Reese Witherspoon Looks Back on Daughter Ava Phillippe Applying To College: 'Hit Me Like An Arrow To The Heart'

Reese Witherspoon is opening up about how she personally related to Celeste Ng‘s novel, “Little Fires Everywhere” and particularly about motherhood.

The book is what her new Hulu show is based on, and the 44-year-old actress shared with Emmy magazine that “it’s so difficult to articulate what motherhood means, and there are so many passages in the novel that did.”

Reese adds, “[One passage was about] training yourself to live on the smell of an apple alone, when what you really wanted was to devour it, to sink your teeth into it and consume it, seeds, core, and all.”

“It’s such a vivid way to describe the loss of your children as they grow up,” she says, recalling that Ava was applying to college at that time.

“It [the passage] hit me like an arrow in the heart.”

Ava currently attends UC Berkeley. See how she decorated her dorm!