Somebody's Daughter: The International Bestseller and an Amazon.com book of 2021

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'Beautifully written, searingly honest, and deeply affecting ... when the book ended, I only wanted more' - Roxane Gay

'The gravity and urgency...anchored me to my chair and slowed my heartbeat. Ford is a writer for the ages, and Somebody's Daughter will be a book of the year' - Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed

'Truly a classic in the making' - John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars

An Oprah book

Throughout her adolescence, Ashley Ford doesn't know how to deal with the worries that keep her up at night. If only she could turn to her father for his advice and support. But he's in prison, and she doesn't know what he did to end up there. After being raped by her ex-boyfriend, Ashley desperately searches for her sense of self. Then, her grandmother reveals the truth about her father's incarceration... and Ashley's world is turned upside down.

Ashley embarks on a powerful journey to find the connections between who she is and what she was born into, discovering that, however much we might try to untether ourselves from a painful past, the ties that bind families together are the strongest ones of all.

'A heart-wrenching coming-of age story' - Time
'Her coming-of-age story gets at how to both acknowledge and break away from what we're born into' - Cosmopolitan
'A beautiful, delicate memoir... a journey toward true and powerful selfhood' - Elle

Reviews

'Somebody's Daughter is the heart-wrenching yet equally witty and wondrous story of how Ford came through the fire and emerged triumphant, as her own unapologetic, Black-girl self.' - The New York Times

'Somebody's Daughter stands out as one of the BEST memoirs of 2021.' - BookRiot

'Perhaps the greatest contribution Ford makes is to offer her story written in the most lively and lucid prose in its most raw and unabridged form...By telling her truth so honestly and authentically, Ford invites us to tell ours, too.' - The Washington Post

'Ford's vulnerability on the page is an extraordinary feat, as she masterfully traces how the yearning girl she once was became the empowered woman she is today.' - Esquire

'Ford executes her task with both unstinting honesty and rare tenderness toward the deeply flawed, but steadfast, circle of adults who raised her. The resulting portraits, of her mother and grandmother, in particular, are remarkably vivid and humane, haunting the reader long after one has closed the book's pages...' - LA Review of Books

'Gorgeous, profoundly moving, and historically important by a terrific writer.' - Min Jin Lee, author of the New York Times bestseller and National Book Award Finalist Pachinko

'Armed with the insight and lessons from her youth, the author emerged as a bright young college student who learned to love herself for who she was and who she has yet to become.' - The New York Journal Review of Books

'With a lucidity that is almost a superpower, [Ford] transports us into her singular experience of growing up poor and Black and female in Fort Wayne, Ind.' - People magazine, Book of the Week

'A radiant coming-of-age memoir.' - Oprah Daily

'Layering in the complexities of her relationship with her mother, her changing body and a boyfriend who grows abusive, Ford offers a heart-wrenching coming-of-age story' - Time

Author Bio

Ashley C. Ford hosts The Chronicles of Now podcast where she has featured Lisa Taddeo, Curtis Sittenfeld and more. She also co-hosts The HBO companion podcast Lovecraft Country Radio. Ford has written or guest-edited for The Guardian, ELLE, BuzzFeed, OUT Magazine, Slate, Teen Vogue, New York Magazine, Allure, Marie Claire, The New York Times, Netflix Queue, Domino, Cup of Jo and various other web and print publications. She lives in Indiana with her husband, Kelly Stacy, who is also a writer and their chocolate lab Astro Renegade Ford-Stacy.