First of all, thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Vintage, for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved Ainslie Hogarth’s first book and leapt at the chance to read her newest book. Normal Women is smart, insightful, and funny. Although at times the plot meandered a bit, I really enjoyed this critique of heterosexual marriage and the devaluation of women’s unpaid labour. Dani is a character who will stay with me for a while.

I was intrigued by the premise of the book, but in the end it was just not for me and I ended up stopping after reading about 45% of the novel.

While I think the issues this book deals with are important and relevant (motherhood, labour imbalances between stay-at-home mothers and their partners, sex work, financial freedom), I unfortunately did not feel like this book was bringing anything new to the discussion that I have not encountered in other works. The humour/satire aspect might help make it feel fresh for some people, but I think it did not align with my particular sense of humour and so did not help.

The beginning of the book moves fairly slowly, and while I knew from the description that there was some kind of mystery coming, that tension was not built into the writing. I think if it had been, that might have helped the book feel more captivating.

The writing style moved along smoothly and was enjoyable to read, so I would consider picking up another book by this author in the future.

I loved the concept of Normal Women but found the book itself to be a little hard to follow. I couldn't connect with the characters in a way that made me care. I wish I liked it more than I did. 3 Stars.

Review: Normal Women by Ainslie Hogarth
Release Date: October 10th, 2023

After reading this I’m staying single for life and that horrific description of birth makes me very inclined to steer clear of children.

This book follows Dani, a stay-at-home mother, who can’t stop thinking about her husband's death leaving her and her daughter with nothing. On a trip outside the house, she discovers the Temple and is entranced by the idea of working there to bring people to their greatest potential. She meets Renata, the owner, who suddenly disappears when Dani needs her the most.

After Motherthing, I was highly anticipating this release, but unfortunately, I was a little underwhelmed. Let’s start with what I liked. I love Ainslie Hogarth’s humour and writing style. The dark jokes and sarcasm hooked me right away, and I actually laughed out loud at a couple lines throughout the book. Which probably says a lot about me, so let’s not analyze that. I liked the feminist and toxic masculinity commentary too. The author does a great job of saying what she wants to without taking us out of the story.

Here’s what didn’t work for me. The first half of this book was pretty slow and got a bit repetitive. I was hooked at the start, but by the time I got halfway through, I was starting to feel a bit burnt out reading the same thing over and over. The description of the book was misleading for me since it suggests that her friend going missing is what the book is about, while that was just a super quick plot point at the end of the book. The end didn’t leave me fully satisfied, I felt like we were building up to something different and more psychological than it ended up being.

So while not loving this as much as Motherthing, I’m really very excited to read what Ainslie Hogarth comes up with next.

I want to say a quick thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House Canada for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Genre: Domestic Fiction/Dark Comedy
Rating: ⭐️⭐️.5

Thank you to the publisher, Vintage, and Netgalley for providing me with an early copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review.

I really liked the premise of this, and felt like it had a lot of promise, but it just didn't work out for me. The themes were all there and I felt a bit of a Gillian Flynn influence, but something was missing and I never really got in to the book. I really enjoyed the motherhood themes, but everything else fell flat.

The book was super interesting in the beginning and then it slumped a lot until it neared the end and picked up. I was really engaged at the 80% mark but then all the tension kind of just fizzled out and I was really unsatisfied.

I understood the idea of the message around female labour and I feel like it was meant to be packaged as an empowering thing (like the way the women in the book saw it), but it felt to me as women having to fix men's problems for them which feels anything but empowering to me. Perhaps I missed the commentary or maybe people don't agree with my position, but either way I couldn't get behind the main business venture of the book.

Disappointed because I was really looking forward to this, but just didn't like it as much as I expected to.

This book definitely won't be for everyone but I really LOVE this author's sense of humor and her ability to write about motherhood, marriage and modern women's sense of self/loneliness and so much more!

This story follows Dani from when she's about to give birth, to when she becomes a stay at home mother and later as she seeks out some kind of purpose and finds it in an exclusive/reclusive sex club type institution.

While I wasn't a huge fan of the lying, infidelity and sex worker angle, the way the author writes about makes it completely believable. I especially enjoyed the sense of female empowerment, turning sex work from something traditionally seen as shameful to something admirable and necessary, even helpful for society.

Great on audio narrated by my absolute fav, Brittany Pressley and recommended for fans of authors like Rachel Yoder or Sarah Rose Etter. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy and @prhaudio for a complimentary ALC in exchange for my honest review!

DNF - I enjoy Hogarth's writing but this story has been done too many times before. This year alone, I have come across five (5) other stories that covet the same premise & as a consequence, reading this book felt very tedious as there was no new approach taken to explore the experience. The characters felt shallow & I kept waiting for them to be given more depth but, by the 30% mark, I decided to stop reading. Rather than feel like there was some level of intrigue to the events, everything up until this point was very mundane & linearly. I adored "Motherthing" & feel that Hogarth's talent lies in this style of storytelling. Her writing style works well when there is an impending horror.
I am disappointed by this book, I wanted to be swept away & made to feel the discomfort of the characters & their lives but, instead, it felt like a rushed jumble of puzzle pieces one didn't care too much to assemble.

I didn’t read Motherthing but have heard about it and was intrigued enough to try this one.

The novel focuses on a new stay at home mom in a new town – exploring themes related to motherhood, womanhood and the social, financial and personal pressures involved. Dani’s troubles lead her to the Temple, an organization of sex workers, who have a draw of independence and financial freedom. Then the head of the temple goes missing! Oh no! Affogatos also come up comically often.

There is a certain snarky, dark, irreverent tone to this book that I can see being appealing but never quite worked for me. It seemed to clash with the slow structure of the story and focus on more of a meditation on social issues. I often felt the tone did not quite strike properly for me and it felt like less satire and more mockery at some points. There was a breadth of issues touched on that I didn’t feel were deeply discussed. I am perfectly fine with plotless, meditative books but the meditation did not hit for me.

Story wise I was expecting a wild ride and instead the story spun in circles, with several lost threads and characters that were just there to make some progress on the plot. It is not really a mystery, nor a thriller or a horror – leaning into any of these elements may have buoyed the novel a bit. The ending was frustrating.

I loved the premise and think that a little tweaking could have lead to a more balanced novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Vintage Anchor publishing for the ARC of Normal Women in exchange for an honest review.