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3.16 AVERAGE
3.16 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
underwhelming :( loved motherthing but this i am afraid is a flop
funny
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
I enjoyed this. I have to say the cover is good, but it doesn't fit the story and tries too hard to fit into the unsettling women genre which this book isn't. But it is very fun to read and a treatise on motherhood and feminity and the female body. It was also SO NICE to read a book that discusses those things but the woman is still so happy she had a baby, so in love with the baby. Cos sometimes the "where's the girl with the list" of it all does get exhausting like I do really want to have Tristan's giant hairy babies and I'm sick of being told it will be miserable. I was on edge the whole time reading this because there was something of 'the other black girl' about it and that was awful and I was worried it was going to go the same way but it didn't so that was a relief.
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
uhmmmm the ending really ruined this for me SUCH a nothing burger ending. like genuinely pointless made no sense fairytale happily ever after for no reason which was so underwhelming after motherthing. i really really liked this book once it picked up (took a while…) but idk dani was so all over the place and yet it all amounted to nothing at all. but i will give pages about 200-270 their credit i was really enjoying! just…. the ending…. no….
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Hogarth absolutely knocked it out of the park for me with Motherthing, so I was excited to read Normal Women and had the bar set high. Unfortunately, I found the the final third of this book disappointing and flat. The majority of this novel was quite engaging, written with the same dark, smarmy, cutting humor found in her previous work. I'd like to think on the ending more and process it, as I suspect there is more going on here that I've missed, but my immediate reaction was "really?" followed by a defeated sigh (maybe that was the intended reaction?). Normal Women also has a smart and biting critical angle throughout which I enjoyed.
There is a lot going on in this book, but simply described readers follow Dani, our complicated protagonist and new stay-at-home mother, and she navigates her life freshly transplanted back in her hometown after her husband lands a promotion based there. Dani often voices harsh opinions about her fellow mothers/frenemies while also embodying exactly those traits or perspectives. She is a college-educated (philosophy major LOL me too) upper middle class woman who feels as if she has no usable skills and has found herself financially beholden to her husband, referring to herself as his "silly little dependent" and becomes panicked when she realized one day he could unexpectedly die and leave her to fend for her daughter and herself alone.
Dani is convinced she is smarter, more special, more progressive than her stay-at-home mom friends and destined for a greater purpose in life than tipsy brunches and momfluencer social media, but feels she is without the adequate skills needed for monetary success in the "real world". She weirdly becomes intrigued and then obsessed with the idea of becoming a sex worker at a local yoga studio/ brothel (the yoga bits in here are hilarious) and romanticizing the idea, fantasizing about working there and befriending the brothel owner and spiritual leader of sorts, Renata. Renata and Dani have some interesting conversations about toxic masculinity, sex work as healing work, saving men from their culturally programmed emotionless, but it all feels a bit cult-like.
In the end, I was disappointed by where the story landed, though I think Hogarth overall has made a thought-provoking and sharply insightful work here.
There is a lot going on in this book, but simply described readers follow Dani, our complicated protagonist and new stay-at-home mother, and she navigates her life freshly transplanted back in her hometown after her husband lands a promotion based there. Dani often voices harsh opinions about her fellow mothers/frenemies while also embodying exactly those traits or perspectives. She is a college-educated (philosophy major LOL me too) upper middle class woman who feels as if she has no usable skills and has found herself financially beholden to her husband, referring to herself as his "silly little dependent" and becomes panicked when she realized one day he could unexpectedly die and leave her to fend for her daughter and herself alone.
Dani is convinced she is smarter, more special, more progressive than her stay-at-home mom friends and destined for a greater purpose in life than tipsy brunches and momfluencer social media, but feels she is without the adequate skills needed for monetary success in the "real world". She weirdly becomes intrigued and then obsessed with the idea of becoming a sex worker at a local yoga studio/ brothel (the yoga bits in here are hilarious) and romanticizing the idea, fantasizing about working there and befriending the brothel owner and spiritual leader of sorts, Renata. Renata and Dani have some interesting conversations about toxic masculinity, sex work as healing work, saving men from their culturally programmed emotionless, but it all feels a bit cult-like.
In the end, I was disappointed by where the story landed, though I think Hogarth overall has made a thought-provoking and sharply insightful work here.