With a cover like that, you’ll know that I was completely powerless in resisting giving it a read. I haven’t actually read Hogarth’s previous novel Motherthing, despite seeing it making the rounds on social media but it is on my TBR. This was my first 2024 release and I’m really excited to see what the rest of the year has in store!

Dani couldn’t wait to be a stay at home mum to little Lotte but now she is worried that if her husband Clark should die, they would be destitute. But then Dani discovers The Temple, a yoga studio run by the alluring, mysterious Renata who tells Dani that it’s not just yoga classes that The Temple offers. It also offers its visitors the chance to reach their true potential and allows them to take whatever steps they need to get there. Could this finally be the career path for Dani? Just as she is about to get started, Renata goes missing and Dani becomes determined to find out what’s happened.

The book talks about traditional gender roles and how men and women wish to be perceived. Clark cares about being the voice of reason in the family and would never dream of going along with the hare-brained scheme that has his wife so captivated. However, Clark doesn’t enforce this dynamic -it appears that he and Dani have naturally fallen into it whether that’s due to societal expectations or not.

Dani also compares herself to her female friends, their experiences of childbirth and subsequent relationships with their husbands. This culture of constant competition and comparison between women is so recognisable and yet so unhealthy. Even though we know it’s unhealthy to compare our lives, we still do it.

Hogarth writes about motherhood a lot and I can only imagine there is much of the same commentary in her other book Motherthing. Normal Women paints a largely positive picture of being a mother, despite admitting that it is all-consuming and potentially a huge identity sucker. However, Dani loves being a mother and the tone of the novel is very much that everything she works for is worth it.

The Temple is a unique place and I have no idea whether anything like it exists in real life. It’s not clear whether the thought behind their mission is based on anything scientific or whether it is just observational but it is a really fascinating idea. There’s not really any denying the truth in what they preach but whether it can be fixed via their methods of teaching them compassion and sensitivity is questionable. Again, it doesn’t really become clear over the course of the novel but I’d like to think it goes some way to ‘healing’ these men.

The humour and voice is snarky and therefore probably isn’t to everyone’s taste. I laughed a few times and could definitely relate to various parts of Dani’s narration but it was also tinged with a bit of sadness. It was the same melancholy that often descends when a marriage or long term relationship is depicted as a 'habit’ rather than a choice but I understand that these relationships definitely exist.

'Why couldn't you get a job like your husband?'
And Dani lowered her head, stared up at Renata darkly. 'I can't.'
'Why not?'
'I'm not... good at this world,' she said, and her voice broke at the end, eyes filling with tears.
Renata understood this completely too. 'It's not a good world.'

There are some really profound parts that really resonated with me and the above exchange between Dani and Renata was one of those. These women actively reflect on their place in the world and how it affects their lives. I am certain that there are so many readers (not just female ones) who genuinely feel that they are 'not good at this world’.

Normal Women was a funny, honest look at female labour and how it’s treated by capitalism. I was actually quite disappointed that the mystery wasn’t a more prominent part of the book or that the resolution wasn’t more dramatic, as I think that could have delivered further, darker messages about the treatment of women. However, I really enjoyed following Dani through the course of the book and reflecting on its themes.

I am normally picky enough with my Netgalley ARCs to avoid disappointment, but I got it wrong and I was disappointed.
I found the premise interesting and promising: Dani, a young woman who has just moved back to her hometown with her husband and baby, worries she is completely economically dependent on her husband and starts considering sex work at The Temple (apparently a yoga centre, in reality a brothel) when the owner of The Temple, Renata, goes missing. It did not start well for me as Dani is having lunch with her interchangeable friends and discussing how motherhood ruined their bodies (in itself, not a bad topic but I thought it was poorly executed). I liked some parts of the book, comments about the drudgery of parenthood and being a stay-at-home mum. Unfortunately it also took a long time to get started, with endless secret excursions to The Temple, chats with Renata which felt hollow and unoriginal - I could not believe that Dani actually listened to it like any of it was revolutionary... And Renata goes missing in the last third of the novel, and the plot is resolved very quickly.
I struggled to finish it, and I found the story not particularly compelling in the end - and the characters not enough to get me interested, with the secondary characters especially poor, despite several pages devoted to them.

