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Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
Book # for author: 3
Genre: fiction/satire
Year published: 2021
Nightbitch synopsis
‘The mother’ is an artist turned stay at home mom because she didn’t like how they were taking care of her son at the nursery. ‘The husband,’ her husband really, but he’s called ‘the husband,’ travels for work and is only home for a bit every two weeks. This leaves the mother alone to care for ‘the boy,’ two years old, all day everyday. And it’s too much. But of course she should be grateful that the husband provides for them financially, giving her the freedom not to work and ‘relax’ all day.
Nobody gets it. The constantly being “on,” trying to entertain the boy, the mess, zero time for herself or her interests, the two hour long process trying to get him to sleep every night…It’s been like this for the past two years and she’s just about had it. She’s living life at the edge of her sanity.
Then, slowly, she starts to notice these feral qualities about her: sharper teeth, hair in strange places, weird cravings. Is she…turning into a dog? The husband wouldn’t understand, but who would? It’s unexplainable. At first she resists, then she embraces this doggy-ness that only seems to grow.
Stay at home moms and mothers in general will feel seen by this book.
Nightbitch review
Nightbitch was feminine rage at its finest. We got the buildup, the oh so relatable motherhood emotions on full display: her guilt, worry, her wanting so much to be a good mother and failing in so many areas, the headache of it, her fears, her not wanting to sleep train or put her child in a nursery, her feeling that she’s not worthy because she’s not earning money. The way it shuts her in, in, in until she goes crazy.
Her suppression was not even because of a man. It was because of herself: her assumptions, guilt, her not taking up space, her trying to make herself small so everything, including the fact that she’s not making money, makes sense. Feminine rage caused by an abusive or dismissive man would have been the easy way out. No, it’s there regardless because women suppress themselves naturally.
The writing
The sentences were long…they just kept going. This was done on purpose of course, to illustrate the mother’s mental state. She was not in her right mind and hadn’t been for a very long time. Still, the long sentences made it a bit hard to read. I assume the lack of quotation marks was also to present everything as one jumble. The descriptions were so accurate, they really put us in the body and mind of a dog. At first this was horrifying. Then, just like the mother, I thought maybe being bitch isn’t such a bad thing…
It’s messages
Nightbitch showed us that sometimes we focus too much on the things that make us human: thought, reason, decision making… that we forget that we are also animals underneath our humanity. When we completely obliterate it by suppressing ourselves, it does good to no one. That’s not how it’s supposed to be! Animals have a certain natural motherhood instinct and a sense that puts them in the moment at all times, so in both parenting and just being, we could all tap into that a little more.
Final thoughts *Slight spoilers ahead*
Nightbitch was a winner! The mother’s struggles and feelings were relatable, and her becoming a dog as a way to combat them made so much sense. It was the perfect answer. One way to explain it could be she started to go crazy and her coping mechanism was right in front of her: she saw how the average dogs were so free to be themselves and basically leaned into that as an escape from her mind. I could see this being a classic like The Yellow Wallpaper in 10-20 years.
My rating: 8.5/10.
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