Motherthing

by Ainslie Hogarth

When Ralph and Abby Lamb move in with Ralph’s mother, Laura, Abby hopes it’s just what she and her mother-in-law need to finally connect. After a traumatic childhood, Abby is desperate for a mother figure, especially now that she and Ralph are trying to become parents themselves. Abby just has so much love to give—to Ralph, to Laura, and to Mrs. Bondy, her favorite resident at the long-term care home where she works. But Laura isn’t interested in bonding with her daughter-in-law. She’s venomous and cruel, especially to Abby, and life with her is hellish.

When Laura takes her own life, her ghost haunts Abby and Ralph in very different Ralph is plunged into depression, and Abby is terrorized by a force intent on destroying everything she loves. To make matters worse, Mrs. Bondy’s daughter is threatening to move Mrs. Bondy from the home, leaving Abby totally alone. With everything on the line, Abby comes up with a chilling plan that will allow her to keep Mrs. Bondy, rescue Ralph from his tortured mind, and break Laura’s hold on the family for good. All it requires is a little ingenuity, a lot of determination, and a unique recipe for chicken à la king…

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Thriller, Contemporary, Audiobook, Mystery, Adult

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 27, 2022

About the author

Ainslie Hogarth is the author of four novels. You can find her short fiction in Hazlitt, Maisonneuve, Room Magazine, Black Static, and more.

Reviews

[Nilufer Ozmekik · Rating 4 out of 5]

WHAT THE FREAKING HECK I JUST READ!

This is BOLD, BLEAK,PROVOCATIVE , TERRIFYING, DISTURBING! Not for everyone! It’s not an horror story! It’s quirky, intelligent, harsh, depressing, shaking you to the core kind of psychological drama with filled with so many sensitive, triggering subjects like suicide, mental illness, mutilation, rape, psychological and verbal abuse, parental abuse!

There are some extreme explicit graphic chapters make your stomach revolt and your blood run cold! Definitely hard to digest and accept!

The author chose truly different subjects and brought them out without sugarcoating. The situations the characters have to get through extra complex, overwhelming, horrifying. Writing style is comfortable, direct, razor sharp witty with extra dark sense of humor vibes.

Summary of plot: Abigail works at nursing home, taking care of elder people, achieving a great job even though she’s yearning the emptiness of caring mother figure in her life.

She’s married to the nicest man Ralph. But this lovely man comes with a baggage. A mother who treats him unfairly. When three of them live together, we realize Ralph’s mom Laura suffers from borderline disorder that makes her more cruel and suspicious about the entire men community’s true intentions. She thinks all those men are monsters so she treats her son like a garbage. Abby also gets her share of meannesses.

At the opening of the book Laura commits suicide. She cannot survive. And she literally haunts the poor couple at their house, putting Ralph at the edge of nervous breakdown.

Abigail tries so hard to help her husband but her restrained mother issues start to emerge after Mrs. Bondy: her favorite resident in the nursing house she deeply cares is about to leave the place because of her daughter’s stubbornness.

Abby doesn’t want to lose the only person who is closer to a perfect mother figure to her. Dealing with Mrs. Bondy’s daughter triggers her memories from the past! And the motherhhing comes out from her hiding space!!!!

Overall: this book terrified me! It hurt me! It truly disturbed me! But I have to say it’s truly well written and worth your energy!

I think It shook me harder than most of the horror books! Maybe this book’s genre can be defined as psychor ( something in the middle psychological thriller and horror)

Many thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group/ Vintage for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

[Heather Mclarry · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5⭐️ ish

[Brandon Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very Moshfegh-esq story, but way more unhinged. Loved it so much. Not AT ALL what I was expecting, it’s not really horror, and definitely not a ghost story, but I really, really enjoyed my time with it and found it way more relatable than I was expecting

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now THIS is the mother-in-law from hell book I've been looking for.

I have been waiting a long time for this book. I read The Boy Meets Girl Massacre by Hogarth I think in 2015 or 2016 and I loved it (ignore the 3.45 rating because those readers are wrong 😉) and have been waiting patiently for her next offering and here we have it. And just look at it. Look at it and appreciate that super amazing retro looking cover. Perfection. 👌

Abby and Ralph Lamb decide it's time to move in with Ralph's mother, Laura, to help her around the house. She's a needy woman, controlling, manipulative, and 100% devoted to her son. No one will ever be good enough for him, especially Abby. This breaks Abby's heart because after growing up with a mother that liked booze and men more than her own offspring she was hoping she'd make a connection she so desperately needs in her life with Laura. Eventually Abby succumbs to defeat and spends her time wishing for Laura's death behind a polite smile.

Laura, having long dealt with depression since her husband abandoned her, has decide to take her own life. A threat she's wielded time and time again but that has finally come to fruition.

Abby thinks they are finally free of her but that's not really Laura's style. Nope, in fact, Ralph mentions that her ghost is actually living in the basement. Ralph continues to spiral down into his depression and Abby needs to figure out a way to get her good husband back and banish the ghost of her mother-in-law once and for all.

I've met my new favorite fictional character in Abby Lamb. She is hilarious and she had me giggling throughout the book.

"I could have loved you so much, Laura, you stupid fucking asshole, but you just couldn't do it, you were just too mean, sucking everything pleasant from a room. The private alarm of losing track of a spider on a ceiling, that is what it felt like to be in a room with you."

