Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth

Ghosts are scary. Grief is scarier.

Growing up, I often read Stephen King’s gory horror right before bed then proceeded to shut my spinning fish lantern night light off without even thinking about looking under the bed. So, when I saw that Motherthing was listed as a horror novel I didn’t expect it to actually… scare me? However, it did. It really fucking did.

Motherthing follows our narrator, Abby, as she navigates her mother-in-law’s recent suicide and her husband’s subsequent manic depressive episode all while being relentlessly haunted by said mother-in-law. Although macabre and ultimately, every woman’s worst nightmare, the haunting isn’t really the scary part. The painful reality of watching someone you love so dearly fall so deeply into the darkness of their own mind, however, is.

I think my chest was tight the entire time I read this book. Ending with an unsettling twist, it had me blankly staring at the wall for a bit after I finally closed it.

Stars:
4/5

Notable Quotations:
”Humans like to put their mouths on things they love.”

“Winter never lets you forget you’re alive. Maybe that’s why it makes people sad.”

“Eating, love’s natural, bloody conclusion that can never, ever be indulged, because then the thing you love is destroyed. And maybe not destroying the thing you love, resisting that impulse, is the highest expression of love.”