Lilibet Bombshell's Reviews > Motherthing

First of all, this book is one of the creepiest books I’ve ever read. But, this comes with a huge caveat: I don’t know if you can truly understand how profoundly creepy this book is unless you have Borderline Personality Disorder (which I do) or if you have a loved one who has Borderline Personality Disorder and you are in their life. Having an intimate connection with the main character of a horror story where their mental illness plays a huge part of the plot except with the symptoms almost turned up to 11 is a huge mind screw, because you know exactly what the character is trying to say. You know what is causing their behavior. You know how they likely turned out the way they did and you know how profoundly toxic it can all be. It’s surreal and more horrifying than just about any other horror novel you could put in front of me.

This book is filled to the brim with morbid humor, which delighted me to no end since morbid humor is practically a love language in my family. It’s also vulgar and gory, filled with vivid imagery that is both hilarious and gross to see in the mind’s eye as you read. It’s also filled with prose that’s purposefully meant to make the reader feel uncomfortable, awkward, squirmy, on the edge of nauseous, and deliberately grossed out. In some of these passages I’m reminded of Chuck Pahalnuik and Zoje Stage and books like “Invisible Monsters” and “Baby Teeth” (yes, I know I have used those examples in my reviews before, but you’ll have to forgive me because they immediately came to mind). The prose surrounding the human body, gore, and viscera also reminded me a bit of this year’s “Manhunt” in style, but since they both came out this year I’m going to chalk it up to common inspiration for the authors of both books.

Inter-generational mental illness is something I have a great interest in, since it runs deep in my family. I seem to have gotten the lion’s share of mental health issues, but every AAB female in my family has some sort of mental health issue, going back at least two generations. My kids (one boy, one gender fluid) both have mental health issues and are neurotypical. Their other parent is neurotypical and has mental health issues in her family. As I was reading “Motherthing” and watched the plot and the characters unravel one chapter at a time, delusion giving way to delusion until desperation was all that was left, I felt more and more terrified about how unaware the main character was about her own mental health issues and more and more horrified about her obsession to protect, save, keep, and love forever and ever.

It seems as though not as many people like this book as much as I did, and that’s okay. I do have to point out that I think it is a little longer than it needs to be, but the space isn’t exactly wasted because the prose is so entertaining. The inner narrative is done in a style of stream of consciousness that is just the right amount of unhinged that I enjoy instead of being so disjointed and without any sense of syntax or grammar that it becomes utter trash.

If you have a strong enough stomach, like your horror with a huge dose of weird, and morbid humor is something you enjoy, I suggest picking this up and giving it a read. It truly is one scary tale.

Thanks to NetGalley, Knopf Doubleday, and Vintage for granting me early access to this title in exchange for fair and honest review.