"At the front door I dig my feet into my boots and pull my coat over a long t-shirt with a flirtatious looking horse on it, an outfit that makes me look like a woman who regularly falls asleep with lit cigarettes."

"I know from yogurt commercials that an epidemic is happening right now: constipated women, dangerously constipated, dying for probiotics. A perk of being a jellied salmon type is that I shit regular as clockwork every morning."

Personally I'd take a yogurt over jellied salmon ( 🤮 ) any day but don't tell Abby. I wouldn't want to hurt her feelings.

Admittedly, my humor isn't quite like everyone else's and I am a-okay with that knowledge. Hogarth get's me right in the funny bone but it WON'T be for everyone. Also, this book gets dark at the end. Gross-out dark. Gag worthy for some. I loved it. Though if you're a lover of Chicken al a King you may want to give this one a pass!


Lastly, everyone should wish for a relationship like Abby and Ralph. They're perfect together! ALL. THE. STARS.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for my complimentary copy.

[megs_bookrack · Rating 4 out of 5]

**4.5-stars**

Motherthing is a really, really strong Domestic Horror novel. I found it to be so unique and strange.

The topics explored were interesting and I was definitely shocked by the final bits ((pun intended)). Yikes. Seriously, in some ways, I may never view the world the same again.



I'm sort of kidding with that reaction, but also not really. This one took me by surprise.

In this story we follow Abby and her husband, Ralph. At the beginning of the story, Ralph's Mom is found dead in the basement of the home in which they all live together.

It appears she's taken her own life. There's a lot of blood. It's super tragic for Ralph, and Abby as well, of course.



The heart of the story explores the aftermath of that sudden death. It explores Ralph's grief and also Abby's mixed emotions about her mother-in-law and her actions.

The narrative is stream-of-consciousness from Abby's perspective and while generally, that isn't a style I tend to enjoy, it actually really worked for me here.



I feel like when an author is able to bring a great sense of humor to the perspective we are hearing from, it definitely helps me to settle in and enjoy the story.

Keeping in mind this is an extremely dark story, with stomach-churning, toe-curling, won't eat for a week imagery, it still had moments where I literally LOL.



Even with all the humor, I felt like Hogarth did a great job of capturing the different levels and outward expressions of grief. It came off as genuine and believable.

Additionally, while some aspects seemed jarring, because they were shocking in nature, or otherwise upsetting content, the flow of the story consistently worked throughout. It was well constructed and presented.

The final scenes had my jaw on the floor. I think I sort of got lulled into it all over the course of the narrative and wasn't expecting it to go the direction it did. I loved that part. It was a super solid finish.



I recommend the audio format, if you are someone who enjoys audiobooks. The narration was perfect for the story and it definitely felt immersive to me.

I cannot wait to read more from Hogarth in the future. It's clear she is super creative and I can't wait to see what she comes up with next!

[Carlynn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh god, I hate having to write this review, but I really did not like this book. And usually I absolutely love unhinged female main characters! To be honest, at about 80% through I started quickly skimming just to get to the end.

Abby’s family history was thrown in, but not explained very well—your mom sucked and so did her boyfriends, that’s it? Everything regarding Mrs. Bondy was like “oh right, Mrs. Bondy, forgot about her” because there are just pages about jellied salmon in the break room and eating yogurt. There are also chapters that are written like a script which makes the story confusing to read and takes you out of the flow of the story. The “plot twist” of the story was absolute insanity, but it didn’t make sense of how we got to that point?!

I read all of the reviews of this book on NetGalley and GoodReads and I just can’t see how people like this book?!

It read like a bad attempt at writing like Chuck Palahniuk and ultimately the plot points were weak.

Oh well, I guess.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this!

[Boston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hell hath no fury like a woman with mommy issues. Also…what the fuck.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

girl dinner

[♑︎♑︎♑︎ ♑︎♑︎♑︎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoying this book requires you to imagine that a spite-suicide can be an excellent foundation for a comic romp. I was there for it. I was hooked from the first clause of the first sentence, that being: "The night Ralph's mother flayed her forearms...". This book is incredibly funny to me and I need to admit it even though I'm slightly ashamed to admit it. Only slightly. What can I say to excuse myself? Well, there's the writing, which is delightful. The sentences made me laugh. The sentences zing. I was embarrassed to be laughing at this story which is really very shocking in many ways, but I was laughing. I was snorting, actually. You may need to be in a certain mood for this book, I admit. But it may put you in that mood before you know it. It's consistently written in a manic hysterical sometimes-schizophrenic voice that takes no prisoners. I wish I'd written it. Ainslie Hogarth is the master of first sentences, and the god of surprising verbs.

[Chantel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on the sexual endangerment of a minor, suicidal ideation, self-mutilation, grief, suicide, reproductive fertility, graphic descriptions of the mutilation of a minor, parental abuse, mental illness, sexual assault, & others.

Abigail Lamb is as sweet as the white fleece that encumbers the body of the flock. She is married to the one good man among a slew of vicious men: her dearly beloved Ralph Lamb. This man is as soft as a marshmallow, fresh from the bag; he is as tender as the heart that beats in his chest & as troubled as his soulless wife, Abigail.

Together they move into Laura Lamb’s house, a woman teetering inappropriate relations with her only son after swiping him away from the father he never got the chance to know. All men are devils in Laura’s eyes, except of course the marshmallow son that she strings along to the fire. Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) haunts Laura’s bones, ripples her skin & shoots itself out of her palette spewing seeds into Ralph’s vision, leaving him to fend for himself in a world blinded to the horrors he experienced as a child.