To preface this I want to say I loved Motherthing so maybe my expectations were too high? Because I… did not like this.

Dani and her husband Clark have just welcomed their first baby and moved back to her home town, where her dad was once a local hero. The town is rapidly changing aka a lotta gentrification at work but Dani is drawn to a mysterious building called The Temple. The Temple is a yoga/sex studio run by Renata, who Dani becomes immediately enamoured with. Then Renata disappears.

I think my first problem was expecting the Renata plot to be central to the book. She doesn’t disappear until what, 60% of the way through? Which is mercifully when things start to pick up. Before that the book is more of a character study of Dani which is unfortunate because Dani is dull. Beyond ‘I love my baby’ and ‘I hate my husband’ there’s not much there!

I enjoyed the writing and when the plot kicked in I was invested. Unfortunately it just wasn’t enough to leave me anything but disappointed. Will absolutely read whatever Hogarth writes next but it’s not off the strength of this.

I was really looking forward to this one as I'd loved motherthing by the same author, but this one fell a bit flat for me sadly. I loved the cover and at the beginning I enjoyed some aspect of the writing. I thought the writing at times was quite funny and relatable i terms of women sometimes feeling completely alien to their friend group. However the story veered in a direction I wasn't really expecting and it began becoming incredibly unrealistic. There were elements of a thriller in the making which didn't really materialise and I just found the plot extremely odd by the end. I would still be interested to read more from the author as I had previously enjoyed her work and enjoy her humour, however this one just wasn't for me I'm afraid.

👨‍👩‍👧 REVIEW 👨‍👩‍👧

Normal Women by Ainslie Hogarth
Publishing Date: 4th January 2024

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

📝 - Dani is a new mother to Lotte, the light of her life. However, she can’t stop thinking about her husband suddenly dying, and leaving them with nothing. Then she finds The Temple, seemingly a yoga studio, but everyone in the town knows there’s something else going on. There she meets Renata, a magnetic character, who tells her she has a gift that could help change the world. And so Dani finds herself joining a group of women in sex work, until Renata disappears, and the people Dani has met start acting strangely.

💭 - This was a slightly strange one for me; I really enjoyed Hogarth’s writing, and was very interested for the first half of the book, as Dani tried to find her identity as a new mother. But then I found the story to lose steam, and the ending to be a bit boring to be honest. I felt a lot more could have been done in terms of Dani joining The Temple,. While I can appreciate the themes throughout the book, I just don’t think it quite hit the spot in terms of its full execution.
One I might recommend to those interested in a somewhat unreliable/egocentric narrator discussing what it means to be a woman, especially a mother.

Dani is married to Clark and they have a baby. Clark gets a new job in Dani's home town where her father used to be the main employer and was a benevolent and paternal man. Dani thinks she is special.
Dani hangs out with her childhood friend Anya and her group of "normal women" friends. There's a lot about childbirth, bodily changes and sex. Dani discovers the Temple, run by the charismatic Renata, and wants to work with her, but then Renata disappears and Dani três to find her, uncovering lots of secrets on the way. The writing is a bit gushy, but it's quite fun. Good for a beach read.

2.5 stars. This was such a disappointment after Motherthing. I found the entire first half of the book so lackluster and I didn't really know where it was going. Sometimes with books I like to just go along with the flow but there didn't seem to be any point to the story at all and it was really losing my attention. About 70% of the way through it actually started to get interesting and I was a lot more invested in the story again. But then the end was just a horrendous let down and I was left feeling so disappointed. It felt like there was so much build up for something I could have told you already and like things happened in the book for no reason. A lot of it was also just really boring. Dani is nowhere as good as the narrator of Motherthing and it's really missing that cutting edge to it. Having finished the book I can see that Hogarth was trying to go for a conspiracy, mystery, inside-job sort of vibe but it was poorly done and really failed to capture my attention. Feel sad I didn't enjoy this as it was one of my most anticipated releases.

