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
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📗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
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📘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.

First of all, this book is one of the creepiest books I’ve ever read. But, this comes with a huge caveat: I don’t know if you can truly understand how profoundly creepy this book is unless you have Borderline Personality Disorder (which I do) or if you have a loved one who has Borderline Personality Disorder and you are in their life. Having an intimate connection with the main character of a horror story where their mental illness plays a huge part of the plot except with the symptoms almost turned up to 11 is a huge mind screw, because you know exactly what the character is trying to say. You know what is causing their behavior. You know how they likely turned out the way they did and you know how profoundly toxic it can all be. It’s surreal and more horrifying than just about any other horror novel you could put in front of me.

This book is filled to the brim with morbid humor, which delighted me to no end since morbid humor is practically a love language in my family. It’s also vulgar and gory, filled with vivid imagery that is both hilarious and gross to see in the mind’s eye as you read. It’s also filled with prose that’s purposefully meant to make the reader feel uncomfortable, awkward, squirmy, on the edge of nauseous, and deliberately grossed out. In some of these passages I’m reminded of Chuck Pahalnuik and Zoje Stage and books like “Invisible Monsters” and “Baby Teeth” (yes, I know I have used those examples in my reviews before, but you’ll have to forgive me because they immediately came to mind). The prose surrounding the human body, gore, and viscera also reminded me a bit of this year’s “Manhunt” in style, but since they both came out this year I’m going to chalk it up to common inspiration for the authors of both books.

Inter-generational mental illness is something I have a great interest in, since it runs deep in my family. I seem to have gotten the lion’s share of mental health issues, but every AAB female in my family has some sort of mental health issue, going back at least two generations. My kids (one boy, one gender fluid) both have mental health issues and are neurotypical. Their other parent is neurotypical and has mental health issues in her family. As I was reading “Motherthing” and watched the plot and the characters unravel one chapter at a time, delusion giving way to delusion until desperation was all that was left, I felt more and more terrified about how unaware the main character was about her own mental health issues and more and more horrified about her obsession to protect, save, keep, and love forever and ever.

It seems as though not as many people like this book as much as I did, and that’s okay. I do have to point out that I think it is a little longer than it needs to be, but the space isn’t exactly wasted because the prose is so entertaining. The inner narrative is done in a style of stream of consciousness that is just the right amount of unhinged that I enjoy instead of being so disjointed and without any sense of syntax or grammar that it becomes utter trash.

If you have a strong enough stomach, like your horror with a huge dose of weird, and morbid humor is something you enjoy, I suggest picking this up and giving it a read. It truly is one scary tale.

Thanks to NetGalley, Knopf Doubleday, and Vintage for granting me early access to this title in exchange for fair and honest review.

What did I just read?! Motherthing was the weirdest book I’ve read in awhile and I had a good time doing it. Definitely check CWs as this book explores a lot of difficult topics that may be trigging for some - depression, self-harm and infertility to name a few.

Abby’s life changes when she meets Ralph. He’s a bright, perfect light in her otherwise unsavory life. Their relationship with his mother Laura is complicated, but when she slinks into a dark depression they move back to the suburbs to be there for her. She dies by suicide and a darkness sinks into the house, into Ralph. Is it depression or something more sinister?

Reading Motherthing was such a unique time. I knew this would be dark, but I was surprised by how funny it was at times. The story is told from Abby’s POV and while she’s a rather unlikeable character, it was an interesting mind to be in. We see every single dark and twisted thought she has. While there certainly were horrific moments, this book wasn’t as scary as I was anticipating. Just something to keep in mind if you’re wanting a true horror novel this spooky season.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy. I will definitely check out other books from this author.

(ARC from NetGalley) First, please look up CW!!!!
Abby had a rough childhood and was always searching for a Motherthing in her life. Unfortunately, her mother in law, Laura, was the type that threatened to unalive herself at the slightest inconvenience…uh then she actually did it. As the couple tries to move on, they find themselves being haunted by the ghost of Laura.
It’s like Monster in Law, but leans more macabre. Equal parts psychological thriller, horror, but also so sweet and hilarious? It was a mixed bag and I LOVED it!!! Although, I received an e-ARC I will go hunt down a physical copy on the release date.

Book review coming at y'all! Tw: death of a parent, su!cide, mental abuse by parent, cannib4lism, personality disorder

Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth

Thank you for the advanced eARC in exchange for an honest review @netgalley and @doubledaybooks

Y'all. I am here for psychological horror that shows the effects untreated #mentalillness can have on family units. This husband and wife have to process the death of the husbands mother, Laura, after she unalives herself. It is discovered later that the son can still see Laura and she seems to be haunting them. It is revealed that the mother suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder, and the wife seems to be deeply codependent, possibly Borderline herself What I found most interesting was the likeness of being raised under someone with untreated mental illness and the "haunting" effects that carry on, even after the person has passed on. Often the inner monologue is tinged with how Laura would have responded to actions taken. We see the after effects of how these relationships affect adulthood, as well as how those with the disorder also think themselves. This one hit me on a deeply personal level and I probably would not recommend this to anyone who has this disorder themselves, or those healing from having someone in their life with this untreated disorder. The writing was deeply disjointed, and at times confusing, so I will be giving it 3 stars.

⭐⭐⭐/5

Do you like psychological horror? What about horror that is more character study versus plot?

#bookstagram #bookreview #motherthing #netgalley #books #bookrecs #horrorbooks #horrorcommunity #horrorlover #psychologicalhorror #instabook #hauntedhouse #horror

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was an interesting read. Definitely a different writing style, which took some getting used to, but overall enjoyable. In it, we follow Abby, who finds herself struggling help her husband work through the death of his mother. Through the ordeal, Abby searches for various remedies that will heal her husband’s sadness, while also dealing with the ghost of her late mother-in-law.

The story is very geared toward a darker sense of humor, which I enjoyed. Recommend if you’re looking for something genre-bending that is outside of your comfort zone.

The premise was great but the book left me cold. I so wanted to like this - and initially the voice of Abby was intriguing and made me question, a lot, what was going to happen with Laura, Ralph, Mrs Bondy, Janet… but then, it just got too weird for me. I didn’t like the script sequences, and there is quite a lot here which is graphic and tough to read. It is a book about abuse, about mental health, about obsession, about what is true and what isn’t. Yes, it is certainly original but it didn’t work for me, I’m afraid - no pun intended but it left a very nasty taste..