Ainslie Hogarth

Part way through - main character is same age as me, and this book just feels vicious. All the insecurities and shitty inner monologues I have as a middle age, middle class white woman who struggles to exist in the real world are voiced in the harsh light. I low key love it.

This book takes you on an inner monologue of madness. Told from the perspective of Abby, you're thrown into the racing and dark thoughts she has that some of us dare to think but never say out loud. Her thoughts escalate and deescalate rapidly while she tries to deal with her depressed husband after his mother commits suicide. This unfortunate fallout derails her plans of a happy family all while grabbing you by your hair and taking you along for the ride of her trying to sort out her life. show more

Abby has had an unfortunate past with her own mother that fuels who she is now, how she views motherhood, what she takes comfort in even if they are inanimate objects called " motherthings" that she projects mothering dialogue with. It's heartbreaking and horrific since it's oddly relatable but grotesque at the same time.

I'm so intrigued by this author and the voice they have given this character. You truly don't know what's going to happen since Abby is so erratic and unpredictable in her behavior but again, relatable even in her horrible thought processes. I can't wait to read more from Hogarth! show less

A strange little fugue state of a book, Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth will stay with me. After a troubled woman takes her own life, her son and daughter-in-law find themselves coping in unexpected and increasingly grim ways with the loss, and how their mental patterns have been shaped by the maternal in their lives. I found the narrator to be charming and insightful (up to a point), and I willingly followed her down increasingly bizarre paths.
I received an advanced review copy from NetGalley.

Aww. I had been looking forward to reading this book, but in the end, my reaction to it was kind of lukewarm. The plot twists didn't surprise me, and the questions I had were not answered. So when the big reveals came, all I could think was "about time", and the bits in between often felt like a bit of a slog.

As the book description says, the story starts with Easter lying under a rock, bleeding to death and contemplating her life up to that point. It's clear from the start she's an show more unreliable narrator, so what we get are flashbacks to the past and short bits of the present, there under that rock, and both are imbued with a heavy dose of surrealism. Sounds great, right? Yeah, I thought so too - but there are two things which made the whole thing not really work for me.

First, the unreliable narrator: I have a thing for unreliable narrators. I love a well-written, sneaky one, one where you maybe don't realize they are unreliable until halfway in, and then you go "Ohhh I AM ONTO YOU NOW", and then it becomes a sort of a cat-and-mouse game between the reader and narrator with a final showdown or the uncovering of a heartbreaking truth and it's just a lot of fun.

Here, however, the narrator is clearly marked as unreliable almost from page one, and her unreliability is just.. too strong. And I get that this may be the point of the book, and possibly the thing that other readers enjoy, but it was not for me. With an unreliable narrator, I want to find out what *makes* them lie, what they're trying to hide, what their reason is for being unreliable, and what the truth might be between the lines.

Easter's reason is "the Lonely", and yes, it's dark, and somewhat sad, and I probably should empathise with her, but to me it just seemed like an abstract reasoning to write a compulsive liar. What makes me not want to be around compulsive liars is not indignation about the fact that they lie to you, but that you stop caring about or even listening to what they say, because in the end it is meaningless, whether it's a rare truth or not, and this is what happened with the book. I stopped caring about the story, and while there were enough good bits and it was skillfully written and engaging enough to keep me reading, I wanted to get to some kind of point - but that never really happened.

The other thing that made the book not work for me is tied to the special circumstances around this particular unreliable narrator: the descend into surrealism. It started out great, what with the smoking squirrels and everything, but in the end there were not enough squirrels and too many bugs, slightly nauseating descriptions of body characteristics, hints at gore and countless mentions of grease and greasy things - it's not that I mind, it's just that it all reminded me supiciously of all the Stephen King I read in the 90s. Unlike Stephen King's stuff though, it doesn't really lead to anything, it just meanders.

So, overall, I loved the idea behind the book, the writing style was good and some bits were great (yes, like so many others I, too, enjoyed the heck out of Phyllis the Fucking Bitch, and the smoking squirrels), but I guess I was hoping for more squirrel action and less fever dream, and for some anchors in the whole seething mass. Most of all, I wish the book hadn't fizzled out like that (but as I mentioned at the start, maybe I shouldn't have known about Julia, and maybe the big reveal about The Terrible Thing was meant to be more mindblowing, although I kind of doubt that since it was actually revealed in a roundabout way in the middle of the book).

I still think this will appeal greatly to readers who have slogged through the deluge of paranormal romance that has taken over YA and want something different, and who haven't read all the Stephen King in the 90s. If you like it, you might give Poe and Kafka a try, or Fight Club or even Thomas Harris' Red Dragon. show less