When Ralph meets Abigail, one evening at a bar, their lives are forever altered by their decision to completely forget the roads that led them there. Abigail has marooned through life, haunted by her mother’s promise to a boyfriend that she would offer him her own daughter for sexual relations (rape) if it meant he would stay with her. This mother, a person who never questioned Abigail’s actions or physical cries for help, lay stark naked in her child’s presence having nothing to hide so little was there of substance to her person.

How does one begin to grow past the void of a loving mother? In Abigail’s case, she grows from the tendrils planted firmly in the ground by a man named Ralph, a person who exhibits just as voracious of tendencies for self-harm as herself but, who hides it a wee bit better.

This is a book that presents the reader with many questions & ample instances to reflect on care & love. Who are we when, as children, we hadn’t been given the chance to grow into the people we hoped to become? What happens to those amongst us who are stunned, shattered & glued together by little children’s hands trying to manoeuvre their way through the world of giants?

There was no protagonist in this story, no one to come & save the day. The ending, the conclusion, & the final scene, are cut as we become aware that the reflections of trauma like light on a mirror’s surface, have every opportunity to shine again when one lets down their guard & is self-serving in a most muted & destructive manner. Though the majority of this book focuses on generalized descriptions of motherhood & what it means to be a mother figure, the presence of male characters both primary, secondary, & tertiary is very valuable to the narrative that Abigail spins.

One may spend hours dissecting this book so, before I begin my little exploration into the void let me start by saying that Hogarth wrote this story with more brilliance, gumption, morbidity, garishness, detail & force than I could have ever hoped to come across.

This story was presented in an astounding manner because Hogarth’s talent as an author absolutely annihilates any doubts that the characters are stored away, safely, out of reach. Everything in this book, within the character’s behaviour, tendencies & thoughts; the scenery of roadways, subway stations, long-term care facilities & snow-covered ground; morose basements, sticky bedsheets & skin follicle-covered surfaces, renders this story a colossal obstruction of the mundane; riddling itself into the subconscious, the parts of the self we seldom visit.

This is a story that is more than a ghost leaking phlegm into the crevices of those it haunts. This is a book about collapsing. One concludes their reading with a muted wish that the phantom of a goblin snuck into a closet at night, had been the only thing plaguing the pages.

As Abigail looks at the red-rimmed eye on the business card, handed to Ralph by an assistant of the Medium, she begins to connect all the red irises that she has come upon in her lifetime. Albeit, this is done unconsciously as Abigail has an innate ability to remain disconnected from reality. Regardless, this instance drew a particular intrigue from me as I found the significance troubling.

It is difficult to know where to start when reflecting upon the experiences I had while reading this book & to know where to start in terms of breaking down the characters into palatable morsels. In the beginning, I was rooting for Ralph & I should say that I maintained that sentiment throughout the novel. Therefore, it is with him that I shall commence.

The plot unravels before the reader as both Abigail & Ralph wait to hear from doctors about whether or not Laura’s suicide attempt was fatal. The story in its entirety is narrated by Abigail save for the parts that transform into theatre script; presented to the reader through a gap in Abigail’s subconscious that reflects, imagines, & transforms events into a type of acted scene. This was a delightful way of encouraging the reader’s view to change, the perspective altered by the narrator in something of a disconnected stance—staring into the void, if you will—about things that could or did in fact transpire. Due to the fact that Abigail narrates the story, our understanding of Ralph as a character is limited. He is a successful man, a loving man, & a man who was once a child caught in the riptide of a destructive wave of a mother who made no effort to ensure that her son had a healthy environment growing up.

This is not to say that I blame Laura for having a mental illness, I should not want my comments to be taken to this effect. I very much appreciate that there are significant aspects of our brains that are truly outside of our control. I also acknowledge that there are things that take place which alter the chemicals in the brain so that we are physically removed from who we were in the process of becoming.

What I am saying is that Ralph is a person who never stood a chance. It is revealed that he has previously made attempts on his own life. Being someone who deals with depressive episodes that result in auditory & visual hallucinations, Ralph is constantly making the effort to rise above his illness. It is so much easier to give someone a generalized coping mechanism than it is to put on their shoes & attempt to maneuver the ground they walk on, one that is scattered with eggshells. As helpful as the coping mechanisms, books, research, professional help, & relational love, have been in helping Ralph hold steadfast to mental wellness, he is attempting to overcome intergenerational trauma. This is no easy feat.

Upon learning that his mother has in fact died by suicide—having found her body mutilated in the open basement floor plan—Ralph’s depression sturdy grips & overwhelms him. It is hard to find reasons not to want the best for Ralph. He is, after all, the product of repeated childhood abuse & has spent all of his years trying to be the best version of himself in spite of that.

He moves back in with Laura upon learning of the devastating effects her mental illness has played on her solitude & works at being there for her, even knowing she was never there for him. I cannot say that this is a good or bad thing. Ultimately, it is up to the player to choose their best move & far be it from me to decide what is best for a generalized populace. However, deciding what is right & wrong is exactly what Abigail does, repeatedly & without hesitation.

