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raw content
Grace's work requires her to be careful. She spends her days reading and editing legal case files, making sure the latest judgments are published as quickly and accurately as possible.
But outside of her work, Grace is not a careful person. Her father's history as a police officer working across an infamous case of child abuse shadows her life, as does the violent history entrenched across the landscape of her childhood, and her fears often surface as recklessness.
When Grace becomes unexpectedly pregnant, she tries to accommodate her boyfriend and the prospect of the baby in her life. But after the relief and strange joy of the birth, Grace starts to imagine all sorts of terrible injuries and deaths befalling her child. The steep stairs to her apartment, the kitchen scissors, a boiling kettle all suddenly hold visceral and overwhelming potential for disaster. The baby's vulnerability terrifies fault-lines in her relationship begin to show, and her family history and repressed memories of violence break to the surface.
But outside of her work, Grace is not a careful person. Her father's history as a police officer working across an infamous case of child abuse shadows her life, as does the violent history entrenched across the landscape of her childhood, and her fears often surface as recklessness.
When Grace becomes unexpectedly pregnant, she tries to accommodate her boyfriend and the prospect of the baby in her life. But after the relief and strange joy of the birth, Grace starts to imagine all sorts of terrible injuries and deaths befalling her child. The steep stairs to her apartment, the kitchen scissors, a boiling kettle all suddenly hold visceral and overwhelming potential for disaster. The baby's vulnerability terrifies fault-lines in her relationship begin to show, and her family history and repressed memories of violence break to the surface.
220 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 13, 2025
4 people are currently reading
527 people want to read
About the author
Naomi Booth
11 books65 followersNaomi Booth is a writer and academic. Her fiction tends to explore unsettling landscapes, strange compulsions, dangerous bodies and contamination. Her short fiction has been longlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize, and included in Best British Short Stories 2019. Her story Sour Hall was adapted into an audio drama by Audible.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
March 23, 2025
As a fan of Naomi Booth's work but a non-parent who has become somewhat exhausted with motherhood novels of late, I was not sure whether I was going to love this. But this is not just a novel about motherhood; it is a novel about how the history of a place raises you, about being thrown off your natural course, about the intricacies of care (and its absence), about how we can learn to exist when we are forced to intimately know the dark aspects of the world. Paragraphs about the landscape of Yorkshire, in which I also grew up, made me as emotional as those in which the protagonist was falling. Her prose is unassumingly faultless and her characterisation of both people and place is deeply layered. Read this book.
May 6, 2025
I don’t gravitate towards stories about motherhood (to say the least), but this had a few personally resonant features that made it more appealing to me than it might otherwise have been, and as it turns out, I’m really glad I picked it up. Sitting firmly in the ‘visceral female interiority’ niche, it’s scarily sharp on mental health. Booth is uninterested in sanitising anything, and what really worked for me is how she alternates all that internal chaos with mundane everyday stuff: Grace’s data-entry-focused job, errands, getting to grips with the grinding reality of being a new parent. Sticky and sour, shot through with a striking maternal ambivalence, it’s intimate and textured. Makes me want to try something else by the author.
March 30, 2025
Grace once lived a risky existence, joyriding, having sex with random men, wandering late at night in the Yorkshire moors where past murders were done. Now, her life is superficially settled and safe, with a new baby and a steady partner, but it's never felt more dangerous. There are so many things that could hurt her daughter, including herself. I loved Naomi Booth's
Sealed
and
Exit Management
so I snapped up raw content even though I feel like there's been a glut of 'early motherhood' novels recently. And I'm so glad I did. I'm not a mother myself but I found myself deeply relating to the 'dark corridor' that Grace goes down after the birth of her baby, a space clearly linked to her own sense of abandonment after her own mother was unable to carry on caring for her. This book is so intense and visceral that I'd urge readers to be cautious if they have experienced or are still dealing with post-natal depression or CPTSD, as it very much takes you into Grace's head. And yet, Booth's incredible writing makes this seemingly heavy and worthy subject-matter utterly gripping; I only put this book down when I couldn't deal with it any more. Streets ahead of Claire Kilroy's Soldier Sailor, and with a far more sympathetic protagonist (who for ONCE has a decent partner), this should have been on the Women's Prize longlist. 4.5 stars.
