Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
Did that title make you stop in your tracks just a little bit??
It absolutely should.
Not because of the name though…that will make TOTAL and COMPLETE sense once you read what it’s about.
It should stop you in your tracks BECAUSE THIS BOOK IS ASTOUNDING, yall.
It will GRAB YOU and shake your ass up…just like the title does at first glance.
ESPECIALLY if you are or ever have been the parent of small children (and SUPER especially if you are or ever have been a stay at home parent!)
This story is weird, unnerving, funny, outlandish, raw and yet also realistic AF.
As many levels of fantastical allegory this story has, it also has so many levels of utter relatability and truth as it relates to modern parenting, mainly motherhood.
Here is the official summary:
“In this blazingly smart and voracious debut, an artist turned stay-at-home mom becomes convinced she’s turning into a dog.
One day, the mother was a mother, but then one night, she was quite suddenly something else….
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 mommies involved in a multilevel-marketing scheme who may also be more than what they seem.
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.”
I tore thru this book with a voracious appetite (quite fitting considering LOL) and finished it in two days. (It’s also on the shorter side, coming in at only 238 pages…which compared to that last Outlander book I finished was a literary BREEZE 🤣)
It was the perfect company for me when I struggled with a couple nights of insomnia caused by who the heck knows (that’s one point for anxiety and one point for getting older here 🤷♀️)
I could NOT STOP reading this book.
Because as crazy and wild and friggin OUT THERE that this book was—which definitely is part of it’s unusual charm— it also had so many layers of gut wrenching REALISM in regards to the messy, perplexing, draining emotional journey of the beginning stages of motherhood.
So many times I would read a sentence and was like “OMG…I totally have felt THIS EXACT THING.”
(Okay…OBVIOUSLY not the whole “I think I’m turning into a dog at night” thing…..but SOOO many others of the things. 🤣)
Even though I have been out of the momm-ing trenches of warfare that is baby and toddlerhood (my kiddos are 14 and 9), reading the main character’s inner thoughts I had LEGIT flashbacks….especially because there were so many things about the main character I personally could identify with…. a husband who travels for work all the time, being a reluctant stay at home parent, feeling your identity is lost, a kid who WILL NOT SLEEP and the UTTER HAVOC and STRESS nighttime lays upon you each and every LIVE LONG DAY when this happens, the tedious mindlessness of the day to day….
The bittnerness.
The struggle.
The difficulties.
The wondering who you truly are anymore.
The questioning your sanity.
The guilt of not feeling fulfilled.
The shame of feeling not good enough.
The battle with postpartum depression and anxiety.
I FELT IT ALL.
Oh man, did I feel it…because I have LIVED IT.
And man, did I feel like an utter and complete ASSHOLE as I was living thru it….I absolutely whole heartedly loved my child…but why wasn’t I loving every second with my him like so many other moms were? Why didn’t I feel fulfilled and whole in my new role as “mother”? Why was it all so HARD for me and didn’t seem so hard for everyone else? Why was I so resentful towards my husband who got to leave the house each day and work a job where he was with REAL GROWN UP PEOPLE and felt validated and successful in all he did? And WHO WAS I AS A FULL PERSON ANYMORE? What were my interests? What were my skills besides keeping a tiny human alive and entertained every second of every day?
I was just flipping back thru the pages trying to find all the sentences that hit home SO DAMN HARD as the narrator said ALL THESE THINGS….and SO SO MANY pages I wanna share with yall…because you other parents out there who are reading this and shaking your head in agreement with what I said would find SO much validation in it.
I can’t share ALL the things because you most def need to read it for yourself, but here are just a few:
“Was this boring? Yes, she knew it was, and she wanted someone, anyone, to understand the monotony, the mind-numbing routine, the way in which her mental activity began to slow the moment she woke each morning, beginning with high hopes, thoughts of art projects and energy, a sunny day and happy boy and goals fulfilled, and the slow yet steady grinding down of hopes to rote considerations of what to eat and what to clean, the slow agony of The Schedule- time for breakfast and time for a walk and time for lunch and time for nap and time for snack, time for pooping, time for dinner- this and then that and then this again, until every single thought had been emptied from her head and left in its place only the physical sensations of exhaustion, a pain in her lower back, greasy hair, a bloated feeling from eating too many fish-shaped, sodium-laden crackers. She spoke in toddler talk and was constantly asking different questions about poop.”
“Nightbitch wanted to say, You don’t even know what the grumpies are! Have you ever yelled at your twins, in full voice, in the middle of the night? Yelled at them to go back to sleep, pumping your diaphragm with rage and sound? Have you sobbed beside them when they asked for another glass of water, another snack, at ten at night, just really let go and had a full-on snot fest in front of your children, so they were the ones comforting you? Have you ever locked yourself in the bathroom for twenty whole minutes to peruse your phone while your child bangs on the door and yells MAMA as loud as he can, until he is sobbing and, probably, permanently traumatized?
Sometimes- Nightbitch longed to say, stunning all of them into a sweet-smelling silence- I fantasize about getting in my car and driving through night and day, as far south as I can go, until I get to a dirty beach and check in at a cut-rate motel where I’ll drink horrible pina coladas all day in a faded beach chair.
Sometimes- Nightbitch imagined uttering plainly to their beautiful, happy faces- I imagine abandoning my family, abandoning this entire life.
So don’t invoke the grumpies unless you’ve really got them, she wanted to scream. Just don’t.”
“How many generations of women had delayed their greatness only to have time extinguish it completely? How many women had run out of time while the men didn’t know what to do with theirs? And what a mean trick to call such things holy or selfless. How evil to praise women for giving up each and every dream.”
Some of you reading all this who have not had similar parenting experiences as me may think I am a complete and horrible person from what I shared….and you may think the sentences I shared from the story are also equally as awful….”What kind of mother thinks like THAT?!?” you may be saying….
And that’s fine. If you had a lovely transition into parenting and enjoyed every single second, I ain’t mad at you for it.
It may all seem really out there and terrible and fucked up to you to read some of those things…but for so many of us, it’s a reality we have had to go thru or are currently going thru.
It is what it is.
And to read a book like this , it can make us feel like WE ARE NOT ALONE…the struggle was not just ours to bear….we aren’t the “crazy one” like we thought.
If you can’t relate and are sitting there with judgy hoity toity eyes, then I say go ahead and move the hell on and find you another book to read….this one ain’t it for you.
Anway….so while there is plenty of relatability, OBVIOUSLY the whole transforming into a dog piece is pure fictional fantasy.
And it is SO WEIRD and SO FUN to read about.
It was incredibly interesting how the main character never is identified by a first name at all UNTIL she becomes Nightbitch.
The metaphor here about motherhood and parenting “transforming” you into another being entirely is SO spot on!
There are times you absolutely feel like this otherworldy creature who you can’t recognize anymore.
And not always in a negative way either….
As the story progresses, I will tell you that this transformation metaphor expands and shifts and grows in and of itself….to where even the transformation itself becomes transformed.
What it starts off as in the beginning of the story is definitely not what it ends up being at the finish.
Lots of deeper meanings lie beneath the strange fairy tale.
This book gets 5 huge stars from me.
I thought it was a brilliant piece of literary artistry that encompasses such a unique and eccentric voice on the journey of motherhood.
If you are a mom, you MUST read this…and then let’s chat about it because I would LOVE to discuss with someone else!