As the reader grows longingly towards Ralph in the hopes that he might overcome this psychotic episode, we are exposed to the devilish reality that Abigail inhabits on a daily basis. Once again, we are asked to consider whether or not a person can be totally in control of their actions. One might employ the age-old question of nature versus nurture. Is Abigail the antithesis of Ralph or are they simply two sides of the same rusted coin?

It is pointedly awful to reflect on the message that Laura’s ghost gives Abigail especially given it is the truth. On the night when Abigail begins her period & subsequently realizes that she is not pregnant with ‘Cal’—the neutrally named baby she is certain to have—everything begins to tumble, though, admittedly, everything was going to hell far earlier than that night.

When told that she is not unique in her struggles, that her childhood experiences of neglect, distance, & heightened exposure to violence & sex, did not only happen to her (i.e. that other people experience bad things too), Abigail is repulsed. There is something to be said about validating someone’s experiences. There have been articles produced wherein people speak on their experiences of feeling demeaned by those who claim that they are ‘not alone’ in feeling or experiencing something. By simply bulking everyone into a single molten heap, we are invalidating an individual experience. There are certainly ways to ensure that someone does not feel isolated by their experiences without swooping how they feel under a rug. Unfortunately, when Laura tells Abigail that her experiences are not in fact uncommon—as horrible as that is to realize—she is being honest & given Abigail’s distinct disconnect with reality, there is hardly a better way of chiming the gong to return her to real life.

I do not mean that it is too late for Abigail to experience good things in her life nor am I saying that it is too late for her to seek help. However, this is someone who is on the cusp of putting another child’s life—little unborn Cal—into a toxic, abuse-ridden, situation & revitalizing the same things that she & Ralph experienced.

Abigail is her own self-fulfilling prophecy. She goes out of her way to victimize herself whilst demeaning the very valid reasons she has for experiencing the mental illness, trauma & struggles, that she does. We see this play out when she confronts Janet. Though it is an absurdly difficult thing to do, we must try & accept the fact that even the worst people in the world are viewed with love by at least one other person, even if only by themselves. Mrs. Bondy was an abusive parent to Janet. We must take her word for that. Yet, this same Mrs. Bondy is a loving, caring, tender figure in Abigail’s life. These two truths can be accurate, factual, & authentically representative of reality, at the same time. Perhaps due to her childhood experiences or perhaps due to her total lack of a sense of self, Abigail is unable to grasp that people are three-dimensional. She pretends to be dead so that Ralph is more interested in having sex with her because, in her mind, she is simply on earth to be void; no technicalities linking her to other human beings because no one else could have lived through such horrors as she did. Yet here, stands another person who lived through bad things, Janet. Perhaps Abigail is unable to grasp this fact as truth because she would have to come face to face with the fact that she loved & cared for an abusive person.

This is something we all have to come to terms with, some of us in quite shocking ways. Though no one really wants to stand out of the crowd & scream tender little words of adoration for someone who was a child abuser, it is nearly impossible to be made aware of every single person’s actions throughout all of their lives & even more difficult to distance ourselves from things we know not.

By loving Mrs. Bondy, Abigail must ignore Janet’s truth & highlight her own. She must disregard the fact that Mrs. Bondy is someone that is not entirely known to her—as we are never really fully known to anyone—& she must accept that it is possible that the person she adores, the mother she wishes was her own, wasn’t a very good mother after all.

I cannot say that it is within Abigail to sit with herself & be honest. If she were honest she would have to change & I cannot say that this is something she is able to do on her own, so far into the tar-filled crevices of her hiding places, is she. This is ultimately very sad. Though Abigail chooses to murder & cannibalize Janet, her reaction time is always a second delayed. Her self-serving mentality sees her at once ignore the fact that human flesh might probably poison Ralph, especially given the fact he’s barely eaten any food since his mother’s death, as well as ignore the fact that she did not kill a villain, she killed a victim.

What makes Janet any different than Ralph or Abigail? Nothing. Abigail chooses to believe Ralph, she has no proof of anything. Even living in the same house as Laura, abusers are very skilled at making themselves unknown. It would be just as easy to believe that Abigail was being sensitive when Laura said that the cookbook she cherishes was a piece of garbage—given that she found it in the literal trash.

However, she wants to believe Ralph because she wants Ralph’s love; she wants to be loved by someone, she wants to be cherished, & she wants to root herself in the confines of someone else’s life; she believes him when he says that he had a difficult relationship with his mother. So, she becomes a motherly figure for him as she hopes he will be for her.

Ultimately, the terrible ghost that haunts the house is the act of neglect. The reader stands toe-to-toe with troubled, unreliable, sick, mean-spirited, hopeful, & romantic characters. We are asked to practically disregard Laura’s apparition because it is nearly inconsequential.

Ralph is thrust into a psychotic episode not because he thinks he saw the ghost of his mother but because the person he was manipulated into loving, for her role in his life, stripped herself raw in a bloody mess for him to scrub away.

Abigail does not feed Ralph human flesh because Laura’s ghost is haunting his spirit but because she is someone whose validation arises from the comfort of physical proximity, having found it only with an inanimate object. Therefore feeding human flesh to her husband, with whom she shares physical intimacy girths the distance between what she lives in the world of human society & what she desires out of life, however much she actively denies it.

A collective denial from both parties sees them regaining the pattern they sought to escape all those many moons ago when they decided to get married, & never divorce. Their efforts into consummating a life ignore the ones they have yet to work on, their own. As wishfully wonderful as it may be to imagine birthing pure love, a child is a human being too.

