First of all, I am OBSESSED with the cover of this book. I was graciously provided the eARC by NetGalley and the publisher, but I will 100% be purchasing the book because - along with enjoying it - the cover is remarkable. As a quick aside, I think fans of Mona Awad would really enjoy this.

But.. what did I just read?! I really liked it. It was funny, insightful, dark. My three favorite things. The humor is so dark and dry. The relationship between Abby and Ralph is one of my favorites I've ever read. The narrator made her love and adoration for her husband so tangible and believable. And, while I've never been married or had a mother-in-law, I can understand how this could be relatable for so many.

Also, the opal ring as a plot point.. just great. My thoughts are all over the place, but I really loved this. 4.5 stars!

This book completely defied all expectations for me.

What begins as a story of complicated grief slowly morphs, like an acid trip, into a landscape of mental health minefields, ghostly apparitions, and shocking violence. It’s also a love story.

Our narrator, Abby, is helping her partner grieve the suicide of his mother, who was cruel, unpleasant, and unstable – not unlike Abby’s own mother. But the timing is unfortunate. Abby desperately wants to have a baby, but Ralph is drifting further away from her into his own depression, and Abby’s future baby becomes a seed of hope that she holds within – imagining a time when Ralph emerges from his stupor and basks in the glorious light of fatherhood. Surely he will love her more than anyone has ever loved a woman when she delivers him the family of their dreams. His depression will be cured. His mother gone. A clean slate for all.

But that hope is further dimmed when Ralph claims his mother’s ghost is haunting him. At this point, Abby’s had about enough of it, and she takes it upon herself to exorcise the spirit of her dead, vengeful mother-in-law. To further complicate matters, things aren’t going well with Abby’s job as a caretaker for the elderly. One of her favorites – her “baby” – might be moved to another facility. Why do people keep taking things away from Abby? She only wants a simple life…but she might have to choose a very complicated solution to get it. She’ll do it for her future baby. She’ll do it for Ralph. She’ll do it for love.

At times, this story was heavy with grief, loss, anger, and resentment. But it was also hilarious and unpredictable. Abby’s character is both horrifying and delightful. In her mind, the perfect life is almost within her grasp. So close she can taste it. Or maybe hallucinate is a better term. Either way, her vision is clear, and her journey to exorcising the ghost of her mother-in-law reveals her own haunting. Sometimes, there’s nothing more brutal than family dynamics.

This one will especially appeal to fans of Alissa Nutting, Ottessa Moshfegh, Lara Ehrlich, and Rachel Yoder.

What the actual what did I just read?? This was a weird little trainwreck in the best way possible and my jaw is still dropped.

No matter what Abby does, her mother-in-law, Laura hates her. When Abby and her husband, Ralph move in to help Laura, it only makes matters worse, but Abby knows that she has Ralph by her side through it all. However, when Laura takes her own life, Ralph becomes a tortured mess and his mother's ghost seems to haunt every aspect of their lives. What do you do when your horrible, dead mother-in-law still has a hold on you? Turn to your favorite cookbook, of course...

Heads up: child abuse, violence, cannibalism, suicide

I love stories that everything absolutely goes to hell inch by inch, snowballing in slow motion and WOW. Does it ever snowball. Plus naturally I'm in love with the pulpy collage of a cover!

I also just need to give Hogarth some serious praise. Her genius little sentences all come together in the most brilliant, violent way and I adored her writing. I could not stop highlighting all of my favorite sentences. 

The format was fantastic too. Some chapters were written almost like a play, which broke up the madness of Abby's stream of consciousness narrating. It did get a bit draggy about the 2/3 mark for me, but the book picked up speed again for THAT ending.

This book is most definitely weird and disturbing with dark comedy elements. So this read may not be for you. But if you like freaky stories with Moshfegh sort of protagonists, you'll be in for a treat with this one. But definitely not a Chicken a la King sort of treat...

Abby and Ralph are a married couple who recently moved in with Abby’s mother-in-law, Laura, into her home. Abby works at a long-time care home and dreams about starting her own family, especially since her own childhood was very traumatic. The novel opens with Laura taking her own life, which is only the pebble that starts an avalanche of increasingly more dark and terrifying events, culminating in something extremely sinister.

I was hooked on this book since the first page. The writing is witty but feels very natural and has a bit of a stream-of-consciousness quality to it, and the plot is absolutely wild. It’s a very gorey, strange novel, but I enjoyed it so much that I simply devoured this book. It takes so many unexpected turns while also helping the reader understand where Abby is coming from and what pushes her to do the things she does. Truly a perfect spooky season read!