It’s very difficult to describe this book without giving everything away. It’s a book meant to be discussed and dissected and argued about - if you’re in a book club please add it to your list!! (If you’re not, just make whoever you can read it).

Dani is a stay-at-home Mum, back in the town she grew up in, the town where her dad was worshipped and her mum was whispered about. Dani is her husband’s dependant, but unlike her friends, ‘The Normal Women’ this terrifies her. What if something happened to her husband? How would she support her daughter? She has no useful skills. Or so she thinks until she meets the owner of the Temple: a spiritual/yoga club / house of sex workers. This starts to make Dani think she maybe does have skills after all.

This is such an odd story but in the best way. Dani is a bit of an anti-hero, she’s not awful but she’s not great and I loved that. She doesn’t strive to be likeable. She’s going through something like postnatal depression and this is and isn’t what the book is about. The title actually tells you a lot, for me it’s a double meaning of being an outsider (the Normal Women being the inside club) and also being above it, being meant for something more.

What seems normal from the outside becomes unconventional when you take a peek under the surface and it raises the question: what is normal?

The story tackles a lot, from gender roles, to class divides and gentrification to how sex workers operate. For me, the author makes a solid argument about how one could go from losing touch with their body through child bearing and reclaiming it through sex work. There’s a strong message of reclaiming your power, though like I said, Dani is no one’s role model.

I really really loved this and just want to talk about it endlessly. Can’t wait to hear what you think.

Thanks so much Atlantic books and netgalley for my review copy.

I'm sad to give this two stars, but I'm very disappointed!

I enjoyed Ainslie Hogarth's Motherthing, so I was really enthusiastic about her second novel. The cover is stunning, and the blurb piqued my interest, but the book was a letdown.

The plot follows Dani as she struggles with parenting while juggling her marriage, her friends, and her yearning for belonging. She comes upon 'The Temple,' a mystery organization that assists men in reaching their full potential, and befriends one of the staff members.

I was bored by the halfway point and thought the tale was too sluggish, but I kept an open mind because Motherthing was also a slow burner. However, the 300 pages added up to almost nothing.

normal women by @ainsliehogarth was an undoubtedly bizzare book but I did quite enjoy it.
We follow Dani as she navigates her life post partum and how she copes with the emotions that come with that; how her fear of her financial safety net (her husband) disappearing leading her to seek out under the table methods of getting money.
I thought this book was a wonderful study of how motherhood affects a woman mentally, how having a support system surrounding her and knowing her family is capable of helping her will stabilise her mental state (or how the lack of it would cause a spiral in Danis case) I also enjoyed it's exploration of prostitution as an alternative career path for those that find themselves untethered and how it was framed by the character as a "healing tool" that was chosen by the women in it; rather than a fundamentally non consensual / unethical activity (if the worker cannot refuse an advance either by contract or through potential monetary loss that would negatively affect them is their consent really freely given?).
I do think the plot took way too long to get going (the disappearance spoken about in the blurb doesn't happen until 75% of the way in) and was solved in a - to me - unsatisfactory way, it was rather abrupt. It was a nice subversion of how I expected the plot to go though.
I'd wouldn't give this book to someone who's looking for the woman led murder mystery style thing the blurb suggests but if you're looking for a stream of consciousness feel novel exploring the effects of motherhood and comparative feminity on a postpartum mother I'd absolutely recommend it!

There seem to be a lot of books at the moment about the dark side of being a mother, and the cult of wellness, and they need to have an extra edge to really standout.
I liked the sound of this horror/thriller seemingly promising dark humour and sly narrative, but sadly I didn't find either and found it really difficult to care about Dani or any of the other characters. Thank you to netgalley and Atlantic Books for an advance copy of this book.

An astonishing second novel from Hogarth - a spot on satire of Millennial wellness culture. It's slow at parts, but the dark humour more than makes up for that.

DNF at 47%

I simply felt like nothing happened in what I read of this book and didn’t care enough about any of the characters or the plot to continue on.

I was excited to read this after some great Motherthing reviews and the plot sounded interesting but gosh, this book made reading feel like sure an effort.

