Reviews with content warning for Child death - Mothered

Zoje Stage is officially one of those authors that are hit or miss for me. This is the third book I’ve read by Stage and I would put it at the bottom of my list, I really did not enjoy this novel.

Grace is in the middle of a pandemic with no job and struggling to meet her mortgage for the house she just recently bought. With an offer to help ease the financial stress, Grace allows her mother to move into her spare room in hopes of mending their relationship and also easing the financial strain of being a homeowner in a pandemic. Soon Grace realizes her decision was a mistake as she begins to lose clarity and her mother becomes more nefarious.

This book honestly was a mess. The characters were boring and not compelling in anyway. All of the horror scenes were dreams and had no real impact so they were honestly boring to read. The dreams were so frequent I got to a point where I would just skip entire paragraphs if the dream was obviously there for scares and not to reveal anything relevant. If you took out all the dream sequences this novel would be half its length, but you can’t even do this because the dreams are part of the plot unfortunately.

Because of all these no se cual dreams the pacing was way too slow and nothing interesting was ever really happened because it was all just dreams. Even the ending fell flat because the lead up to it was so disjointed and Grace as a character was flat and not compelling. When your main character is boring and unlikeable in a mundane way that’s a problem. Even Grace’s close friend Miguel was boring, he felt like a cardboard version of a real person only there to trigger Grace’s “growth” as a character and act as a springboard for the story to progress at times. Honestly none of the characters were likable or interesting and pair that with slow pacing and a boring plot, you get a novel that was very hard for me to finish.

Seriously, the only character I was invested in this whole novel was Coco the Cat, and yes she remains unscathed at the end of the novel thankfully.

I still love Stage’s novel Getaway and recommend that to anyone looking for a survival horror/thriller with strong female characters, but Mothered will
not be one I recommend.

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finleyfrogreads's review

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medium-paced

Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

fun concept but the characters and execution fell flat for me

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mermaidsherbet's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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misslisag's review

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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spookytaco's review

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

heathermarie08's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The prolougue gives away the ending. The book builds up to it but I wish I didn't know the ending before - it would've been a good, surprising twist. These characters are irritating, haha. Although I think that may be the point. I felt irritated throughout the book, but also sorry for the characters at times too.

If you are triggered by mental illness, do not read this book.

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