Definitely feel the vibes of authors like Zoja Stage, Ashley Audrain, Nancy Tucker ... Will be enjoyed by reads who liked "The Upstairs House" by Julia Fine for sure.

Thank you Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Vintage for the ARC of this one. I was immediately drawn to this cover! This one is a domestic horror story, cleverly looking at motherhood through a mother-in-law creepily doing some haunting. I found it witty and entertaining.

Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Overall, I think that was fun. I had a few issues but not enough to detract from the book as a whole. I think this would a good addition to a collection that had similar titles.

This was a very compelling read which I finished in one sitting.

This dark domestic horror story explores motherhood and the impact a mother can have as well as the desire to be loved.

I really enjoyed the authors writing style and the way really dark themes are handled with such wit.

I really could not have predicted the route the ending was going to take, but the book was definitely an enjoyable if slightly disturbing journey.

mother-in-law from hell!!!

abby and ralph have a ghost in their home and it’s not some cute, creepy lil victorian girl but ralph’s own mother. after her suicide, laura, comes back with a vendetta, to further keep ralph under her suffocating watch, plunging him into a deep depression and terrorizing abby and her marital life. abby has to act, and fast to keep laura from destroying her hopes of being a good wife and a good mother.

after a lifetime of not having a mother but instead having things that are mothers, MOTHERTHINGs, abby is determined to turn that around and be the best mother she can be. after laura’s death and ralph in the middle of depression, abby is confident that the only way she can save her husband is by cooking him delicious meals from her favorite cookbook and giving him a baby.

i found the theme of motherhood a strong presence in this novel, abby whole heartedly believes that a baby will save them as a couple and finally be happy and normal. as a sort of practice, abby works in a nursing home as a caregiver and she has a favorite resident. mrs. bondy. who she thinks of as her baby and vice versa, sometimes she feels as she is mrs. bondy’s baby, abby finally having a mother.

motherthing is smart, dark, bold, funny. ainslie hogarth created a masterpiece and achieved to easily blend horror with the domesticity of motherhood. with writing that is sharp and hypnotic i couldn’t put this down and had me captivated from the first chapter.

Abby just wants to be loved. After a traumatic mess of a childhood, she thinks she's found the security she craves with her husband, Ralph, but then they move in with his awful mother, Laura. After Laura takes her own life, she haunts the couple - sending Ralph into a deep depression and terrorizing Abby.

There were a lot of things I loved about this book. The cover killed it. The writing was smart and sharp and hilarious and disturbing. These were two of my favorite bits:

"Boys are boys and they do what they want. Women want things too sometimes, but mostly they're just warm sensory boards for men to tweak and rub and learn about themselves and the world through." BRUTAL.

"The work of women's clothes never more important than at the beginning and end of their lives when it's tasked with broadcasting, as loudly as possible: please don't try to have sex with me." (snort)

I do feel like it could have been a bit shorter and may have worked better as a novella than as a full-length novel because it got a little slow in the middle, but that ending... yuck and wow and gross and amazing.

i admit i asked for this purely based on the cover BUT i have been so very pleasantly surprised by it!!! the writing is so good and so raw and it really teeters that edge of direct wit and tongue in cheek humour. and the ending ??? so satisfying!!! and totally didn't see where it was going at any point, even when in my head i was like okay remember this part for later it'll probably be important when it did come round i was still shocked. really good!! would recommend!! :)

To start, I did enjoy the overall concept, a woman’s cruel narcissistic mother-in-law slowly begins to haunt her and her husband after she vindictively commits suicide. I know, I know, this does not sound fun in the least, but Ainsley Hogarth has a way of shining a black light of humor on the very real difficulties of growing up with a parent with bipolar disorder.

I struggle to review this one, because while I did enjoy the concept I just struggled with the writing style. Even though I really truly do enjoy crass humor, the first pages including a debate about fecal consistencies that goes just a few lines too far, was not a hit for me. I will say that the slow building dread was very well executed, I just never found myself fully engaged with the characters.

Thank you so very much to Netgalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for opportunity to read and review this title.

I read about half this novel. I kept pushing through in hopes it would speed up and something more exciting would happen. It did not.

Special thanks to Knopf Doubleday Publishing and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my own opinion.

Wow. Explaining a book in my review is not enough. I don't have to tell you what a book is about because I'm sure you read the cover jacket or what's it about. What I will say is .my thoughts.

