Mothered by Zoje Stage
Thomas & Mercer (March 2023)
318 pages; $19.15 hardcover; $12.78 paperback; e-book $2.49
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Zoje Stage’s latest release, Mothered, festers with feverish delirium.
Paper dolls can’t speak for themselves. They can’t escape the shears slicing through their limbs nor the violent grasp of their manipulator. That’s what life was like for Grace. Her chronically ill twin sister, Hope, was sickly pale with a delicate dust of warm freckles across her cheeks. Her smile fooled their mother, Jackie, and just about everyone else, but Grace knew that a glee-ridden Hope spelled trouble.
Hope, like many children, had gory fantasies. Unlike many children, Hope had taken it beyond theoretical.
Jackie is an enabler. An instigator. A hissing viper, ready to snap. And a lifelong critic of Grace’s every move. As an adult and amidst the pandemic, Grace is unnerved by the thought of living with her mother again.
Here, Stage excels at conjuring a hammering sense of claustrophobia and isolation. The financial strain many faced as the world prepared for the stay-at-home order and no-contact services left Grace with no choice but to let Jackie move in. Grace’s home becomes a stage for paranoia, vengeance, and a constant struggle between estranged mother and daughter of moves and countermoves.
Jackie’s alien attempts at gentle parenting and support are as disorienting for the reader as they are for Grace. And something else resounds within Jackie, a possible plot of retribution and the swelling hatred of a ghost thought to be long since lost in the realm of the dead.
Mothered pins readers down and unleashes lucid terror. Yet, the grand reveal, the earth-shattering accusation, wasn’t as effective as I’d hoped. While horrifying, some flashbacks and nightmares didn’t contribute enough to the payoff, which left what otherwise may have been as grand as a Ti West turn-for-the-worst conclusion with a still daunting yet too breezy ending.
Readers who appreciate slow burn-styled psychological thrillers/horror with a dash of ambiguity will enjoy Mothered.
