After finishing this book I was left undecided about how I felt about it....there were elements I enjoyed like showing the stresses and strains of motherhood and then the confusing parts. I think it would make a great film!

A mixed bag for me this one.
There were elements that i really found interesting and enjoyed reading, like the main characters thoughts and feeling on becoming a mother and how it has effected her personality and confidence. Plus also the parts regarding the way it has altered the dynamics at home between her and her husband. The part which mentions working mothers as a label yet you don't call them working fathers was very true.. However the dream like sections and the turning into a dog part was just a little too weird or perhaps imaginative for me and lost me. Plus I became a little annoyed with the mother character for not speaking up more regarding the day to day actions of the husband's behaviour.. I like to concept of this book it just didn't work for me.

Vicious, dark, excellent. Fits well in the contemporary feminist writing on motherhood and misogyny. Deep rich prose, a bit too much at points.

I liked the beginning section of this and thought the overall premise of this was very interesting. I thought as this went on the book got a bit too dry for my liking and I lost my will to continue with this as I wasn't as interested in the character and what she was going through. I would've liked if this had been written in a way that was more fluid and a tiny bit more pacey through the book.

I found this really disappointing - it felt as if it was trying really hard to capture the wit of Ottessa Moshfegh/Jenny Offill etc but without managing it, reading more as a cringey pastiche.

I was super pleasantly surprised by Nightbitch - I thought the description made it sound a little laboured as analogies go. It is indeed a not-so-subtle allegory about womanhood and motherhood but one that is far from being a basic bitch.

In a similar vein to A Ghost in the Throat mixed with Angela Carter or Salt Slow - the writing is really surprisingly raw and excellent.

What a brilliant writer! I can’t fault it. The book zipped along with the kind of prose that is a joy to read. I wanted it to last longer.

An artist becomes a mother, becomes lost, becomes a shell, until one day she realises she is becoming feral, something new entirely. Original, hilarious, unnerving, raw, slightly too close to the bone. I read it as a mother seeking vindication and validation, and it was as deliciously furious as I'd hoped. I bet it was cathartic to write. Off to howl!

Nightbitch, Rachel Yoder

One day the Mother was a Mother but then the next she was something quite different.

What a ride this one was. Nightbitch follows The Mother as she transforms into a dog at the same time as struggling with a loss of identity and sense of self being a mother had brought.
The aspect of transforming into a dog for me just didn’t quite hit, the rage, the more believable physical transformations for me leant into the analogy of the entire book much better.
I think Yoder has taken an idea and a feeling that many can relate to and delved into this in a fascinating way. Some lines, particularly those taking aim at the patriarchy really hit close to the bone.
Never before have I read a book and spent so much time just shouting at my kindle out loud, this one definitely provokes a reaction.
Thanks to NetGalley and RandomHouse for my copy of this one.

Not only does this book have a fantastic title, but it is also utterly compelling.

Our central character is a mother who slowly feels herself turning into a dog, becoming more animalistic and primal as she goes. It starts in a small way, with small perceived physical changes and changes in focus and behaviour, but as she falls deeper into it, she and her son become almost entirely feral and canine, wanting to eat raw meat, and sizing up small animals to destroy.

What follows is a funny and bombastic journey of a woman breaking all the rules around her- in her own mind, she is escaping the fraught and fake world of pyramid schemes and obnoxious strictures for women, but in the minds of others, she is going mad, and losing track of reality.

I adore how this book deals with this tension between the expectations placed on women, and what it looks like when women transgress this, especially how the absurdity of the world is both terrifying and hilarious. There is a scene at an MLM/pyramid scheme sales party that was laugh out loud funny at just how absurd it all is, and Rachel Yoder's observations are razor-sharp throughout.

This book is surprisingly funny and warm despite the subject matter, and it reminded me a lot of Jordan Tannahill's 'The Listeners'- how reacting to the madness of the modern world can make you seem mad, but is sometimes the most sane decision you can make.

I received an advance copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Very weird book not going to lie! But if you're ready to embark in a wild ride of modern motherhood, wildness and suburbia, I'd really recommend it!

Saddled with the brunt of childrearing and household duties, a mother discovers she is turning into a dog.