Cal will be born into a world of patterns & fear; with heightened expectations to be the embodiment of Cupid’s arrow. Cal, a child, remains unknown to their parents as much as they are to the reader who spent 288 pages walking through life with them.

Cal, searching for the inanimate object that will reflect their emotions kindly, will welcome the child into its orbit, & will substitute as a mother thing for the one lost to the delusion of other mother things. With crass, reflective, vicious prose, Hogarth has entrapped me in the succulent cycle of thinking about everything I have yet to know.

Thank you to NetGalley, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, & Ainslie Hogarth for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

[Ashley (semi-ia, exam szn) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4-4.5 stars? idk yet. I AM SO APPALLED. AND INCREDIBLY FASCINATED. that ending? ohmygosh full rtc whattt that was an absolute rollercoaster

-

someone said this is very ottessa moshfegh-esque. say less.

[Sadie Hartmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review originally published at Mystery & Suspense Magazine:
https://www.mysteryandsuspense.com/mo...

I decided to request Motherthing on NetGalley for two reasons:
1) That cover
2) The synopsis
And then, in a very un-Sadie-like manner, I actually jumped right into it. I never, I mean, never get approved for a NetGalley book and immediately read it. There was just something so utterly magnetic about this book’s potential.
Allow me to set this book up for you with no spoilers and the right expectations.
The narrator, Abigail Lamb “Abby,” is a caregiver at a nursing home. She’s good at her job; loves the elderly patients in her care.
She has also just become a live-in caregiver for her ailing mother-in-law, Laura. Abby and Ralph have just made the recent transition of moving into Ralph’s mother’s home so it’s still a bit fresh and awkward especially because Laura has an unhealthy attachment to her son causing Abby to feel like an outsider.
Tragedy strikes and Abby finds herself fighting for her husband’s mental health; maybe even his life.
I found Ainslie Hogarth’s storytelling voice compatible and comfortable. I slipped into my favorite “reading zone” where I am at peak levels of entertainment-the words on the page translating those visuals into my mind like a little movie.
And the humor! My goodness, this book is hilarious. Plenty of snarky, razor-sharp wit, and a way of using humor to diffuse hurt feelings.
The storyline is a bit of a slow burn enticing readers to invest in Abby and Ralph upfront before circumstances beyond their control peel back to reveal all the ways their marriage is vulnerable; unstable. It’s deeply unsettling. A strong sense of growing tension and impending dread nips at the reader’s heels as the story progresses. Things get bleak! As Ralph begins to descend into a grief-induced depression, things definitely take a dark turn.
Without going too deep into my own, personal experience, I do feel it’s appropriate to say that I felt a kinship with the protagonist. I could relate having gone through similar situations. And given what I already know about the difficulties many women have maintaining healthy boundaries with their mothers or mothers-in-law, I’m sure this book is going to find its audience.
Quirky, unexpected, and charming, Motherthing uses all the right ingredients combined in equal measure to ensure a delicious experience. Highly recommend.

[Lena Lanz · Rating 2 out of 5]

not even the cannibalism could save this book😔

[JaymeO · Rating 5 out of 5]

HAPPY PUBLICATION DAY!

I will pass on the Chicken à la King🤢.

Ainslie Hogarth explores the human desire to be loved and mothered in this dark domestic horror novel. In Abby’s search for unconditional love, she must figure out what it means to be a good woman.

Ralph and Abby Lamb are a happy, married couple until they move in with his demanding and overly critical mother, Laura, a former 911 dispatcher. She has been feeling unwell and guilts Ralph into returning home to help.

“He could be good enough to save her.”

Abby takes this as an opportunity to get to know the mother figure she has always desired. However, Laura has Borderline Personality Disorder and is very depressed. When she commits suicide, Ralph slowly falls into his own deep depression and suffers from auditory hallucinations.

Is Abby losing Ralph to his mother’s ghost?

What will Abby do in order to prevent being abandoned again? Well, of course! She consults the ultimate instruction guide to being a good woman. It is found in the Secrets of a Famous Chef, a cookbook from 1930. The Chicken a la King recipes are written by mothers and claim to be the spells for a long happy life.

While working at the Northern Star retirement home, taking care of her favorite patient, Mrs. Bondy, and preparing to mother her own child, Abby vows to find a way to save her marriage at all costs.

“He’s not like his mother because he has me, and I will save him. We’re special, Ralph and I…I can cure Ralph. Because it’s what I was born to do. Remember that, Abby, vanquishing this depression is your true calling as a wife.”

An opal ring, jellied salmon, creepy mystics and loving couches…

Motherthing is a highly original, deeply thought-provoking novel that will appeal to those who enjoy psychological horror at its best. Readers must do a deep dive analysis into this sad look into the dark side of human nature. What will one do in order to be loved? In a world where mother substitutes just won’t suffice, Abby is consumed with an unfulfilled need to be mothered.

“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.”

“A Good Woman recognizes that you can be good and bad at once. A Good Woman can acknowledge your humanity while recognizing the fact that you also need to die. That’s why it’s hard to be A Good Woman. That’s why we’re not all good women, are we…?”

Dark and disturbing, this book will not appeal to everyone. If you are easily triggered, please take note.

However, this is one of my favorite reads this year! I highly recommend this book to those who enjoy psychological horror.

5/5 stars

Expected publication date: 9/27/22

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the ARC of Motherthing in exchange for an honest review.