I received a free proof copy of this novel from the publisher for review.
I received a free proof copy of this novel from the publisher for review.
March 18, 2025
Heart-wrenching. Beautiful. Claustrophobic. Dark. Hopeful. Visceral.
I continue to love Booth’s writing.
It’s a hard topic to read about - post natal depression, intrusive thoughts, OCD - but done in such a compelling way.
I continue to love Booth’s writing.
It’s a hard topic to read about - post natal depression, intrusive thoughts, OCD - but done in such a compelling way.
May 9, 2025
I’d like to thank this book for further solidifying my disinterest in ever becoming a parent.
August 13, 2025
Naomi Booth’s latest fiction is a profound and visceral journey into the terrors and fears of new motherhood. This topic is not entirely new territory for the author. Her post-apocalyptic novel, Sealed, centred on a condition that seals people in their own bodies. Booth may have shifted genre, but she revisits and reworks some familiar themes, here: the fear of losing control, bodily imprisonment and strange, otherworldly compulsions.
The premise is a straightforward one. The novel’s narrator, Grace, reads and edits legal case files, updating judgements with speed and accuracy. This is a world she fully controls, far away from the Colne Valley landscape of her childhood and backdrop for the infamous Moors Murders. It is only when Grace finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, she is forced to accommodate both boyfriend and newborn into her life.
Almost immediately, Grace’s imagination begins to concoct a series of nightmarish scenarios in which her newborn, Rosa, suffers all sorts of horrific injuries and deaths: ‘The tiled hallway is a long way below us and the distance makes me feel woozy. The ground floor seems to accelerate away from us. I watch Rosa spill from my arms ... I hear the sick sound of overripe fruit splitting against a hard surface.’ Other, equally gruesome fantasies are presented, usually involving everyday objects and people: kitchen scissors, phone chargers, cleaning products, cigarette lighters, boiling kettles and even visiting family members; all become viable threats. Booth’s skill here is that she employs the present-tense mode to have us believe these episodes are unfolding in real time. Grace’s visions and reactions - which are genuine and all-consuming to her - become that for the reader. This is further amplified by the fact that Grace and Rosa are never apart – seen in the infant’s all-consuming need for milk – and provide the novel with some of its most arresting descriptions of physical and emotional, two-way dependency: ‘Half-blind, she gasps all night long, searching for me with her mouth, searching for me with her tiny broken cry, never settling out of my arms.’
Structurally-speaking, the narrative moves smoothly between present and past timelines, helping the reader uncover Grace’s repressed, family history and the reasons for her current behaviour. Here, the landscape comes to fore, the open moors charged with an ancient power and expansiveness, a world removed from the claustrophobic interior of Grace’s home.
raw content is a highly charged, often terrifying, examination of how parenthood can transform both body and mind. Booth’s message appears to be that none of us are safe: what constitutes the everyday, the knowable, can suddenly become one’s worst enemy, making raw content a timely reminder of the fragility of contemporary existence and a book that stays with you, long after its final page.
The premise is a straightforward one. The novel’s narrator, Grace, reads and edits legal case files, updating judgements with speed and accuracy. This is a world she fully controls, far away from the Colne Valley landscape of her childhood and backdrop for the infamous Moors Murders. It is only when Grace finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, she is forced to accommodate both boyfriend and newborn into her life.
Almost immediately, Grace’s imagination begins to concoct a series of nightmarish scenarios in which her newborn, Rosa, suffers all sorts of horrific injuries and deaths: ‘The tiled hallway is a long way below us and the distance makes me feel woozy. The ground floor seems to accelerate away from us. I watch Rosa spill from my arms ... I hear the sick sound of overripe fruit splitting against a hard surface.’ Other, equally gruesome fantasies are presented, usually involving everyday objects and people: kitchen scissors, phone chargers, cleaning products, cigarette lighters, boiling kettles and even visiting family members; all become viable threats. Booth’s skill here is that she employs the present-tense mode to have us believe these episodes are unfolding in real time. Grace’s visions and reactions - which are genuine and all-consuming to her - become that for the reader. This is further amplified by the fact that Grace and Rosa are never apart – seen in the infant’s all-consuming need for milk – and provide the novel with some of its most arresting descriptions of physical and emotional, two-way dependency: ‘Half-blind, she gasps all night long, searching for me with her mouth, searching for me with her tiny broken cry, never settling out of my arms.’
