Reviews

It was a slow start for me, but it picked up about 70% in. It's not like traditional horror movie scary. It's scary like, "I feel nauseous and want to stop reading, but I have to keep going" kind of scary. I am not easily freaked out, but I strongly advise you to use discretion when deciding whether or not to read this book.
Trigger warnings don't deter me from reading a book, but the forced impregnation mentioned in this book was rough, to say the least. A warning may have been nice, so I at least knew it was coming.

Content Warnings

jessreadsohio's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Absolutely amazing. I wasn't sure I would enjoy this book but I was so wrong. The only thing I would change about it, is the sex scenes. I don't particularly enjoy smut with my horror but I do understand that some do.

badatplants's review

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2.0

Predictable and not great

njdarkish's review

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3.0

*spoilers abound*
There's a lot a really enjoyed about this book-- there are some great set pieces, like the AI dolls, the cult background, and the creepy huge mansion. The major characters were well-realized and interesting. The twists and turns were fun. The writing was pretty strong. Ultimately, I did feel like the book failed to deliver on some of the major promises, though-- the dolls didn't really accomplish anything other than being weird, for example. And ultimately the final twist just made me roll my eyes rather than feel any dread. Plus, there were a few things that I'm surprised didn't get fixed through the editing process-- for example, the description of the birth in the final act had some glaring errors, like the OB/GYN being the person who administered the epidural. I just felt like for a book where motherhood-- a sinister, twisted version of motherhood, admittedly-- is so central, it felt weirdly clear that few or no women who are mothers helped beta read or edit it.

jamiee_f's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Spooky-ooky! I like books about cults and books about motherhood, so this was an interesting combination of both!

Maeve and Andrea grew up in a cult that revered motherhood, and were separated when the cult was discovered during their childhood. Separated into the foster care system, Maeve grows up, living a lonely life, when all of a sudden her glamorous beloved cousin Andrea comes back into her life. Andrea runs an intense start up focused on motherhood, that involves eerily lifelike robot dolls.

Maeve begins to rebuild her relationship with her cousin, and notices all of Andrea's friends and family are realllly into motherhood, and give her grief about being single and childless. Maeve panics and starts to pull away after Andrea reveals she is infertile and actually wants Maeve to be her surrogate. Maeve returns home, makes plans, but all of a sudden tragedy befalls her--she loses her job, and her boyfriend dies in a freak fire. Luckily Andrea is there for her, taking her in, letting her recover, feeding her and helping her heal.

However, Maeve is totally out of it at Andrea's. She's drinking too much, taking too much klonipin, and totally dissociating. She finally awakes from her fog with vague memories of Andrea's husband helping her to bed, and she feels weirdly sore.

Andrea and Maeve start working together, and Andrea starts dating someone local. She is deeply involved with and dependent on Andrea and her husband, and starts feeling a little trapped. Maeve has a weird night out with her boyfriend that ends with him blindfolding her and having silent sex with her against her will. She bites his hand, breaks up with him, and confides in Andrea the next day. While talking, Maeve starts receiving cryptic texts from her now ex, apologizing for how out of hand things got. Andrea grabs her phone and deletes all the messages.

Things then escalate pretty quickly, with a bunch of women arriving at the house for Andrea's work, and Maeve feeling weird about what's happening. Maeve finds a weird test strip in her seemingly always broken toilet and goes to ask Andrea's husband to fix it. At that moment, Maeve overhears Andrea and her husband lying to the police, saying Maeve is no longer there, and it turns out the police have shown up because her boyfriend from the previous evening is now DEAD! Maeve confronts Andrea and her husband, saying what the fuck is happening, what is in my toilet, why are you lying. During that, Andrea and her husband notice whatever Maeve's holding and are overjoyed because, surprise, Maeve is pregnant! Maeve starts to freak out and notices the bite mark in Andrea's husband's hand.....right where she bit her "ex" during sex last night. They then basically bum rush her and incapacitate her.

She wakes up, strapped to a bed, surrounded by all these women. Turns out, Andrea never really left the cult they escaped as children. She is still deeply involved with the Mother Collective, and is actually the reigning Queen Mother. Her failure to deliver a female heir was devastating, until she realized her cousin would make the perfect incubator. Turns out they'd been drugging and raping her so she. could deliver the girl heir they needed.

Andrea keeps Maeve confined, and forces her to eat the placenta from Andrea's earlier pregnancy, very gross. The women all worship motherhood and are very creepy about it. Eventually the police return with a search warrant basically demanding they turn over Maeve, because shit is weird, and Maeve ends up overpowering Andrea's husband while he tries to move her to the secret tunnel. In the tunnel, Maeve discovers some bodies of people ANdrea and hubby have been killing to get them out of the way, and finds a cell phone and knife on her friend's deceased husband. She uses both to subdue her attacker and flees to the police. During the chaos, however, Andrea escapes.

Flash forward, Maeve is in the hospital, turns out she's having twins. The FBI comes to her and basically says.....if you serve as bait for us, we will protect you and pay for your shit for a while. Maeve grudgingly agrees, and tries to get an abortion, but it turns out she's too late. She's farther along than she thought, indicating the abuse took place for longer than she originally realized. She also starts trying to get her life back together and realizes that Andrea almost certainly killed her boyfriend and paid off her boss to get her fired.

Maeve goes through with the pregnancy, and lines up an adoptive mother, and then goes into labor. One twin comes out smoothly, the other nearly kills her. At birth, she decides to actually keep the twins. We flash forward again, Maeve is out in a park, and Andrea approaches her and tries to take the twins, but oh surprise, it's an FBI sting! They get Andrea, and Maeve is like, thank fuck, and actually lets the woman adopt the babies.

Flash forward againnnn and it's 8 years later. Maeve is happily married and has an open adoption with her twins. She visits them regularly. The final scene is her visiting the twins with their mom, and they start singing a song that Maeve and Andrea knew as children. Maeve asks where they learned it, and they say "From Mother!" and Maeve looks up to see an ominous blonde woman who looks like her own mother from the cult. The adoptive mother smiles and references the Mother Collective, and also acknowledges that Maeve herself is finally pregnant

The ending basically implies

that the motherhood collective cult is everywhere and inescapable. It was a good ending for this story, but overall it left me with questions. How the fuck did this female centric cult take shape?? The men in the book are pawns of the women, and are literally used and abused. There is no explanation as to how or why these men are subservient. That's fine, I love a matriarchal villain, but like.......address the patriarchy elephant in the room? In a wild talw, somehow that was what took me out of it the most.

Similarly, Andrea's motherhood start up didn't make any sense. I guess the idea was good and she was supposed to be this kind of wellness influencer, but robot babies are creepy. People find reborn dolls repugnant sometimes, and this was that with AI and movement! Also it was hard to believe the tech industry would invest in this infertility/motherhood centric technology.

In terms of thoughts on the book overall--it was intriguing, I liked the way the childhood flashbacks were used. The book lagged a bit in the middle, but I thought the beginning and end were the most successful parts. Where it fell apart a bit for me was the overly naive main character and the world building, but I could generally suspend disbelief enough to get into the story.

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