[Hannah Greendale (Hello, Bookworm) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strange, feverish read that leaves you dizzy with uncertainty.

Want to see my Top Reads of 2023 on BookTube? Come find me at Hello, Bookworm.📚🐛



Few books compare to Bunny by Mona Awad or Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente, but Motherthing certainly comes close. I loved gobbling up this sinister treat!

I'll be the first to admit that this book is an acquired *cough* taste, but I had so much fun exploring its pages. Hogarth offers a comedic look at motherhood and the many strange forms it takes, and she does it in an irreverently funny setting in which a woman is plagued by her deceased mother in law, whose spirit resides in the basement.

Can't recommend this one highly enough if you're in the mood for something darkly humorous.

[Constantine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rating: ⭐⭐
Genre: Horror?

Abby has been missing a mother figure in her life for a long time. When she gets the chance to move with her husband Ralph to her mother-in-law’s house. Abbigail is ready to offer her love and affection to her mother-in-law (Laura). However, Laura is a cruel person and she does not treat her son well to treat his wife decently. After some time, Laura commits suicide but her ghost will still haunt Abby and her husband and cause them terror and fear. Abby will have to help her husband get over his depression and at the same time get rid of Laura’s ghost!

The synopsis of the book is amazing. The cover art gives me the vibes of the 1970s/1980s horror movies. I felt this book had all the ingredients to make it a favorite book for me. Unfortunately, all the good elements that I thought they will make it a fun read did not help. For a start, this is one of those books that I don’t understand what it tries to be when it comes to the genre. This was not horror. It is more like a general fiction novel. I feel this book will suffer due to misleading marketing. It is categorized as horror but totally lacks any horror atmosphere. I think the author had no intention of writing a horror novel but the way the book is marketed might backfire.

Disregarding the genre, I still was not invested in the story’s execution despite the concept being top-notch. Many times I felt nothing was making sense. Not sure whether this was intentional or it was just the author’s writing style. However, I appreciate the subjects presented in the book like mental health, depression, and haunting even if they did not have a strong impact on me. I wanted to love this book but I couldn’t. It was just not the book for me.

Many thanks to the publisher Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Vintage, and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader copy of this book.

[Melki · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mother's love is devoted. Consuming.

The last time my mother-in-law visited, she stayed for 9 days. She offered an unending litany of complaints: my sons' hair (too long), the meals we served (too exotic), the portions (too generous).
She carped and nagged about everything from the size of the ice cubes in her glass to the color of my neighbor's fence. The day I put her on the plane bound for Arizona (nonstop, as she refuses to change planes), ranks as one of the happiest of my life, right up there with the births of my two long-haired boys.

I can't imagine the hell it would be if I ever had to live with her.

Dear Abby got to experience that hell on a daily basis when she and her hubby, Ralph, moved into his mother's home to help the old gal cope. While Mother Laura dotes on her son, she's snotty and nasty to her humbled daughter-in-law. When Laura commits suicide (leaving a huge mess for Abby to clean up, of course), it seems as though life might improve for our hapless heroine, but just like unpleasant guests who overstay their welcome . . . Laura refuses to leave. One visit to a fortune teller later, Abby learns the terrifying truth:

"Your mother-in-law, she's with you, with your husband technically, and she's very angry. She'd rather see her son dead than alive with you."

Looks like some pretty drastic measures could be called for here, and, DAMN - does Abby EVER do DRASTIC in a BIG WAY!

Abby is a fascinating character, a tormented soul who was abused by her own mother, she is bursting with love to give, to her husband, to residents of the nursing home where she works, and to the much-wished-for, unborn child she is desperately longing to nurture. This was laugh-out-loud funny, but also bleak, tense, and insanely disturbing. It will definitely not be for everyone, but for those who like their humor BLACK AS THE DEVIL'S COFFEE, this is highly, highly recommended.

A big whopping thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for introducing me to this author.

[Jenny Lawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scary, disturbing, weirdly funny. And that cover!

[Emily Coffee and Commentary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gruesome, hilarious, and razor sharp novel about being literally haunted by toxic relationships. Told with the quirky and impulsive voice of Abby, we see the aching need for validation from parents, a need to be loved in return for loving; we see the earth shattering reality that often times we will never be loved in the way that we want, unconditionally, or at least equal to our own efforts. So funny, but incredibly sad at its core, this is a smash hit of a domestic horror story.

[Bloss ♡ · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is not horror.

Could this be the worst book I’ve read in recent memory? This was… awful.

I was really excited when I discovered this: a dark comedy horror about a horrid ghost mother-in-law, it sounded like just my thing.

This fails from go. Honestly, when I read the first chapter which was incoherent, gross, and poorly written, I was thinking “oh god, no, no, no” but yes, it’s that bad and it only gets worse.

The writing is brutal - it takes itself far too seriously, tries way too hard and misses the mark entirely, and about 50% of it is utterly nonsensical incoherent babble. This book is not horror, it’s not drama, it’s not a thriller, it’s just a tedious stream of consciousness from a severely mentally-ill main character that’s obsessed with babies, faeces, and mother figures. The MC is horrible and spending this much time in her headspace was too much to ask. I briefly wondered if this was some sort of ‘exploration of depression through fiction’ but it can’t be; I mean, it’s so badly done. If it is, it missed the mark and is spreading some dangerous rhetoric about what living with depression is like.

