I am truly obsessed with this book! It reflected on a lot of the feelings I have about being a woman and existing within a deeply entrenched patriarchy, having children, raising children, anxiety, and aging. I loved both narratives and felt a connection to ancient womanhood and the goddess. "As women, we're tasked with the emotional labor and intuitive understanding of everyone's needs while subordinating our own desires over and over again."

I'm going to be the odd one out who thinks Landau tried too hard to write a feminist manifesto. Ava, a professors, is in Bulgaria where her husband is shooting a movie. She's caring for their children, including an annoying teen, and managing their lives even as she's also seething about the professor who squashed her years ago. And then this moves back and forth to 415 BC. There's a lot of anger here. While some of it is relatable (the frustrations of life), some of the rest of it left me scratching my head. And the ending? No spoilers. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. While it wasn't for me, I'm sure others will enjoy this.

When I read "the eternal stages of woman-hood" in the description, I promised myself I would put it down at the first mention of maiden-mother-crone. Alas, I did not. This novel attempted to follow in Nightbitch's and Motherthing's footsteps, addressing the strains and terrors of motherhood, but it doesn't quite make it for me.

This book simply wasn't for me. At the sentence level, Landau regularly produces beautiful prose, but I found myself thrown by the characters. Ava, the novel's protagonist, grows resentful and full of rage, but does not address these issues with her husband (who is Swedish, which Ava thought would make him more predisposed to an equal division of domestic labor). While I certainly resonate with female rage, Ava's desire to reclaim an overly romanticized vision of ancient women's power feels hollow and out of touch.

Though I don't suspect this was Landau's intent, the pseudo feminist language that pervades the "divine feminine" slides easily (and almost unavoidably) into gender essentialism. Ava's inability to conceptualize womanhood as separate from reproductive possibilties is, to be blunt, bad. Ava feels trapped in second-wave logic and her rage is quenched when, after the violent expression of her power, her husband "still wants" her.

2.5 ⭐ I wanted to love this book and, based on its summary, I really thought I would. But unfortunately I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. It reads almost like a stream of consciousness and feels unnecessarily political at times and borderline like you’re being lectured to. I found myself immediately frustrated and annoyed with the main character. I’m the type of reader that if I struggle to connect with any characters, I have a very hard time getting into a book, which was what happened here.

It’s possible that the story redeems itself and others will be able to better appreciate the feminist rage that I can tell the author is going for, but it just wasn’t for me.

The Mother of All Things follows Ava Zaretsky, a wife, mother, and art professor, who travels to Bulgaria with her husband and two young children while her husband films a movie. Ava encounters her mentor from college and the book explores her journey through motherhood and discovering herself.

Thank you to Alexis Landau, Knopf Pantheon, & NetGalley for the ARC! All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for an ARC in exchange for a review. The Mother Of All Things is best served with wine, dolmas, and letting your husband watch the kids.

The story follows Ava as she takes on full domestic responsibilities while her husband Kaspar shoots a (very bizarre) action movie in Sofia, Bulgaria. The couple reunite after months apart, but it’s not a blissful reunion. The rage Ava feels is not just toward Kaspar, but a system that goes back centuries. (Passages from Ava’s manuscript, which follows a woman in Ancient Greece, offers parallels to Ava’s lack of freedom.) A surprise encounter with Ava’s former professor continues to stir the rage, grief, and frustration Ava feels toward the patriarchy, and the two join other women in secret rituals honoring the Great Goddess, womanhood and motherhood.

This was an interesting one. I enjoyed stepping into Sofia with the characters and exploring the Greek myths (which I’m pretty unfamiliar with). I loved learning about the theories surrounding the Great Goddess and the slight dips into magical realism. Plus, the writing doesn’t hold back. Ava explains, with vulnerability and honesty, the heartbreak and agony of being a mother in a patriarchal society. How women take on the physical pain and exhaustion of pregnancy and motherhood while still expected to maintain the home and pursue their own dreams. Ava’s own dreams of writing a book hit close to home, but since I’m not a mother, a lot of these meditations were just out of my reach. I felt close enough to the character to empathize with her but didn’t want to dive into the rage and frustration that she was going through. At points, it even made me not like the character. I wanted this character to *do* something, and the resolution didn’t leave me fully satisfied. I left this book feeling hesitant about motherhood, happy I’ll be co-parenting with a woman, and wondering if this author will write more about the Greek myths like this. I am curious to read more!

Thank you to the publishing team for the review copy. Landau's The Mother of All Things was highly relatable to me as a mother and also as a teaching professor and as someone who teaches a lot about gender roles and constraints and all of the themes often raised in this book; my review is likely colored by the layers of connection I felt to the book. This one won't be for all readers but I valued the themes, the storytelling approach, and how Landau approached allowing her main character to uncover and discuss female rage. There were some approaches to the writing/storytelling that were a bit distracting, such as the Greek storyline, and some tighter writing, development of the narrative, might have helped with engagement but the ideas and overall execution, really worked for me.

