Nookish Notes: 5 books changing the motherhood narrative
Plus two books I wish I'd had in early parenting
I’m going to talk a lot about motherhood in this post. If that’s not your situation or is triggering for you in some way, I completely understand the need to skip this one. It’s just not often that I read a string of books that are wildly different but have something to say about a similar theme.
Or maybe I’m just noticing it more because my oldest child graduated high school this year, and my youngest child is 16. The early days of parenting, which felt like they would never end, are a distant memory. So much so that I can actually look back with some fondness, even though I remember being so, so tired.
I lost my identity in motherhood, and these five books are helping me realize some of the factors that contributed to that. They also, in their own way, show how difficult, demanding, and sometimes damaging motherhood can be. I offer them as counterpoints to stories that make motherhood seem like the best possible thing that could ever happen to a woman. Maybe it is like that for some women, but that has not been my experience. I love my kids. I have not always loved parenting.
Here are five fiction books (plus two non-fiction) that are helping me see motherhood in a whole new light:
Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
I chose this one for The Book Was Better book club because it was premiering as a show on Apple TV. I thought it would be a ridiculous and hilarious look at how a desperate, young, single mom chooses to make a living (starting an OnlyFans account) to support herself. I mean, Nick Offerman is in the show as her ex-professional-wrestler father. It had to be funny, right?
There are some funny things about the book, but I was surprised at how deep the themes were. Margo, the main character, has an affair with her married professor and chooses to keep the baby, a choice that many people would applaud. But when it comes time to provide for her child in a way that’s compatible with her living situation, she is shamed and criticized.
To me, it was a spotlight on the contradictions our society places on women—for women who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant, there is moral pressure to birth the baby, but there is often less support after the birth for the mom just trying to survive. That is not meant to be a political statement but an observation, and Margo’s Got Money Troubles is one way of telling that story.
Order it direct from Nooks or pick it up on Bookshop
Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hochhauser
Where Margo is a modern story of motherhood and survival, Lady Tremaine is a historical/fantastical one. It takes the familiar Cinderella story and flips it in a way that offers sympathy to the stepmother we’ve all called “evil” our entire lives. What I loved about Lady Tremaine is that it made me consider how our fairy tales might be different if women told the stories.
I found myself asking questions like “To what ends would a twice-widowed woman go to secure her daughters’ futures?” and “If a girl is kind and good and beautiful, does that mean her life will be that way, too?”
It’s so much more than a Cinderella retelling.
An excerpt from the beginning of the book:
The only being that defied the ancient standard—the standard of me first, me only, I, I, me—was a mother. A mother, in the bones of her bones, was not in balance. She gave, without ending. She thought not as an I but as a we and more often it was you, you, you, my darling, you.
Order it direct from Nooks or pick it up on Bookshop
Meet the Newmans by Jennifer Niven
Jennifer Niven wrote one of my favorite young adult books, All the Bright Places, so when this book for adults released, it was an automatic read for me. The Newmans are a real-life TV family in the 1960s, but their real life is a far cry from their perfect life depicted each week on the television. For one, Dinah, a supposedly ideal housewife, can’t actually cook; elder son Guy has a secret relationship that would shock society; younger son Shep has a bad-boy side; and Del, the patriarch, hasn’t been truthful about the family’s finances.
When a tragedy forces the family out of their “typical” roles, each member discovers surprising aspects about themselves that lead them toward who they were meant to be all along.
Surprisingly, it addresses modern themes for a story set in the 1960s. If you read and liked Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, then give Meet the Newmans a chance.
Order it direct from Nooks or pick it up on Bookshop
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
Is anyone not talking about Yesteryear? Even my husband, who does not read as much as I do, heard the author on a radio program and was talking to me about it. Caro Claire Burke and her love-it-or-hate-it novel are seemingly everywhere. Count me in the camp that loved the book, even though I did not love any of the characters. What struck me about the story is how it exposes the gaslighting to which many women in strict or traditional religious communities are subjected. The main character might be a victim of her own actions, but she is certainly tainted by the toxic patriarchal waters she’s swimming in.
While I didn’t expect the twist, I wasn’t exactly surprised by how it ended. And I’m of a mind that if a book generates conversation, that’s a good thing.
Order it direct from Nooks or pick it up on Bookshop
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
I will admit to being wary of this one. When a friend first suggested it and described it as a story of a woman who thinks she’s turning into a dog, I was intrigued. But it sat on my to-read shelf until after I’d had a discussion with some women who all had read Yesteryear and it was recommended again.
This book is weird, and it’s one of the most validating metaphors of what postpartum depression is like. (I was undiagnosed because I thought motherhood should make me happy, and it wasn’t, so it must have been something I was doing wrong.) The main character is an artist and a mother, and her story is one of trying to reconcile the two. As a writer, I get it. Nightbitch might not be for everyone, but I’d love to see it in the hands of more mothers who are also creators.
Order it direct from Nooks or pick it up on Bookshop.
And speaking of the intersection between motherhood and creativity:
