I love the concept of this book, but my ADD brain has a really difficult time with stream of consciousness storytelling. There also aren't any quotation marks for dialogue. It was more stressful for me than enjoyable, but I think this is going to be a great read for a lot of people.

"Nightbitch" is an excellently written book. It's not exactly a book that I personally loved or connected to, but I recognized that it's a great piece of work and would happily recommend it to people that I feel would appreciate it to its fullest extent.

This is the story of a mother, who had a baby with her husband, only to be effectively abandoned by him as he works 5 out of town 5 days a week. She goes from being a woman to just being a "mother," and because of this she starts to experience some extreme side effects. She fears she is turning into a dog.

That's right, an actual dog. Whether this is psychological or literal is completely up for debate, which is why I think a lot of readers will like this book, as they can interpret it in their own personal unique way. It is also a very easy book to read in one or two sittings, as you can't really put it down until you think you have a clue as to what is happening.

I'm a new mom, and this struck a little too close to home for me (nothing with the story, just because I'm extra sensitive with stories about motherhood right now). But I confidently give it 4 stars.

This was one of my most anticipated reads of the year and it did not disappoint. Motherhood is tough. Its not all rainbows and unicorns. Somewhere along the way we tend to lose our identity. We certainly lose sleep and hair. :D In Nightbitch, the mother becomes a stay at home mom and feels like she is turning into a dog. I found myself relating quite easily to Nightbitch. It is bizarre yet funny and unique. Give this one a try!

Thank you to @doubledaybooks and @raijoy for the #gifted copy of the book.

I doubt I'll read a more unique, insightful book this year. It's the kind of novel that makes any attempt at a glowing review feel insufficient. Rachel Yoder takes the werewolf-adolescence trope and turns it on its head to furious, surprisingly poignant effect. I am not—nor have I ever yearned to be—a mother, yet I deeply felt the vacillating rage and exhaustion radiating from the pages. It made me gasp and grin, it made me more empathetic. A searing condemnation of the impossible choices women are forced to make and a page-turner of the highest order, this is a novel you'll chew over long after you finish devouring it. Gratitude to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Nightbitch was such an interesting read! I couldn't really figure out if she was imagining everything that was happening to her or if it actually was happening. Did she really do all the dog like activities? Was she really sprouting fur? I totally understood the stress of being a mom to a little one and all the expectations that you are supposed to meet. Overall, the mothering aspect I really understood and enjoyed. I think most mothers feel the same way. This read met my expectations overall, because I didn't really know what to expect! It was enjoyable though!

I have a review of the book coming out in Split Lip Magazine, but it won't be published until fall. I absolutely loved this book

https://splitlipthemag.com/

Here are the opening/ending paras (not yet edited):
Portrayals of motherhood have a long history in literature, as do people turning into animals to escape the shackles of their gender roles and societal norms (Enid Shomer’s story “Laws of Nature” comes to mind, as well as most portrayals of werewolves), but what makes Rachel Yoder’s debut novel Nightbitch such a standout is its raw and often hilarious honesty, its stunning ending, and its focus on creation both through biology and art.

Beginning the novel, I admit: I wanted answers. Is Nightbitch turning into a dog or not? Is the alpha mom of the mommy group really a golden retriever? Can all of this be explained through “mythical ethnography”? Yoder seems to recognize though that parenting and art rarely give moms or readers exactly what they want, but if you embrace the experience, both can give you something much better, much more meaningful, than you were ever able to anticipate.

this was so fun! i love a book that makes me go, "wait, what?" several times. i was fascinated by the mother's story. i really Felt for her, even though we have very different lives. at times funny, at times melancholic, there really was a lot going on here, if not a bit repetitive at times. though given the emphasis on the monotony and repetition of motherhood, i suppose that's to be expected. i particularly enjoyed the surrealism; i'm still not entirely sure that i've Got all that happened.

it loses its footing a little bit in the middle portion but recovers in the final act. and i wasn't a super fan of the intrinsic tying of womanhood to motherhood that started happening. but overall, i really enjoyed this.

absolutely obsessed. this was a page turner from the very beginning. it’s weird and absurd and raw and real and sharp and funny! and magical! i’m not yet a mother but appreciated Yoder’s insights. she calls it like it is. I loved this.

As a stay at home mom myself, I was immediately drawn to the premise of this book. From the first page i knew i had found a new favorite book.

The stress and anxiety of motherhood is so perfectly captured on page; I completely empathize with the unnamed mother of this story. It takes me back to when my kids were babies and my husband worked crazy hours, and my hormones were out of control, and my anxiety (probably depression, too, if I'm being honest) played mean tricks on me... so I love the way the author is using the idea of a metamorphosis to represent the loss of identity- the mother's overwhelming sensation of change and inability to recognize herself.

I would recommend Nightbitch to fans of Mona Awad's novel, Bunny, or the Netflix original series Working Moms

This book was Frank Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis,” if Gregor Samsa was a woman who curled up in bad and turned into a bug (or here, a dog) and yet her toddler still demanded she get up and make him breakfast and play trains with him, day after day after day.

This falls into the genre I call “Mommy Horror”—the horror of being the neglected mother, who despite her legit concerns, at times possibly in danger (Zoje Stage’s “Baby Teeth” comes to mind), has everyone telling her, “oh come on, it’s not so bad”; then, when push comes to shove, suggest the mother go on antidepressants, rather than shake up the status quo. But it’s “Mommy Horror” with a humorous twist. It was a book I connected to immediately, and that connection and recognition created such a discomfort I had to hold the book at arm’s length after that. As a middle-aged woman who has come out the other side of this time period, it brought back PTSD (probably why I gave it 3 stars, when it most likely deserves more), even with its humor, probably because Nightbitch was also an artist trying to get her mojo back. It took me waaaaay longer to reach that point; in fact, I’m still working on it. I also connected with her initial antisocial behavior towards mommy groups, the “wtf is it with all of you?” I liked how Nightbitch was finally able to subvert it all.

5 raw and bloody stars

The appropriate approach here might be to write this entire review in howls, but I'll try to refrain.

This novel is spectacular in every sense of the word. It both perfectly fits into a long history of women identifying characters' representations in literature, and it is also entirely original.

The main character, who is sometimes known as 'the mother' and then way more interestingly just called Nightbitch - as in proper name - is everything. This character has a mostly physically absent partner and a very young son, both of whom are also identified by their relationships to Nightbitch and not by their proper names. The husband is barely in the piece, but that is as it should be. He fits the classically absent and detached type through both his lengthy and frequent work trips and also through his utter ineptitude when it comes to supporting the family and household. However, there's an important detail that comes up early in the piece about his Folder, and this (staying spoiler-free here) is an essential characteristic; it alone allows him to gel with this plot. The boy is an excellent sidekick to Nightbitch. Like all small children, he is utterly feral at times, and his behavior and reactions become an ideal bellweather for Nightbitch's activities and progression (*cringing while typing*). Also essential to the fun of this piece are Wanda White, the writer of what becomes Nightbitch's revolutionary text, and the local mothers, most of whom are hilariously and aptly named Jen. A not-to-be-missed detail that is present not only in the characters' names but also throughout the novel is Yoder's brilliant application of language. The naming and lack thereof, the descriptions, and the linguistically oriented pacing are all masterful. Try to stop laughing at the name Nightbitch alone. Contextually, it's impossible, and that is a feat in a novel with this content.

There is a brief but perhaps critical mention of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" near the start of the novel, and whether or not this is the intention, I could only see every moment and action from there in one way: that this novel is partially a modern version of that seminal text and that this comes through in the naming, timing in Nightbitch's life, details about rooms and sleeping arrangements, physical appearance, community between women/dogs/women's events (still dying over the herbs - watch out essential oils pyramid schemers...Yoder is coming for you), and so much more.

Structurally, the balance of details and information gaps is among the best I've seen. There's an almost High Modern stream-of-consciousness technique happening in Nightbitch's thoughts, and this allows readers to get into a headspace that they may otherwise find unrelatable. Readers are always questioning what is and is not "real," and this never becomes frustrating. The final scene is the best example of this: a glorious surprise as the way this ended could have really been a death blow to the novel overall.

This book is utterly wild, and while I expect that this may be a little too avant-garde for some, I could not be more obsessed. I'm blown away by how much Yoder accomplishes in this text and how much richness comes through in implicit ways. I get the most intense Lauren Hartke vibes (see DeLillo's _The Body Artist_) from various aspects of this work, and there are few higher compliments from this source. Nightbitch is none of us and all of us, and I can't get enough.

