[Paused book at 45%; review posted on Goodreads on 9/25/22] Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher Vintage I received an advanced digital copy of this book. The synopsis and cover looked highly promising to request a copy. My goal was to provide a review before the publishing date (September 27), and I have been steadily chipping away at the book over the past few weeks, but so far the story just isn’t grabbing me enough. 45% in, and nothing significantly really has happened yet. I’m not giving up quite yet, as there is still great potential, and I will update my rating on Goodreads when I do finish it. But for now, this rating has to do before the book releases. I’m a big mood reader, and there are several other books on my TBR that have a bigger draw for me at this time.

*Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read advance copy. Initially, I was intrigued by the book's description and cover. I thought the feel of the book would be in the same vein as Bunny by Mona Awad. Instead, Motherthing offered a new level of bleak and grotesque that I could not stomach. Once I got accustomed to the writing style, I thought surely the story would turn a corner and would live up to all of the stellar reviews. I think one of the biggest issues is that we are thrown into Abby's narration after her mother-in-law's suicide with only her narration as a basis of truth. I understand that this was purposeful to center Abby as an unreliable narrator, but it made the plot feel disordered and chaotic. Maybe this is meant to illustrate mental illness, who knows? I found myself skipping many parts that felt unnecessary and then running from the parts that felt like they were there purely for shock value. As shocking and grotesque as Motherthing was, I think placing this in the horror genre is a stretch. However, reading this book did leave me with a pit in my stomach. Not a fun read at all.

This was dark and chock full of even darker humor. It was so fun for me. And the cover? I will be physically buying this to add to my collection.

Strangest book I've ever read! Very unnerving - kinda like a car wreck you just can't turn away from!

I didn't enjoy reading this book - but kept on trying to get to the part that would make it all make sense - make the language and imagery have a purpose. It never happened.

While I didn't enjoy this book - I'm sure it's one I'll remember and think about for a long time!

3.5 stars but rounded up to 4 stars for originality. Motherthing is at times hilarious and often disturbing. Mostly told from Abby's point of view with a few omniscient narratives interspersed.
Abby recently moves in to her mother-in-law, Laura's, house with her husband Ralph because Laura who suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder needs help however, in the very first chapter Laura commits suicide and their lives are upended. Ralph sinks into a depression of his own which may or may not include hallucinations that his dead mother still wanders in the home, or are they hallucinations? Abby, desperate to help her husband and banish the spirit of a mother-in-law who does not like her goes to great and macabre lengths to heal her husband and their marriage. Abby is an interesting character who lacks nurturing and guidance from her own mother and attributes maternal comfort to people and things around her, the same way baby monkeys in a classic experiment do with inanimate objects when taken from their mothers. These objects become the "motherthing", the substitute for warmth and comfort. If you enjoy spending your time in someone else's head, someone who is deeply disturbed, but also at times sweet, then this is the book for you. Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review this ARC.

I absolutely hated the first chapter of this book. While Ralph's mother is dying in the hospital, he and his wife are sitting in the waiting room speculating about "brown hot tubs" filled with ethically sourced diarrhea. I'd picked the book up looking for a ghost story, not whatever THAT was... but it was a review copy so I forced myself to keep reading. It did get better. The idea of the "motherthing" and Abbty's desperation for a loving mother were sadly fascinating, but I never got past all of the distasteful imagery. How much fecal matter do we need in a book where no one is sick (physically, at least) and no one is dealing with the aliens from that Stephen King novel?

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4. A solid book.

Not what I expected. I honestly expected a haunted story of a mother in law that was a ghost or a zombie, but this was far more psychological horror than anything.

At about 40 percent in, I was ready to throw this book across the room because of the misrepresentation of Borderline Personality Disorder, especially as someone who has it. I honestly really dislike how most books represent it but this one is an exception, to a point.

However, I decided to keep reading and finish it to give my full honest review. And I am extremely glad I did because this book wasn’t about misrepresentation of mental illness, it’s about mental illness and how trauma can leave a person desperate for love.

