Nightbitch cover art

Nightbitch

 Preview

Get 30 days of Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30-day free trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options
Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

NOW A MAJOR FILM STARRING AMY ADAMS

Are you looking for a book with bite?

One day, the mother was a mother but then, one night, she was quite suddenly something else...

At home full-time with her two-year-old son, an artist finds she is struggling. She is lonely and exhausted. Her husband, always travelling for his work, calls her from faraway hotel rooms. One more toddler bedtime, and she fears she might lose her mind.

Instead, she starts gaining things, surprising things that happen one night when her child will not sleep. New appetites, new instincts. And from deep within herself, a new voice...

Written as a howl against biology, history and the patriarchy, Nightbitch uproariously explores how traditional structures of power and gender continue to shape our experiences of mothering. Outrageously enjoyable, deeply clever and joyfully subversive, it is a book about finding the freedom to love and live as we want and need, whatever form this takes.

'OUTRAGEOUS, SMART, FUN' Bonnie Garmus, Sunday Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry

'FUNNY AND UNNERVING AS HELL' Jenny Offill

'The spiritual successor to Angela Carter' Evening Standard

©2021 Rachel Yoder (P)2021 Penguin Audio Dark Humour Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Women's Fiction

Critic reviews

Yoder's voice is precise and funny, pitch-perfect... This is a terrifically alive and imaginative tale... an important contribution to the engagement with motherhood that rightly dominates contemporary feminism. (Lara Feigel)
A deliciously untamed satire on mothering and collapsed ambition... Yoder's descriptions of wild self-release are thrilling. (Catherine Taylor)
Yoder's commentary on the assorted neuroses of modern womanhood is graceful and coolly incisive... She infuses new life into the cold, furry flesh of the monstrous femme. (AK Blakemore)
All stars
Most relevant
Can’t wait to see the film! Not easy as so much interior dialogue in book but that made it a great book!

Fantastic!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
read This is Where we Live. Leaves you with more feeling and a more interesting point of view.

If you like animal moms but want something more gutteral

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book was sold to me as part of the femgore genre, but it’s far more like an American Angela Carter novel, which is high praise! The performance was excellent and the journey taken by the central character as she rediscovers her identity after having a child gave me a lot to think about. I do wish there had been a bit more plot, which why 4 stars

A Mediative and fantastical journey into the essence of motherhood

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As a new mum, this book initially appealed to me for obvious reasons. I actually became aware of it from the recent movie trailer, but decided to check this book out first. I found it took a false start before I really got sucked in, but I’m SO glad I came back to it. I expected it to be kind of silly, given the premise, which in the first couple of chapters rang true. However, I came to realise it was much deeper and darker as the book progressed (and that’s what got me hooked).

Yoder’s depiction of that transition to motherhood, and the unravelling and recalibration of a woman’s psyche during this journey was deeply relatable once you open yourself up to it. Even the wilder incidents in the book (the most violent ones in particular) feel strangely relatable, in a metaphoric way. It was really like a rollercoaster of emotions as an adjusting mum; I felt her joy, her anxiety, her rage, her pain; all of which felt validating of my own.

I decided to watch the movie adaptation of this after finishing the book, and was SO disappointed. This book has incredible potential for a really daring screen writer/director, but sadly I didn’t feel it did it any justice. They leant into the comedy aspect, and worked too hard to make the protagonist likeable to as wide an audience as possible. Honestly, I loved the protagonist in the book pretty much from start to finish, but there are times that makes you question your own sanity (and that’s the fun part). I think, had I watched the movie first, I’d have probably loved it - and there were parts I enjoyed - but I really missed the darkness and macabre of the book, which could have been incredible on-screen with the right body horror filmmaker.

Dark, disturbing, and fantastical exploration of motherhood

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Loved it! Loved it! Loved it! Entertaining and stylistically perfect. Brilliant denouement. Woof woof woof woof woof woof aoooooooo..!

Imaginative and gripping

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews