Books NOT to Give Your Mom for Mother’s Day

There are a lot of gift guides out there to help considerate, thoughtful children select lovely Mother’s Day gifts. I’ve even written one! (Click here)

This isn’t one of those guides.

Here are some books for those completely messed up mother/child relationships. If you’re harboring extreme anger, want to send a message, or really flex those passive-aggressive communication muscles, sample from this alternative list.

If not, leave these gems on the shelf until the festivities end.

11 Books Not to Give Your Mom

Shitty Mom: The Parenting Guide for the Rest of Us by Laurie Kilmartin, Karen Moline, Alicia Ybarbo, and Mary Ann Zoellner.

People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges by Jenn Mann. (This also comes as a notebook for an added touch.)

Difficult Women by Roxane Gay

Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward by Gemma Hartley

Unf*ck Yourself by Gary John Bishop

This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses by Claire Dederer

Motherhood Comes Naturally (and Other Vicious Lies) by Jill Smokler

I’m Not Mad, I Just Hate You!: A New Understanding of Mother-Daughter Conflict by Roni Cohen-Sandler

Leave Me Alone! By Vera Brosgol

Calm the F*ck Down: How to Control What You Can and Accept What You Can’t So You Can Stop Freaking Out and Get On With Your Life by Sarah Knight

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Happy Mother’s Day.