Abby most definitely represents someone who is severely mentally I’ll and woof. It’s hard to read from a perspective of someone willing to do anything to keep someone loving her. *anything.*

I would go so far as to say that our main character herself has BPD and her fear of abandonment from her own mother leaves this void she wants to fill so much.

It was good. Painful, bleak, and absolutely gut wrenching to read. And absolutely nauseating at times. But if you have an ironclad stomach one to read.

My biggest issue with it is that I found myself skimming at times because there was so much inner dialogue that could have been cut. Really, at least 50-100 pages in my opinion. But overall, a fantastic read and I’m glad I took the time to finish it.

Thank you so much Netgalley and Knopf for gifting me a copy of this to read for my honest review.

This was a weird one that I just didn't connect. I DNF'd at 50% as I just couldn't keep reading it. The synopsis and cover sold me convincing me it would be like a "B" horror movie but NO. This book just wasn't for me.

Thank you Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the advance reader copy.

It's hard to nail a tone that is essentially a combination of quirky, heart-wrenching, and viscerally horrifying, but that's precisely what Ainslie Hogarth does in Motherthing. Meet Ralph and Abby, a young and in-love married couple who move in with Laura, Ralph's mentally-ill mother, shortly before she takes her own life. Abby and Ralph are left to cope with the loss and their grief in ways that increasingly isolate them from each other. While Ralph retreats deeper into depression and becomes convinced his mother is still alive, Abby begins to suspect that Laura's ghost is haunting them, intent on destroying their relationship -- and she realizes she must take drastic measures to save her husband and the future family she longs for.

I've read a lot of books that turn a disturbing eye on modern motherhood, marriage, and womanhood, but I haven't read one quite as provocative or subversive as Motherthing. This book is going to be polarizing and it definitely won't be for every reader. But this reader thought it was fantastic. Uncomfortable, deeply disturbing, and horrific in the most bodily sense -- but fantastic. This is a book that explores the most basic of human desires -- to be mothered, to be loved -- in the grittiest, most distressing ways possible. It requires from the reader a willingness to go with these characters to some incredibly dark, upsetting places.

At the center of Motherthing is Abby, a character who alternately troubled me and broke my heart with her abject need to mother and be mothered, to give and receive unconditional love. More than anything, Motherthing is a stark, intimate, deeply psychological character study of a young woman on the verge of psychosis who has been irrevocably affected by childhood trauma. It's also a vivid and unflinching portrait of mental illness and explores the myriad ways depression can manifest. And it's feminist as hell and has a lot of thought-provoking and insightful things to say about society's inherent misogyny. It's effective and horrifying and horrifyingly effective. And occasionally, it's funny and satirical too.

There is so much to unpack in Motherthing that it would be a fascinating book club selection -- but also it would be a TERRIBLE book club selection because trigger warnings abound and not everyone is going to be okay with these topics and the incredibly high "ick" factor. This is definitely a book for a very specific type of reader -- one who can venture deep into the darkness and come out the other side in awe of, rather than disgusted by, what you saw there. I am that reader and so Motherthing worked for me in a huge way.

When Abby and her husband Ralph move into his mother's house, Abby hopes that this is just what she needs to finally connect with her mother in-law. Unfortunately, laura is venemous and cruel- simply put, life with her is hell.

When laura takes her own life, her ghost haunts both Abby and Ralph (although in completely different ways). Ralph plunges into depression and is withdrawing into his own fog of hallucinatory despair, meanwhile Abby is being terrorised by her husband's dead mother.

This horror comedy is not for the faint of heart. Motherthing is a disturbing novel of family drama and mental illness- yet Hogarth manages to portray these issues in a bizarre, funny (and deranged) light.

Told in abby's sarcastic and increasingly volatile voice, Motherthing gives us front row seats to her eventual breakdown. Hogarth keeps the reader as unstable as the narrator- who is struggling to manage her own trauma and the ghost of her mother-in-law.

Although this novel is a slow-burn, it quickly ramps up for the finale, and the ending is spectacular and unsettling. The perfect autumn read!

"𝘋𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘴, 𝘓𝘢𝘶𝘳𝘢 𝘓𝘢𝘮𝘣 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘶𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘈𝘣𝘣𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘢 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩."