In this allegorical-style story, lead characters are archetypes. The sense of folktale is further enhanced with the device of a book within the book, as the mother relates to A Field Guide to Magical Women.

The set-up is established on the first page, thereafter the book delivers little further plot development until 40-50% in. During this first half, the narrative tone is an irritating whine. And why do nearly all fictional career women work in the art world?

Gratifyingly, the reading experience shifts as the mother starts to embrace her inner dog. Yoder perfectly judges the tension between real metamorphosis and metaphor. Her writing is assured, wryly humorous and full of conviction.

Nightbitch is acutely observant, many mothers and women in general will recognise the mother’s experiences.

At times, the novel is reminiscent of Pig Tales, Witches of Eastwick and Fight Club. For all that, Nightbitch is very much its own beast.

Enjoyable.

My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House, Harvill Secker for the ARC.

3.5 rounded down.

"I think I'm turning into a dog, she said to her husband when he arrived home after a week away for work. He laughed and she didn't."

The premise is simple and completely absurd: a stay-at-home mum is transforming into a dog. That's it. "The mother" becomes "Nightbitch".

"The mother" (until she turns into Nightbitch, she is only ever called "the mother") gave up a career in the arts to become a mother and raise her son, while her husband is away every week for work. She resents this - "Her undergraduate degree was from a prestigious university, better than the one he attended. She held two master's degrees, whereas he held none. (She also held a baby.) It shouldn't have been a contest, and it wasn't, was it? No, definitely not."
She thought she could be both a mother and continue her work, but finds it impossible: "But what she hadn't thought enough about were the shows openings in the evenings, and arts classes on the weekend, and early-morning beforeschool meetings with teachers, and after-work receptions. With a husband out of town and a baby at home, this sort of schedule no longer worked."

The first half of the book explores this unfairness - having to work to look after a child while her husband gets to go to work ("A working working mother? Imagine saying a working father."), seeing the loss of her previous identity as an artist and a worker, and the boredom of "every morning, the same. Every day, the same. After breakfast, play with trains, read a book about trains, read the same book again". She tries to stay in touch with former friends and colleagues, but finds herself out of place. She doesn't fit either with the mums from the Book Babies group at the library, all looking content and trying to sell her herbs and essential oils.

Her rage builds slowly - until she starts transforming: "I am afraid I will never be smart or happy or thin again. I am afraid I might be turning into a dog."

The book becomes really interesting when she explores that new identity - and her liberation, no longer having to be clean, to be well-behaved or to be organised - her child following suit with "playing Doggie". She becomes immersed in a book by Wanda White, a mysterious academic who wrote about mystical women, and feels inspired by her metamorphosis. There is an obvious (too obvious?) message about motherhood as alienating but mothers being able to regain identity and joy by defying expectations.

The last part of the book is all about her delving into becoming a dog - her new Project - and trying to connect this new identity to her old one as an artist. This is where maybe the book lost me a bit, it felt... long and repetitive at times and despite the brevity of the book, I nearly wished it was shorter at times. I enjoyed it though - it was completely mad, unexpected, and I like reading about women full of rage and what they do with that rage.

I really appreciate the skill in creating a novel as surreal as Nightbitch but I'm afraid the style of writing just wasn't for me. Even though the premise and opening interested me, I found the narration hard to engage with and the story itself didn't captivate me enough to want to read it, though I can imagine some readers will love the strangeness of this book.

Great premise, execution somewhat choppy. The ending is unresolved and detracts from the overall story. This is a very introspective and self-focused novel (so that we have very few characters), permeated by a surrealism slightly reminiscent of Kafka (especially the 'transformation' bit) . The first scene when she transforms and liberated roams the city at night was great.

Nightbitch is a bizarre yet compelling Kafkaesque fable rich in allegory; in this blazingly smart and voracious debut, an artist turned stay-at-home mom becomes convinced she's turning into a dog. An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to stay at home with her newborn son, but the experience does not match her imagination. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler's demands, only to discover a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck. In the mirror, her canines suddenly look sharper than she remembers. Her husband, who travels for work five days a week, casually dismisses her fears from faraway hotel rooms. As the mother's symptoms intensify, and her temptation to give in to her new dog impulses peak, she struggles to keep her alter-canine-identity secret.

Seeking a cure at the library, she discovers the mysterious academic tome which becomes her bible, A Field Guide to Magical Women: A Mythical Ethnography, and meets a group of mothers involved in a multilevel-marketing scheme who may also be more than what they seem. This is a unique and unnerving novel balancing the striking and quotidian moments of young motherhood and revolves around the intersectionality of art and our innate instinct to mother. An outrageously original novel of ideas about art, power, and womanhood wrapped in a satirical fairy tale, Nightbitch will make you want to howl in laughter and recognition. And you should. You should howl as much as you want. Highly recommended.

A "Mother's" long howl of rage against the iniquities of motherhood , clueless husbands, and forsaken careers. Ponzi schemes. Finding salvation through play, and releasing the hound within. Dog as metaphor. Monstrous.

This book was such a surprise. I'll be honest, in the beginning I wasn't too sure but the writing engaged me. The descriptions of motherhood resonated so much, I remembered times when I too felt as if I had lost my identity during those first few months at home with a baby. We never discover the mother's name - she's always the Mother or the Nightbitch - but that doesn't matter. She speaks for all women.
There are touches of magical realism here when she discovers that she might be turning into a dog - her night-time excursions. However what we see is how the transformations frees her. Her son loves his 'doggy' mother and the joy in their games leaps off the page. There are trigger warnings - the killing of domestic animals as dogs can do - so if this is not for you, maybe don't pick this up. But, otherwise go with it.
The Mother picks up a book about magical women based on anthropology - women transformed by motherhood and this is the part that sang to me. I felt that this book embraced motherhood, embraced the power of women. We are magical beings - we give birth, we create life. Motherhood changes us, transforms us. Maybe we don't all go howling at the moon, but a woman after she has given birth is not the same person that she was before giving birth.
I loved this book and feel that Rachel Yoder is talking to mothers everywhere, telling them that they are special, powerful magical beings.

This was such a good concept for a speculative/horror story - a stressed and bored mother metamorphosing into a dog - but I really feel like it could have been dealt with in a short format; there just wasn’t enough for a full novel and it got boring, quickly. I did love the distancing throughout, where the protagonist was always “the mother” and eventually Nighbitch, never being allowed a human name. But really, it just was not for me.

I don’t really know how to review ‘Nightbitch’, because I don’t really know what it is about. I didn’t when I was reading it and I don’t now that I’ve finished it. I can tell you that it is a very strange and sometimes successful literary horror novel. I can also say that mixes a kind of magical realism with an entirely credible description of the struggles of being a new parent. I could suggest that it’s a bit like a mash up of Angela Carter and Mumsnet, and tell you that if that description appeals I expect you’ll like it.
But what is it about? Not a clue.
The story is very simple. A young mother (referred to only as “the mother” or “Nighbitch”) whose husband is often away for work, raises her young son-in-law US suburbia. She fantasises that she is turning into a dog at night, and in time it seems that she does. It’s never entirely clear how much of this is real and how much is her imagination. Plot-wise there isn’t a huge amount more to say than that. The book explores her transformation, the impact on her family and her relationships with her friends. It meander through a variety of incidents, with nothing really driving the story forward. And then it ends.
To be fair to the author, the book is engaging and at times very funny. There’s a sub plot about the involvement of one of the mother’s friends in a pyramid selling scheme which is hilarious and enjoyably scathing. There are also at least one scene of genuine horror which managed to shock me. The problem is that neither of those things were enough for me to get over the sense that I was missing the point of the book completely. It’s one of those novels that feels like it’s really trying to tell you something, but at no point could I figure out what that thing was.
It is entirely possible that I am an idiot. Many reviewers in the more literary space seem to be gobbling ‘Nightbitch’ up like prime steak, but for me it felt more like stale, dry kibble. I think the problem is that it cares more about its message (whatever that was) than it does about being entertainment. When I compare it to something like the wonderful werewolf movie ‘Ginger Snaps’ which is horror first and an analysis of the female experience second, ‘Nightbitch’ feels like a huge miss.