The “ghost” element of this was missing in action. There is like, one, brief mention of a ghost but nowhere near enough to call this a ghost story. We are told how horrid the mother in law is but through the eyes of the MC, it’s hard to take that onboard. We don’t see any direct evidence of her supposed evilness ourselves (it’s all second hand from the MC) thus rendering the whole “I’m victimized by my MIL” thing questionable. I mean, you can’t take someone this unhinged at face value.

We were promised a Halloween read with ghosts, a haunting, and some comedy; instead we got whatever the hell this is (a whole book just reads like some gory, self-obsessed fever dream?).

There’s a lot of gratuitous grossness in this book that adds nothing except pushes the reader further into disengagement. There was no story, no interesting characterizations, no sense of setting, but we got heaps of disgusting descriptions of bodily fluids, functions, and ick. It was going for pure shock value and dragged the tone down further.

It’s a shame because the cover art has a cool eighties horror vibe and this book was advertised as horror/dark comedy. But, ultimately, it was a Herculean effort to even finish this. I dreaded picking it up and was annoyed to have waste a good chunk of Spooktober on such rubbish.

I don't know what the point of this is or who this is supposed to take any genuine enjoyment out of it. I came away from this regretting having slogged through it, feeling manipulated by misrepresentative marketing, and vaguely ill.

I don’t know why publishers intentionally misrepresent what books are about: it’s the same energy as advertising a job as remote and then demanding people go into an office, you’re just wasting your time (and ours), damaging your reputation, and pissing everyone off.

[Dr. Cat in the Brain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well that escalated quickly.

A friend of mine has a saying: There's only three types of stories out there. The Good, the Bad and the Canadian.

Motherthing is absolutely Canadian. If you don't know what that means? I apologise. If you do know what that means? I APOLOGISE.

I saw the big, shocking twist coming from a mile away, but it's execution that matters. Especially when it comes to stabbing people in the throat.

And when the killer starts playing puppet master with the butcher knife, I have to admit I laughed like Doctor Doom at Johnny Storm's funeral. It was diabolical.

I was like "surely this can't get any more demented". But oh no Ainslie Hogarth was just warming up. That wasn't even 10 percent of her full power. She's going Black Freeza on everybody.

And as fast as the book goes from 0 to 100, this one jumps from 100 to 10,000 with psychics, hallucinations, human rugs, cannibalism, creampies and incest and oh my goodness. So many of the horror genre food groups in a couple hundred pages? Is this legal? Does Loblaws know Ainslie Hogarth got away with cramming this much meat into such an inexpensive little package? Cause horror fans are gonna be eating for days.

This book is slam-dunking giallo and crazy haunted house horror into psychological Repulsion style mental breakdowns and adding a bit of Titus Andronicus for the finale.

And it's got some pretty wild narrative tricks too. Fun characters. Great play on trauma and PTSD and misogyny. Also just outrageously, over the top and toys in the attic mad.

I dig it.

I laughed, I cried, I got pregnant.
8/10

[casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like the change you see in a partner after marriage when more unfortunate big life events happen, like losing a parent, isn’t something I see explored in the books I seek out often. It’s an untapped area for me that recently I've seen a lot more in my real life as I get older, and noticing just how aggressive and relationship ending those changes can be solely because of the different ways people cope with tragedy. This explores not just that but also Abby’s contentious relationship with not only her mother in law but her own mother. Her attempt to cope with it all alongside her husbands depression after the loss eventually manifests into Abby's obsession with an elderly woman at the retirement home she works at. Abby's descent into madness throughout the book reaches some insane points but despite that it never feels outlandish or heavy handed somehow, at least in the way where it feels misplaced or unearned, I think that's because Hogarth does a great job at easing you into her spiral to the point where some crazy shit starts to feel natural lol. Overall was really engaging and covered a lot more than I expected it to, but the idea of jellied salmon made me want to die a bit ngl.

[Stu Corner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a weird one.

Abby and Ralph are a happy couple living together along with Ralph's overbearing mother- Laura. When Laura commits suicide, Ralph spins headlong back into a state of depression. He's convinced that her ghost lives on in the basement. Abby, who has had a troubled childhood -and was hated by Laura- develops an unhealthy obsession with one of the residents at the nursing home where she works.

The story is told through Abby's eyes. There's plenty of dark humour, some very unusual metaphors, and a lot of bizarre ramblings about salmon and food in general. If you're looking for a conventional horror story - Look somewhere else. This is another case of mis-marketing, which will inevitably affect ratings. It's a story about complex motherhood issues, depression, and a descent into madness that leads to a gruesome finale. Didn't love it, Didn't hate it.

2.5 Stars, Rounded up. Thank's for the arc, Ainslie. Best of luck with the release!

[Léa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have no idea what I just read

[Deeksha Bhardwaj · Rating 4 out of 5]

✨𝘼𝙣 𝙚𝙡𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙮 𝙗𝙖𝙗𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖 𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙝𝙪𝙨𝙗𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙣 𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧-𝙞𝙣-𝙡𝙖𝙬, 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙞𝙩 𝙖𝙡𝙡✨

𝗕𝗹𝘂𝗿𝗯.
When Abby's mother-in-law takes her life, her ghost haunts Abby and Ralph in different ways leading Ralph into depression. At the same time, Abby develops an unhealthy obsession with one of the residents at the nursing home where she works. And now Abby is fighting alone to save her husband and their relationship, while struggling to control her obsession...

