Normal Women: From the Number One Bestselling Author Comes 900 Years of Women Making History

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Just as with her last novel, Motherthing, Ainslie Hogarth has written a truly strange/entertaining/relatable/feminist work of fiction this time around with Normal Women. Dani’s anxiety makes her vulnerable to The Temple, a wellness cult disguised as a yoga studio that promises a healthy glow, spiritual relief and self-actualisation.

Then Renata disappears leaving Dani bereft and prey to ever more baroque theories as to what’s happened to this woman with whom she’s become obsessed. You’ll find yourself wondering whether you should finally schedule that family portrait you’ve been vaguely considering or just burn society to the ground. But I was surprised to find no mention of Mary Wollstonecraft, an important pioneer of women's rights. I understand this is a new context now because the book explains the evolution of why male incompetence still chosen over female brilliance.Certainly not my favourite book this year but may be loved by a target audience I just don’t belong to! Like Mona Awad’s Bunny or Otessa Moshfegh’s Eileen, Motherthing is a fabulous, frightening story built from fine, fine prose.

It’s an apt experiment, given that Kitty Whitaker is raised to become a bauble in some future husband’s vitrine – a destiny disrupted by war and her own eccentricities. Motherthing can be a difficult book to read on an emotional level, given Abby’s frustratingly optimistic “I can fix him/it/this” attitude, but its scares and surprises are well worth the discomfort it causes—as well as the sleepless nights it will engender. Works that have been adapted for television include A Respectable Trade, The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen\'s Fool. In fact, after reading book after book about the connection between fear and pain, the orgasmic, ecstatic, rapturous birth experience, the power of visualizations — I am petals unfurling, I am huge, I am opening wide as a cave, exactly as I should, for my baby to spill without pain — one might even come to the conclusion that the body is only mysterious as it pertains to childbirth.

And it was devastating to see how this was slowly eroded by a society of men who feared women's sexualities and independence. Here, the author uses all her bestseller skills to weave some kind of narrative and once again a splendid pace was maintained . Finally, Dani has found something she could be good at, even great at – meaningful work that will protect her and Lotte from poverty, and provide true economic independence from Clark. With her financial dependence on her husband, she knows she’s failing the feminist cause – but she has a baby and a four-bedroom home to manage.