This didnt really hit the mark for me, maybe because I was expecting something different in the story, I didnt really pick up on the promised dark humour.

Dani is a new mother who is anxious about everything, fixating on how she might make an income if her husband dropped dead, and focussing on sex work as a future source of money. She finds solace in the women who work at The Temple, an upmarket yoga spa/ wellness centre/ potential brothel. There was understandably a focus on the unlimited stresses and fears about being a mother, from the moment you find out about the pregnancy, everything changes. It may be because those days are quite far behind me, I felt it was over-played and put me off Dani as a character.

2.5 rounded up to 3 stars.

Thank you to Atlantic Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of Normal Women by Ainslie Hogarth. I loved this book! Ainslie Hogarth writes in such a unique way that completely immerses me in the story and somehow manages to scare me and make me laugh all in one.

I absolutely loved Motherthing because of the weird dark humour and was really hoping for the same here but unfortunately it missed the mark for me. This is categorised as horror/thriller on Goodreads but for me it felt a lot more literary fiction. It started out strong for the first third of the book but then it just didn’t really get going as much as I wanted. I wanted it to go down the more dark and sinister route that was sprinkled into the story but it didn’t go there. Also the ‘mystery’ element doesn’t kick in till about 60% so the pacing just felt a bit strange.

I would read from this author again based on Motherthing but would want more horror/thriller in the next one.

The description of "Normal Women" sounded very promising, but the plot simply underdelivered. Dani, the main character, leads the narrative and I understand that her perspective purposefully places the reader away from the objective truth. However, there were some Dani's truths that somehow don't find satisfying resolution, at least for me.

This story lacked nuance, especially with the portrait of Dani's and Clark's marriage. On one hand, the narrator portrays her husband as full of annoying traits, and yet by the ending they sort of... disappear? Also, not a very seasoned reader will quickly grasp the nature of the relationship between Renata and Margot, and yet Dani - a sharp observer - doesn't notice it?

With this book I was hoping for something darker, maybe similar to "The Glow" by Jessie Gaynor, especially considering the subject of contemporary healing industry, but something in "Normal Women" was definitely lacking.

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. And that mostly came from the fact that Hogarth's debut, Motherthing, was one of my favourite books in the last year or so. I wanted something equally sharp, sarcastic, surreal and a bit weird.
Hogarth does still apply the same writing style here but it felt like the first and second halves of the book were almost different stories. I thought there was another plot to be explored there within the dynamics of Dani and the "normal women", and to be honest I wasn't all that interested in the plot with the brothel. Having said that, I still read the book quite fast and did enjoy it, just not as much as I wanted to. I found the ending quite curt too and am not sure how much it actually fit with the rest of the book. But I'm sure the author would disagree.
Anyway, lookiong forward to what this author does next.

I didn't enjoy Normal Women by Ainslie Hogarth as much as I enjoyed her previous book but I do like how she does something different so would be interested to read what she does next.

Description:
Dani's a stay-at-home mom who's suddenly become very worried that her husband will drop dead, leaving her and her daughter Lotte destitute. She decides that the only option she has available to her is sex work, and sets out to do some research on a local brothel-cum-yoga-studio, The Temple.

Liked:
Quite good at taking you on Dani's internal journey; this is one of those where you keep second-guessing what's actually happening based on what the protagonist is and isn't willing to believe. Sections surrounding the 'mom friends' and social media are biting but(/and?) funny. Dani's consistent love for Lotte despite whatever else is going on is endearing and feels insightful, and her vacillating vitriol towards her husband manages to feel both deserved and unfair, which is quite a feat.

Disliked:
I agreed with a lot of Anya's diatribe, towards the end of the book, and didn't feel like anything was done to dispel this before the end. Is this meant to be a happy ending? I didn't buy it - was expecting something more nuanced. Felt like Dani learned absolutely nothing, which I found very disappointing. There's a lot to like about this, but the plot is comparatively weak.

Would recommend if, like me, you seem to be reading a lot of fiction about motherhood recently, and they are all further cementing your desire to never have children ;)