Books like Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth

WICKED above her hipbone, GIRL across her heart Words are like a road map to reporter Camille Preaker's troubled past. Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, Camille's first assignment from the second-rate daily paper where she works brings her reluctantly back to her hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls.NASTY on her kneecap, BABYDOLL on her legSince she left town eight years ago, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed again in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille is haunted by the childhood tragedy she has spent her whole life trying to cut from her memory.HARMFUL on her wrist, WHORE on her ankleAs Camille works to uncover the truth about these violent crimes, she finds herself identifying with the young victims--a bit too strongly. Clues keep leading to dead ends, forcing Camille to unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past to get at the story. Dogged by her own demons, Camille will have to confront what happened to her years before if she wants to survive this homecoming.With its taut, crafted writing, Sharp Objects is addictive, haunting, and unforgettable.From the Hardcover edition.

From Amazon: Brooklyn's very own self-appointed Human Freakshow, Lionel Essrog is an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count, and rip apart our language in startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St. Vincent's Home for Boys, he works for small-time mobster Frank Minna's limo service cum detective agency. Life without Frank Minna, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable, so who cares if the tasks he sets them are, well, not exactly legal. But when Frank is fatally stabbed, one of Lionel's colleagues lands in jail, the other two vie for his position, and the victim's widow skips town. Lionel's world is suddenly topsy-turvy, and this outcast who has trouble even conversing attempts to untangle the threads of the case while trying to keep the words straight in his head.

Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood's exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter—she doesn't behave like most children do. Or is it all in Blythe's head? Her husband, Fox, says she's imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well. Then their son Sam is born—and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she'd always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth. For fans of Verity and We Need to talk about Kevin, The The Push is a tour de force you will read in a sitting, an utterly immersive novel that will challenge everything you think you know about motherhood, about what we owe our children, and what it feels like when women are not believed.

Afflicted with a chronic debilitating condition, Suzette Jensen knew having children would wreak havoc on her already fragile body. Nevertheless, she brought Hanna into the world, pleased and proud to start a family with her husband Alex. Estranged from her own mother, Suzette is determined to raise her beautiful daughter with the love, care, and support she was denied. But Hanna proves to be a difficult child. Now seven-years-old, she has yet to utter a word, despite being able to read and write. Defiant and anti-social, she refuses to behave in kindergarten classes, forcing Suzette to homeschool her. Resentful of her mother's rules and attentions, Hanna lashes out in anger, becoming more aggressive every day. The only time Hanna is truly happy is when she's with her father. To Alex, she's willful and precocious but otherwise the perfect little girl, doing what she's told. Suzette knows her clever and manipulative daughter doesn't love her. She can see the hatred and jealousy in her eyes. And as Hanna's subtle acts of cruelty threaten to tear her and Alex apart, Suzette fears her very life may be in grave danger. Afflicted with a chronic debilitating condition, Suzette Jensen nevertheless brought Hanna into the world, pleased and proud to start a family with her husband Alex. Estranged from her own mother, Suzette is determined to raise her daughter with the love, care, and support she was denied. Now seven-years-old, Hanna has yet to utter a word, despite being able to read and write. Defiant and anti-social, she refuses to behave in kindergarten classes and must be homeschooled. But Hanna is becoming more aggressive every day-- only behaving when she's with her father. And now Suzette fears her own life may be in danger. -- adapted from back cover.

Given a voice, what would the Great Goddess, the Virgin Mary, Snow White's evil stepmother, or Portnoy's mom have said about child care, contraception, bonding, or breast-feeding? Would their feelings have mattered? After all, maternity has been constructed by men over the millennia. Aristotle thought mother's womb merely cooked father's seed. The Church preferred virgins to mothers, and Freud was father-fixated. Even a brief survey of history reveals a diversity of maternal practices and ideals that are at odds with each other as well as with the views of contemporary child-care experts and psychologists. "I cannot recall ever treating a mother who did not harbor shameful secrets about how her behavior or feelings damaged her children," writes Thurer. Today our sentimentalized conception of the good mother casts a long, guilt-inducing shadow over real mothers' lives. Never has there been so much advice and so little agreement. Never have the ideals of motherhood been as ambiguous, psychologically demanding, and unforgiving. One conclusion is certain: the "good mother" is a cultural invention. In this brilliant synthesis of history, psychology, the arts, and religion, Thurer shows how our current concept of the ideal mother, like all ideology, is culture-bound, historically specific, and hopelessly tied to fashion. Thurer exposes our current myths of motherhood as a backlash against recent gains in women's rights and control over their bodies. "For thousands of years, because of her awesome ability to spew forth a child, mother has been feared and revered. She has been the subject of taboos, witch hunts, mandatory pregnancy, and confinement in a separate sphere. She has endured appalling insults and perpetual marginalization. She has also been the subject of glorious painting, chivalry, and idealization. Through it all she has rarely been consulted." The Myths of Motherhood, finally, is her story.