The Mothers – Sarah J Naughton

Five women, from different backgrounds, meet at their NCT group when they’re pregnant. Pitched as being great friends, their relationships unravel when one of their husbands goes missing. This is when we see the true strength of their bond.

The Mothers was an enjoyable read, if not a bit predictable and prescriptive. There were enough twists to keep me interested, but some of the cliches were over done! Naughton has a lot of clever and entertaining ideas, but they seemed watered down to fit them into a mediocre novel. An extra 150 pages would’ve really helped the plot points to have been explored more effectively.

Two things really agitated me about the book- the writer’s depiction of parenting an autistic child (every stereotype under the sun was used), and the obsession with Bella’s weight. She was portrayed as overweight and frumpy when she was a size 12, but was happy and confident when she was slimmer. Boring! Isn’t this the kind of trope we had to put up with in Bridget Jones circa 1996, not something we expect from a modern book? Let’s drop the fatphobic rhetoric in our literature, please!

If you like thrillers that are easy reads, this is worth a shot.

For me, ⭐️⭐️⭐️ read.