𝗠𝘆 𝗧𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀.
OMMG! What did I just read😱 Motherthing was such a unique experience.. I just want to say THIS BOOK WAS WEIRD.. VERY WEIRD!!

To start with, the writing style had different phases. The first phase was incredible, a mix of OMGs and WTFs. I enjoyed the dark humour along with Abby's inner monologue, immensely.

As the plot progresses, the same inner monologue became too much to bear and many things just didn't make sense. The plot is dragged a lot around the mid, making it a bit boring. BUT, suddenly around the end, the plot becomes VERYY interesting and unsettling. I was dumbstruck and still can't process the ending..

This book is a mix of dark humour and horror, but in my opinion, the horror part was not that prominent. Though there were many creepy moments, and Laura can GO-TO-HELL before she comes and haunts Abby again, hiding behind the shower curtain.

The way this book tackles depression, motherhood issues, and the descent into madness was terrific👏🏼. It aptly portrays the phases and emotions one goes through after losing someone and when you have to save others before you lose them forever too..

𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻.
Overall, it is a captivating read with a tendency to be weird. Filled with dark humour, supernatural and creepy circumstances, this one gives you an unusual adventure of looking into the mind of someone struggling to remain sane amidst all the chaos.

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘈𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘦 𝘏𝘰𝘨𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘩, 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘱𝘧 𝘋𝘰𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘗𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘎𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘱 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦-𝘢𝘳𝘤 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸.

CW: Motherhood Issues, Depression, Death of a Parent, Grief, Self-harm, Suicide, Graphic Scenes.

P.S. I looove the cover.. It's so cool and totally apt for the book👌🏼

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[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a whole lot of crazy, but one of the best things I've read this year. The concept felt fresh and unformulaic. Hogarth's writing is evocative and grotesque, while also being bizarrely funny. I had no idea I could be shocked, disgusted and laughing all at the same time. The narrator Abby is such a compelling character and brilliantly realised as she slowly loses her sanity and her grip on reality. This book is completely over the top, but the themes of emotional dependency and dysfunctional relationships really hit home. Not for the faint-hearted, but highly recommended for fans of quirky psychological horror with plenty of dark humour. Trigger warnings galore for this one. I hope to write a more deserving review soon.

[Nicole Rafiee · Rating 3 out of 5]

my tummy hurts

[Elaine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Motherthing.

I love this cover!

It's so retro, like the old timey horror movie posters from the 70s/80s.

It's got this vintage, yet not cheesy vibe.

Too bad the story was nowhere near as cool as the cover.

This isn't horror, or not scary to me. But it takes a lot to scare me.

** Minor Freudian spoilers ahead **

Motherthing is about the death of a vindictive, suicidal woman named Laura, mother to Ralph, mother-in-law to Abby.

After she dies, Laura's ghost haunts the young couple, finally leading Abby to take drastic action to save herself and her husband from this freaking woman who won't let go!

If you're thinking, "Cool, a ghost haunting a home and a person!"

Hold your horses, buckaroo, because the narrative barely talks about the haunting, and more about the mother/daughter bond Abby never had.

Yes, it's one of those I had a bad childhood and it's my mom's fault which is why I'm a hot mess kind of books.

Abby's childhood was disturbing, unstable, with an erratic mother and a series of many boyfriends, none of them appropriate.

Abby has mother issues, and daddy issues, I'm sure, but this is about Abby and how she never really had a mother.

How she wished Laura could have been the mother she needed and never had with her own mother and has been desperately seeking ever since.

It's about Abby desperate wish to be a mother so she can be the best mother she can be because she knows she can be and because her mother wasn't a good one.

Despite being in her early 30s, Abby is immature, her character and personality more of a teenager than an adult.

It's like she's regressed and never really grew up because her growth was stunted as a child due to her mother's inconsistent and dangerous parenting.

Her thoughts meander all the time, they're almost stream of conscious-like; she imagines horrible, bloody scenarios in her head before snapping back to reality.

it's clear Abby needs a mental health professional.

I get it; we all came from a mother and we all need a mother, and poor experiences with our parental figures do shape and influence us in ways we can't possibly imagine.

Abby is incredibly one-dimensional; I know nothing about her.

What makes Abby who she is other than her obsession with finding mother figures everywhere in her life?

I don't know her likes and dislikes; why she became a support worker, and I don't recall her mentioning what happened to her mother, unless I missed that part.

I know all about mama's boys so Laura's behavior and personality was nothing new.

I was looking for an actual ghost story, a haunting that drives Abby mad or eventually helps her realize to stand up for herself, but Motherthing just reminded me that the only horror comes from our own insecurities.

BOR-RING.

[Krysta ꕤ · Rating 1 out of 5]

”I guess that’s what rage is: the point where your words fail the power of your emotions.”

listen, i’m all for female rage and mindfuck horror stories but this book got entirely on my last remaining nerve.

➛ my list of irritation:

1. where was the horror?
2. a momma’s boy and a weirdo with no boundaries as the mc’s .. recipe for disaster
3. why would she make salmon jello
4. is it a “haunting” if they’re all delusional?
5. the pregnancy obsession + random cannibalism, all thrown in at the end as some sort of revelation was just plain moronic.. sorry not sorry.

[Yahaira · Rating 2 out of 5]

God that was boring.

The only horror was an author having this set up and dropping the ball. And the thought of jellied salmon.