Review: 'The New Mother' by Julia Crouch
Pub. Date: 10/12/2021
Publisher: Bookouture
You live with her. You trust her. But you don’t know her…
Wanted: full-time, live-in help for expectant mother. Must be organised, friendly and willing to do anything.
Rachel is determined to be the perfect mother. She has a birth plan, with a playlist and a bag ready by the door. She’s chosen a lovely light cream paint for the nursery, and in wide-eyed, innocent Abbie she’s found the perfect person to help her with her baby.
Because every mother needs a bit of help, don’t they?
But Rachel needs a little more than most.
She still makes sure her bedroom door is locked before she goes to sleep. She still checks the cameras that are dotted throughout the house.
Rachel trusts Abbie.
She just knows better than to trust herself…
I recently read People Like You by Ellery Lloyd, which used the Instagram scene of influencers/yummy mummies as a backdrop for its story. So when I realised The New Mother, initially titled Mother's Helper, was set in the same environment, I immediately dove in. Often in thrillers and suspense novels, we find characters who are living double lives, or who are hiding part of themselves. Usually, that is the big reveal, that there is more going on underneath. But in the case of Instagram influencers as characters, we go in knowing there is more going on than we see, that the perfect surface is a lie. So it ramps up the tension in a rather unexpected way because you might expect that this would undo the tension because everything is already fake. Rather than looking for lies, I find myself looking for the truth between the lies, for the things a character does or says which reveal who they really are underneath it all. It turns the reading experience upside-down and I love finding new experiences in a genre I am so familiar with.
Abbie follows Rachel's Instagram profile religiously, so when she sees Rachel is looking for a "mother's helper" to assist her through her pregnancy and the first months of motherhood, she jumps at the opportunity. She needs this. She is quickly hired, not just because of her skills but also because Rachel can perfectly envision how she'll turn the shy and mousy Abbie into a fitter and learner version. The perfect before and after story for her followers! But not everything is going perfectly. Rachel has her own secrets to hide, including violent blackouts, and Abbie is disappointed at the reality behind the carefully cultivated Insta-profile. As Crouch slowly reveals more of the history of both women, a confrontation, likely violent, becomes inevitable. But who will be the instigator and who will be the victim? And what about Fran, Rachel's childhood friend, and her role in this drama? The New Mother jumps back and forth between Rachel's, Fran's, and Abbie's POV, with Rachel's Instagram posts also popping up frequently. I really liked getting all three perspectives, especially Fran's because she is technically "outside" the main story and yet inevitably wound up in it.
I got sucked into Crouch's writing very quickly because of the switching perspectives. There is not really a strong distinction in the narratives from a style-angle, I felt, but the attitude expressed definitely are distinct. From the beginning, Crouch makes the reader aware that neither woman can be trusted, although we're not entirely sure why. While this makes for a fun reading experience, it did kind of affect how I connected to the characters. I only, really, cared for Fran, who was not technically a main character. This may also be because she lives in the Netherlands and likes pannekoeken and hagelslag, but she also felt like the only safe character to try and root for. In the afterword, Crouch mentions the extensive research she did for how such an Influencer-life might come about. I did find this aspect intriguing and think it is fair that it gets represented as quite a difficult and demanding job, but there still was something about it which felt a little idealised. I also had one or two issues with The New Mother, which are actually maybe more issues with me. A thing that is very important to me is the distinction that just because something plays a role or is prominent in a book, that does not mean that the author or the book are saying it is right! This feels like basic reader comprehension, maybe, but I keep seeing people not making this distinction anyway. While reading The New Mother I had to keep reminding myself of this, though, as I found the way Abbie handled some events in the lives of Rachel and Fran to be appalling, as was her engagement with her father. This is absolutely the point, I think. By the time these things become apparent in the book we are meant to start questioning Abbie (and Rachel as well), so it makes sense for Crouch to kind of pull back the curtain a little. But a part of me still wished for a stronger condemnation, somehow? The main reason I'm bringing this up is because I think Abbie's dismissal of certain things could be a bit triggering for some readers. Thrillers and suspense novels are always going to touch on difficult things and frequently have (unreliable) narrators with difficult or horrifying opinions, so readers should always go in aware of that regardless. I was just intrigued how this came up for me in The New Mother and it did kind of affect my enjoyment of the story, although, again, I'm willing to accept that this may be my issue.
I give this novel...
3 Universes!
I kind of wavered between rating a 2 or 3, but realised that part of my issues may have been exactly that, mine and not the novel's. I definitely want to read more by Crouch because The New Mother did have me engaged throughout.
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