This book started of fine, but it was not a HORROR, which got me a little put off. Horror should be scary, am I right? Nothing of importance happens and than I think Abby is an unreliable narrator or was she supposed to have mental illness and was this the way the author was going? I almost DNF. It wasn't terrible, it just very convoluted and chaos. I was expecting much more.
3 stars

Mothering by Ainslie Hogarth was true HORROR. Abby is planning to have a child sometime in the near future and came from a very traumatic childhood. All she wants to do is be settled with her little family. But her mother-in-law will not allow peace..

Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth sounded like it would be right up my alley - horror with dark comedy. Plus, the plot sounded quite unique. Unfortunately, it just wasn't right for me in the end. Honestly, it wasn't what I was expecting and what it was didn't suit me. I wasn't into the stream of consciousness style or the lead character. I also don't think I would quite call this horror.

Thank you to Netgalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth is ‘mommy issues’ if they were a book. This kitschy and dark novel focuses on wife and husband, Abby and Ralph Lamb, who are reveling in the dreary aftermath of Ralph’s mother’s passing. Ralph’s mother committed suicide in their house and Abby wishes that she could have found love, affection, and validation from her before her tragic death. Ralph’s descent into an all-encompassing depression drives him towards unemployment while Abby desperately wants a child with him. Amidst all of the madness within their house the ghost of his deceased mother returns to haunt their residence.
Upon reading the intriguing synopsis and witnessing the beautiful campy cover reminiscent of vintage horror movies, I was very drawn to this story. Unfortunately, right off the bat I really disliked the forced “overly quirky” writing style. I really wanted to like this novel more than I did based on its description, but it truly just fell flat for me. I felt bored by the story at times and deeply struggled to connect to any of the characters, which is a big issue in a story for me personally.
I took issue with the inclusion of parts that seemed to only be weird for shock value, rather than to add any value or relevance to the overarching storyline itself. I felt at times that the book was trying to be something it’s not and was attempting to do so many things it sadly failed to accomplish. One thing in particular that I disliked was that the book is marketed as a “horror novel” but in attempts to pay homage to the genre, it reads more as a ‘half-baked horror story’ in my opinion. It features some vaguely ‘spooky’ parts but felt as if it were missing some key elements to truly qualify it as a horror novel. Although I did find some of the humor funny, there are only so many poop jokes one can handle until it’s just overdone.
I found this book to be unhinged, depraved, and disgusting at times. It really left me wondering “what am I even reading right now?” at certain scenes. One scene particularly that had me thinking this, was a part where a character was sexually assaulted and absolutely no consequences came of it. It felt problematic for the character to just accept it and do nothing about it and that message feels troubling to me. It also didn’t really seem like it needed to be included as a part of the storyline.
In my opinion, Motherthing was a book I most likely would have passed on. I do think that taste in writing style and diction varying in different authors is extremely subjective though, so readers could have vastly different takeaways from this book. I think that many people would absolutely love this book if the writing style was for them, but some people could dislike it as well. In my personal opinion, I wanted a bit more from this book, but I think readers looking for a festive Halloween book who enjoy this type of writing could potentially enjoy it.

This book is not my typical genre, but it's also not anyones typical genre because it's so out there. I don't know what I just read but it was certainly never boring.

This book was.... crazyyyyyyyyy.....

That is the only accurate word to describe this word vomit of a book...

Ralph and Abby move to Ralph's mothers house in order to take care of her and she suddenly commits suicide. We only get to see the perspective of Abby, who did NOT get along with her mother in law in the traditional sense. This meaning that she strives to make a relationship with her, but in the mother's eyes, only a mother can give Ralph the love he needs and Abby just isn't good enough.

At first it feels like the standard situation, but then as the story goes on, you see that Abby isn't the most sane person at the party. She is dealing with a LOT of childhood trauma that makes Ralph's mother rejection even more devastating. However, its not only that Ralph is not handling the situation all too well either.

This wakadoo world that the author has created lends to a deeply messed up plot that made me question my sanity and reread parts again and again.

The only reason I gave this book a four instead of a five was the ending.... I felt stupid because I didn't understand how we could go from that dinner tooooo that ending.

Mind is confused...

I tried so hard to finish this book but I just couldn’t do it and ended up DNFing at 57%. I love horror so I thought this would be a book that I really enjoyed but unfortunately it wasn’t very interesting and didn’t really feel like horror to me. I also didn’t care for Abby or Ralph and because of that, found it difficult to get invested in their lives and the story.