I'm not sure what the hell I just read. The retro cover for 𝗠𝗢𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗚 immediately caught my eye and when I saw it billed as a funny domestic horror novel, my interest was piqued. What married woman can't identify with the concept of being haunted by her vengeful mother-in-law? Too bad the book itself was a huge letdown.

Hogarth's writing shows flashes of brilliance (I laughed out loud at several lines like the one above) but the story is unfocused and more boring and gross than anything else. I forced myself to finish hoping the end might redeem things but I should have DNFed when I had the chance. Lesson learned - don't pick a book by its cover.

2,5 stars

Thanks to Knopf Doubleday for the copy to review.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing/Vintage for gifting me a digital copy of Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth - 4.5 dark stars!

Ralph and Abby make the decision to move into Ralph's mother Laura's home to help care for her. Abby had a horrible relationship with her own mother and is ripe for a mother figure in Laura. But Laura is not interested in being close to Abby and does nothing but criticize her. Abby becomes very close to one of her patients at the care center where she works, Mrs Bondy, When Laura dies by suicide, Ralph becomes very depressed and convinced that Laura's ghost remains in the house. Then Mrs Bondy's daughter threatens to remove her from the care center.

Oh my, this is quite the story. If you love dark humor and don't mind some disturbing scenes, you need to read this book! I felt for Abby's character - she was so unloved yet was so desperate for someone to love her. Abby and Ralph seemed to have a good relationship but it was obvious that his mother came first. There are so many scenes that will just have you laughing out loud at the things she says and does, again, if you humor tends to be on the dark side. It's almost October - the perfect time to read some creep!

“All a person really needs is to feel unconditionally loved,” he said. “It’s built into our programming, a biological necessity, the species couldn’t survive without it. If it weren’t built in, we’d all be monsters, filled with pain and trying to inflict it on everyone else.” Then I couldn’t breathe. “Aren’t we like that though?” I asked him, wanting to cry, thinking of my most private, shameful thoughts . “Aren’t we all monsters filled with pain?”

Wow this is a dark take on the desire for motherhood. Abby really really wants to have a baby with her husband Ralph. She has imagined him - Cal - and everything about him, about what kind of child he'll be and how she'll be the perfect mother. But it hasn't happened for her yet. Ralph and Abby movie in with Ralphs mother, Laura, who would fit in well on Reddit for how much she hates Abby. And then Laura dies, and Ralph falls into a deep depression and begins to hallucinate that Laura is still with them.

This is filled with such black humor sometimes I snorted while reading. This won't be for everyone, and it wasn't perfect, but it's worth the read.

Thank you netgalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for giving me an advanced review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I will say off the bat that I got sucked in by the cover of this one. I thought it was going to be such a fun read for Halloween season, and it was okay, just not one I think I'd ever read again.

The main problem was that I kept waiting for it to be a ghost story, a monster story, a possession story, SOMETHING. But it never really turned into that. The only scary thing in this book was how badly Abby felt that she needed to be a "good woman." The constantly turning to a cookbook for wisdom, the desperation to be a mother, the jealousy toward the fit/pregnant Carol, the fact that the only way to save her husband was to cook him a good meal... I was honestly surprised that this was being published in 2022.

I kept feeling like I was missing something, like eventually something would click and it would turn out that this was supposed to be more of a commentary on the pressures of womanhood or the common toxicity in mother/daughter relationships, but if that was the case then it was executed poorly. All of those elements coming together really just made this come across as one sexist book.

The part at the end that was supposed to be the big climactic scary part felt like it came completely out of nowhere. There was some foreshadowing in the fact that Abby definitely became more and more unhinged as the book went on, but besides that it just felt completely unrelated to the rest of the conflict. Maybe if more emphasis had been put on Abby's journey through healing from her mother's actions and her projecting a mother figure onto the nursing home patient, then the climax would make more sense? The way it was written made it feel like it was just there for shock value, and then the rest of the husband plot was conveniently concluded as an afterthought.

