On being a good daughter to a bad mother and other unsolvable problems.

From the author of the cult-hit book about female joy, This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch, comes a punchy, powerful and deeply nuanced memoir about about mothers and daughters, obligation and guilt, hope and disappointment.

Some people have wonderful relationships with their mothers - this is a book for everyone else.

When Tabitha's mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer, she resolves to use her final six months to repair their frequently painful, strangely hilarious - always bewildering - relationship. But is it too late? And should she even try? For the readers who nodded along to I'm Glad My Mom Died but then remembered their own mother was extremely alive, this is a story about what happens when you shoot for a happy ending while you've still got the chance, even though you know the odds are against you.

Over the course of the book, the countdown to her mother's death-day becomes a grim deadline for Tabitha to make peace with their relationship. Determined not to be left with any regrets, she gets to work, changing her attitude and her behaviour, lowering her expectations and leaning in (even if that only makes it easier for her mother to push her buttons). The result is a nuanced, deeply personal story about mothers and daughters, obligation and guilt, hope and disappointment.

It is also, thank god, funny. It takes the life lessons of Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, imagines they were written by David Sedaris, and tackles them with the mission-like approach of My Year of Living Vulnerably. It offers solidarity to the daughters who keep trying, while validating the choices of those who've given up. Because, in real life, there aren't always clear heroes and villains, just mothers and daughters who are all-too human.