This will be one of my favorite books this year. It perfectly captures unique aspects of motherhood--its funny because it's true.

This one is definitely not for all your friends who told you how lucky you are to have all this time to spend with your sainted babies once lockdown hit - it's raw, nasty, a little sickening. I loved it and would recommend it to all my REAL mom friends.

This concept seemed too good to be true, but Yoder absolutely delivered! A gruesome, feminist romp that touches on very honest and real feelings that women deal with as they grow older. Am... am I Nightbitch?

OMG!! I haven’t read a book like this ever!! An ode to Kafka, Nightbitch is an ambitious debut that has set the bar high for Yoder’s future books!

The story is unlike anything else, its bafflingly original and truthful in explaining the complexities of motherhood. Although the synopsis reads like it gives a lot away from the plot, it really is just a pea-sized teaser for the wonderment that follows. Writing is just amazing and made me enjoy this weird story more.

Thank you Double Day via Netgalley for the arc.

Fiercely unique, scream-aloud worthy, and passionately original. Just read this damn book in all its brilliance and know little going in.

A searing and outrageous satire of the complexities of motherhood and the yearning for more, Nightbitch is a jaw dropping debut by Rachel Yoder!

A nameless mother has put her creative career on hold to stay at home and raise her son. Her husband travels for work five days a week, leaving the mother to navigate the loneliness and isolation of raising a demanding toddler while constantly grappling with the loss of her former self.

“It’s almost as if having a child does not sate a deep yearning but instead compounds it.” *

One morning the mother notices a patch of hair has suddenly grown on the back of her neck. Soon her canines are razor sharp. Her symptoms are intensifying, her husband is dismissive, and eventually she succumbs to the temptation of canine impulses to let out all her worries and insecurities. Hoping to find happiness and keep her alter-canine secret, the mother now known as Nightbitch embraces a group of mothers from the Babies and Books library program and rescues them from a marketing scheme involving herbs while also rediscovering her creativity through performance art.

I love every over-the-top honest minute with Nightbitch! As someone who was a stay at home mom for the first few years of my child’s life, I found myself commiserating with Nightbitch and understanding the brutal divide between loving your child more than yourself and grieving the loss of self. Tack sharp and clever, I cackled loud and often while reading this novel though I should’ve howled instead!

Huge thanks to Doubleday and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. Nightbitch is scheduled for release on July 20, 2021.

*Quote included is from a digital advanced reader's copy and is subject to change upon final publication.

Nightbitch is absolutely absurd, uncomfortably accurate, and ambitious as hell. The novel spirals around an unnamed woman whose efforts to adjust to stay-at-home motherhood, with its waves of crushing boredom and barely controlled rage, spark her transformation into Nightbitch, a dogwoman prowling the neighborhood in search of freedom and fresh meat. The woman's embrace of animal savagery is inextricably tied up with the societal expectations that led her to abandon her dream job for the joyous, horrific, inescapable company of her two year old; as she struggles to figure out where to direct her anger, her canines sharpen and her hair grows longer. The novel's light mix of the mundane and monstrous will likely feel familiar to anyone who has spent even a little time with young children. Walking through the supermarket, the woman thinks, "Imagine trying to shop for crunchy snacks with a toddler and heightened near-animal sense of smell while the enormity of patriarchal society loomed behind every box of farm-themed crackers, in the crackle of every pretzel box you picked up." Imagine, in other words, entertaining an inner world while another creature, one you created, demands the entirety of your attention, and imagine trying to maintain this sense of self in a world that requires that motherhood be all-encompassing.

Nightbitch will likely not be everyone's cup of tea: it is deeply devoted to a kind of gruesome weirdness that I loved but others will almost certainly find off-putting. It's hard to argue with its power, though. By the end of the novel, the woman's evolution felt not only possible but inevitable—how else to respond to the excruciating, transformative experience of motherhood than by howling at the moon?

Thanks to DoubleDay and NetGalley for the ARC!

I like weird, odd, bizarre literature as much as (more than?) the next guy, but this was a little too out there for me. Don’t think we’d have a readership for this.

A gripping meditation on modern motherhood and femininity told in an entirely new and fascinating way.