I have to say this is a hard one to review. It’s dark, has a twisted humor about it, and can most definitely be disturbing at times. The story has a brutal opening line that grabbed me immediately. “The night Ralph’s mother flayed her forearms, a woman in a red dress handed him a business card.” Tell me that doesn’t demand your attention. Yes indeed, be warned the book starts with a suicide. Based on the book blurb and the opening chapter, I thought I knew what type of story I was in for. Boy, was I wrong. And every time I thought I had a handle on the story, thought I understood where things were going…I ended up being wrong. It’s a dark and twisted deep look into depression perhaps even obsession. Ainslie Hogarth writing is so unique, she comes up with some of the oddest descriptions that if read in a vacuum would leave you scratching your head, and yet somehow work so well within the context of the story. I have to be honest, after finishing the book I held off on writing this review for a while, and even now I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the story…but I do still find myself thinking about it from time to time…so that has to mean something, right? My thanks to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review an eARC of Motherthing.

https://www.amazon.com/review/RHOWLEYPLOXKP/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/motherthing-ainslie-hogarth/1140838862?ean=9780593467039&bvnotificationId=dc10b4a1-3ead-11ed-8afc-0ee22fbb31d1&bvmessageType=REVIEW_APPROVED&bvrecipientDomain=gmail.com#review/218351788

📕Everyone is thinking that this is a book about mother in law from hell, but I’m not sure if she is the biggest trigger here. I think Abby’s mummy traumatized her more than a mother in law could do at an age when she was extremely vulnerable. Laura, the MIL, was only the cherry on the top for Abby. Laura was only responsible of messing up her own son
-
📗I feel like Abby and Ralph should have never been together. Both abused by their mothers and traumatized by absent father figures, they would never be good for each other. Ralph is too much mama’s boy, Abby is too clingy craving for a mother figure. And now they want to leave everything behind and get their life together to have a baby sends chills down my spine
-
📘Everyone in this book needs some level of professional help to make sense of their lives and emotions. None of them know how to handle difficult situations like a proper adult. This book could have been less hellish if story ended with and all of them checked in to a rehab center after Laura’s first suicide attempt. Jeez!

A really interesting book with an intriguing story. Not an easy read but certainly recommended. Unputdownable when you get into the story.

Motherthing is a really interesting story dealing with the concepts of grief and trauma. I will start by saying this book didn’t totally work for me- maybe because I was expecting more horror which this isn’t really.

The story centers on Abby who is still trying to come out from the shadow of her mother-in-law even after her death as she held such an important role in her son’s life. Abby is a very fascinating character in that she is like many women, trying to hold her family together at any cost. I did find this to be a very witty book throughout and did appreciate a lot of the humor used by the author.

I think I was expecting a little more on the horror side of things and also felt like things moved a little slowly in parts. I will say the ending does not disappoint and would recommend for that alone. The ending definitely has some horror elements that I was really into- it was also very surprising.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-arc of the novel!

This novel, unfortunately, suffers from mis-marketing. I would not call this a horror novel. I'd call it a literary fiction with horror elements (which really only appear at the end). The synopsis definitely makes it sound like it's going to be more of a ghost story than it is. <spoiler> The ghost is depression. Shocking.</spoiler>

This is a novel written in an absurd, over the top way á la Melissa Broder. It's not really fun reading from the main character's POV, because while it seems like she thinks she's just quirky and a little weird, she's deeply, deeply entrenched in her depression and trauma. It's hard to read, sometimes, because it's so clear to the reader how much she needs help, but how okay she thinks she is. And when she comes to the conclusion she's not okay, it's in a way that she thinks services her husband. It's uncomfortable.

And the middle section really drags. This is a relatively short novel, but I think the story would have been better told in a novella format. It would have made the story tighter and cut out all of the repetition, of which there is a lot.

Overall, I can't say I enjoyed my time with this novel. It just made me uncomfortable, and not in a way that's particularly helpful. I just really wanted someone to tell the main character to get a therapist.

3.5/5

What a crazy as shit book this is! There were times I had no idea what I was even reading but I don’t think this is the author’s fault. It was my eyeballs bulging out because of what I just read.

Thanks for the opportunity.