involved in her mother’s disappearance, and the investigating officer shares her suspicions.

Three days after her mother went missing, Cleo’s boyfriend Will comes to the Park Slope apartment and gives her a collection of poetry. Cleo reads the inscription and notices that it is the same as the inscription in the book that Reed gave to Katrina. She realizes that Will and Reed are the same person and locks Will in the bathroom. When she talks to the next-door neighbor George, she realizes that he is hiding her mother in his apartment. 

Reed is arrested and sent to jail awaiting trial. The New York Times reveals Darden Pharmaceutical’s coverup. The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) begins to investigate Doug’s murder. Cleo and Katrina reconcile, and Cleo agrees to stay home for the summer to help take care of Katrina, who is recovering from her injuries.