Nightbitch: Oh! Beware that Feminine Rage.

- a novel by Rachel Yoder.

To be honest, I'm finding it quite difficult to put feelings into words with this book. It's not to say that I had a difficult time reading it... I didn't struggle at all, no; on the contrary, I ate this book up, pun intended of course. It's also hard to explain what drew me to the novel – the title? the cover? or the promise of transformation? Possibly a bit of all three.

Nightbitch is the title of the novel and also the name of the main protagonist. She earns this name after talking to her husband, who owing to work obligations is out of town most days a week, about this feeling that she has- that she is slowly becoming some sort of canine.The first 50 pages made me believe that I was reading a character’s angry descent into madness. A mother who believes she’s turning into a dog? Hair growing all over her body? extra nipples appear on her stomach?

Having been a successful artist she has paused her career to look after her young son. Believing she would be fulfilled by this she finds herself feeling bored, unseen and diminished. She still loves her son but motherhood alone is simply not enough. And admitting that makes her feel like she has failed. Admitting that makes her feel alone.

That premise right there ‘motherhood alone is not enough’ is at the center of what this story is about. That is the place of honesty from which this story grows. It is something that is so true for many many women but it is still taboo, an often unspoken truth even amongst women themselves. There are no taboos in Nightbitch; Rachel Yoder smashes them one by one. Yoder’s novel is a meditation on what it means to be a mother and a woman today. And the protagonist struggles between the push and pull of society, telling her what she wants and needs and what she actually wants and needs to be a successful mother, wife, and woman. Bored, uninspired, tired, and lonely.

This book is definitely not for the fainthearted and definitely not a book if you have concerns about animal death and consumption. But I truly loved so much of this novel. I think that major events like the start of a new life or the loss of life create cataclysmic changes in people, and yet we are often expected to pretend that nothing has changed and that life will just go on as it did before.