The more I think about this the more I like it honestly. There were some ideas or plot points I thought got ignored but actually did get resolved just unsatisfyingly which is kinda the point. It was well written and just Very True in regards to how people think progress is no longer necessary and the way labor is gendered and constant. Did not love the greek dual timeline…understand what it was trying to do but fell flat.

3.5

thanks to netgalley and knopf for the arc!!

This book is captivating. The way Landau writes about female rage, a quiet undercurrent of the steady beat of daily life strikes just the right balance. Our heroine Ava, is at times reluctant to rock the boat, but we as readers urge her on, to take the leap and put herself first, processing her past to move her towards the future she wants. I love the Virginia Woolf stream-of-consciousness style of writing, used both in the current day story and in the flashback narrative.
My one complaint is that the back of the book references an incredible ancient tradition of women seeking power and redemption for themselves away from men. This storyline builds and swirls, but doesn’t reach its crescendo until almost three quarters of the way through the book. I wish it had been sooner, and with more emphasis on Ava’s daughter, Margot.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for this advanced reader's copy. In exchange, I am providing an honest review.

Ava Zaretsky and her children have joined her husband, their dad, in Bulgaria for the summer while he has his first shot at producing a big movie. Arriving in Bulgaria is an exhausted and worn-out Ava. She feels out of sorts, bewildered at her life, and regretful about what she has and hasn't accomplished. When a chance encounter with an old college professor happens, Ava begins to examine her choices and decides she will begin to make different ones. Part of this decision to make different choices is to be swept up in the tidal wave of this professor and allow herself to be carried along to return to her younger feminist self. But she's who she is now, she has children and a husband and a career. Can she return to her feminist roots and still keep the life, and the people in it, she has now?

Nope. Nope nope nope. I kind of see what Landau was attempting with this book - with the character, the conflict, and partly the resolution she chose for Ava. But nope. This was an incredibly tedious, aggravating, and annoying read. Ava's weird obsession with her old college professor was, well, weird. It was very off-putting. Her bewilderment was mostly relatable as it's the female's version of a mid-life crisis and I'm walking through that bewilderment myself but I found myself annoyed with her. In my opinion, Ava was not a likable or even relatable character. I've gone round and round about my reaction to her and to the book as a whole and my final conclusion about it is it feels, and reads, incredibly trite. Just nope.

Wasn’t the book for me - excessive political references, excessive feminism, and excessive commentary on social issues. Perhaps best for those who enjoy reading about those topics.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for the opportunity to read this book.

this book in my opinion perfectly displays womanhood. the emotions including feminine rage -oh yes a masterpiece for sure. this novel is light in some areas, darker in others and quite frankly feels a lot like life does. it is surely a emotional driven piece by Landau. the talent is remarkable.. thank you for the chance to arc read. I look forward to purchasing this as a physical copy.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an advanced reader's copy of this book.

This novel’s meditation on motherhood and manifesto on marriage explores the physical and emotional pains of womanhood in the present and ancient past.
Ava is 45 years old, the mother of 10-year-old Sam and 13-year-old Margot. Her husband, Kasper, has finally realized his dream of producing a movie, but will be filming in Bulgaria for 6 months. For the first three months, Ava is on her own with the children and her adjunct professor role at a small college. For the second three months, she and the children go to Bulgaria to be with Kasper – though so preoccupied is he with the film, that he is rarely with them physically, and almost never mentally. Meeting other women there, including her former thesis advisor, brings both Ava’s anxiety about mothering and her anger at Kasper to a breaking point.
The writing is strong and imaginative, and the ideas captured in the book are intriguing and thought-provoking, but there are too many instances and too many details of them, which dilutes their power.
The true heart of the book seems to be the sharing of long-suppressed female-centered, mystery religions, aided by mind-enhancing herbal concoctions. While showing the beauty and power of women bonding and exploring their deepest concerns together, the author also lays out the pitfalls of contemporary feminism. But there can be a thin line between satire and mockery, and in this book it sometimes seems perforated.
Tighter editing could have made this an excellent book; instead, it is one worth reading for its depiction of female friendship, aging, and the issues faced by anxious mothers of girls maturing into adolescence.

“Kept busy by her obligations as a wife and mother, art history professor Ava Zaretsky has little time to devote to her research and writing. Now tagging along on her film-producer husband’s shoot in Bulgaria for the summer, where she’s mostly solo parenting her sweet son and rebellious budding tween daughter, she has a chance encounter with her fierce feminist mentor from college, which changes everything.

Ava is swept up into a circle of women who reenact ancient Greco-Roman mystery rites of initiation, bringing her research to life and illuminating the story of a 5th-century-BC mother-daughter pair whose sense of female loyalty to each other and connection to the divine feminine guides Ava in her exploration of the eternal stages of womanhood.”


This book took me awhile to get into. But I did enjoy it! It is full of feminism, mother daughter relationships, and motherhood.

The characters were well developed and it is told in multiple POVs. This is a politically filled book, so if that’s not your vibe this may not be the book for you.

I read about 1/3 of this book and just could not go on. It really seemed to be more of a lecture on feminism than a story. Being a woman and an executive in a traditionally male environment, I appreciate the cause of feminism but this book just drug out the same arguments over and over. I don't give up on a book very often but I just couldn't get into the story between all the lectures.

Thanks to NetGalley & Pantheon Publishing for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I'm trying to broaden the books I read. While rom.cons are usually too light, I don't like serious, high-brow books. As I began reading this book, I was immediately hit with big vocab words or what I jokingly refer to as 'the SAT word of the day.'. It really bothered me that only 19% into the book, the 2019 President had been mentioned several times. I don't want to read about politics or political views when reading for pleasure and entertainment. The word "patriarchy" had been used at least 3 times and Trump was mentioned again at 20%. I would have enjoyed the story of their marriage and family if it wasn't so political and preachy. I stopped at 22% on my kindle when the author was on her soapbox writing about how easy it is for men to leave their families and relocate for work.

Wow. There are so many layers to this novel, and I will not pretend to recognize them all. The protagonist, Ava, however, struggles with the wholly unattainable Good Wife, Mother, Woman identity that just truly doesn't exist but that's how she was raised to view herself. She also has a career as an art history professor and has difficulties delegating time between her work and children--all the while (she makes very clear) her husband comes and goes, oblivious to her needs as an individual, not just as a mother and wife. This disparity between parental responsibilities and gender roles is the crux of the novel.

I enjoyed this book. I found it very compelling, relatable, well-written and researched. It was rather bleak at times, as Ava described her marriage and husband's inability to recognize her rage boiling beneath the surface--well, it was just bleak any time Ava described any encounter with a man. But maybe that's what being a self-aware feminist means: the patriarchy is rather bleak for women, right?

So Ava describes all these issues with the patriarchy and of course there is no easy solution that this story line could have made without being completely unbelievable, but I am struggling to grasp the meaning of the novel's conclusion. Maybe I was rooting for her divorce and therefore liberation? I am not entirely sure what to think of the revelry in the woods and subsequent murder of a man--and this, I guess, helps her realize she still loves her husband and wants to make things work. Again, there was never going to be an easy solution to the conflict in this novel, but I was not expecting it to end the way it did.

Overall, this was a good read. Thank you to Pantheon and NetGalley for an arc of this novel.

Art history professor Ava Zaretsky has found herself with little time for herself. Being a mother has consumed her entirely, and her book sits collecting dust as she struggles to find any kind of balance. When Ava's husband relocates them to Bulgaria for the summer, Ava reconnects with old friends and has the opportunity for first-hand experience in something that allows her book to progress.

The feminist rage that just consumed my body as I read this truly was something else. The mother-daughter relationship dynamics hit close to home, having a daughter myself and wanting to be better than my mother before me. The need to protect my child from quite literally everything was perfectly represented by Ava.
And speaking of Ava, I think Landau did a wonderful job of making a "perfect" woman. Not necessarily in a "perfect by society standards" way, but more so as one of the most realistic and relatable depictions of a woman I've read in a while. I devoured this book; I love it entirely and promptly recommended it to everyone that I know who reads. The ending somehow left me both satisfied by knowing the characters were oddly exactly where they should be, and with approximately a million questions.

*projected release date: May 7th, 2024*
Huge thank you to Alexis Landau, NetGalley, and everyone at Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the ARC!

The Mother of All Things by Alexis Landau

336 Pages
Publisher: Knopf Pantheon Vintage and Anchor, Pantheon
Release: May 7, 2024

Fiction (Adult), General Fiction (Adult), Women’s Fiction, Greek Mythology, Bulgaria, Mother Daughter Relationships, Feminist

Ava is a disillusioned wife and mother. She had grand dreams of writing a book and teaching. All of that changed after the birth of her daughter. Her husband, Kasper, finally gets a chance to make a film. The catch is he must go to Bulgaria for six months to film. After three months, Ava and the children join him. They are disappointed he does not have a lot of time for them. Ava runs into a former professor which kindles her feminist fire. This causes her to question her life and relationship with her husband and her daughter.

In the story set in 415 B.C., a woman is preparing her daughter for marriage. They participate in the Demeter ritual of Ephesus and the descent to the Underworld to find her daughter Persephone.

The book has a slow beginning. I stuck with it and I am glad I did. The characters were somewhat developed, and it was written in in two different point of view perspectives. If you like feminist stories, you may enjoy reading this one.

I felt pretty lost at times, but still emotionally connected to Alexis. Maybe it's because I'm 24 and have no intention of having kids nor have any at the moment, so that removes that topic. But....the female rage of it!!! It's what makes it different to others. However, I still think it could have been done better. There were moments where she was just soooo down for her husband where it's like uh- did we lose the plot? Didn't you just say something totally contradicting? And now you miss him?? STAND UP!

This really felt like a rough draft,The sections on Ancient Greek women were cringe-worthy and the modern day characters were childish in a way that defies belief. Who would stay with a husband like that? Why did anyone act the way they did? How could anyone stand to be around anyone else?

The book bludgeoned the reader with heavy handed “deep thoughts” about marriage that were clearly supposed to be timely but felt dated and were poorly written. No nuance at all in any part of this book,