Structurally-speaking, the narrative moves smoothly between present and past timelines, helping the reader uncover Grace’s repressed, family history and the reasons for her current behaviour. Here, the landscape comes to fore, the open moors charged with an ancient power and expansiveness, a world removed from the claustrophobic interior of Grace’s home.
raw content is a highly charged, often terrifying, examination of how parenthood can transform both body and mind. Booth’s message appears to be that none of us are safe: what constitutes the everyday, the knowable, can suddenly become one’s worst enemy, making raw content a timely reminder of the fragility of contemporary existence and a book that stays with you, long after its final page.
March 6, 2025
It happens suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere. Sometimes it starts with a racing heart, sometimes it can be a prickle of sweat down your back or the moisture being stripped from your tongue. Your vision blurs, your breath becomes erratic, like your body is trying to suffocate itself…in a second you’re in a panic, untethered from your existence and watching your body from above - clawing, scraping to get back to yourself. Panic attacks are debilitating, they’re paralysing, they’re fucking awful…and they can happen to anyone.
With her latest, Naomi Booth explores the dualities of existence, the reconciliations of our past and present, and that all-too-familiar spiral of grief born out of nostalgia.
For Grace, her life is a tangle, born in the rusted graveyard of industrial Yorkshire to a police officer father who worked on an infamous case and a mother who battled her own mental health. As a rebellious teen, she chases adrenaline, pushing limits, her luck and delaying the consequences of her messiness.
As an adult, she looks like she has her shit together, but when she becomes unexpectedly pregnant, her world shifts, and as she brings new life into the world, the accumulated horrors of a lifetime of misadventure come flooding, falling, scalding, collapsing in on her.
Raw Content is an achingly personal book that lifts the veil on the horrors of motherhood. It draws us into the expanded heart of someone who no longer exists just for themselves. It’s a thread of violent paranoid yearning, a desperate cry for help, an unwavering unconditional love held together by stark beauty and grit of Northern England.
I could go on, and on, and on, and on, and probably a little bit more about why this book is such a necessary read. Whether you’re a parent or not, you are someone’s child, and reading this book gave me a new perspective on the terrors of giving life and the lengths that our mothers often, but not always, go to in order to protect their hearts - sometimes even from themselves.
I finished this book a couple of weeks ago. It’s taken until now for me to fully collate my thoughts— not because my experience with it was anything less than brilliant but rather these words, as complimentary as they are, still struggle to fully convey the terrifying joy this book captures.
I’d also love to just make a note about the way mental health is approached in this book. I find with a lot of lit-fic that the authors often either overdramatise, fetishise, or embellish often serious mental health issues — but with this, Booth, gives space and these topics are approached with the safety, grace, and respect they deserve.
Thank you to Little Brown Books for the advance copy.
With her latest, Naomi Booth explores the dualities of existence, the reconciliations of our past and present, and that all-too-familiar spiral of grief born out of nostalgia.
For Grace, her life is a tangle, born in the rusted graveyard of industrial Yorkshire to a police officer father who worked on an infamous case and a mother who battled her own mental health. As a rebellious teen, she chases adrenaline, pushing limits, her luck and delaying the consequences of her messiness.
As an adult, she looks like she has her shit together, but when she becomes unexpectedly pregnant, her world shifts, and as she brings new life into the world, the accumulated horrors of a lifetime of misadventure come flooding, falling, scalding, collapsing in on her.
Raw Content is an achingly personal book that lifts the veil on the horrors of motherhood. It draws us into the expanded heart of someone who no longer exists just for themselves. It’s a thread of violent paranoid yearning, a desperate cry for help, an unwavering unconditional love held together by stark beauty and grit of Northern England.
I could go on, and on, and on, and on, and probably a little bit more about why this book is such a necessary read. Whether you’re a parent or not, you are someone’s child, and reading this book gave me a new perspective on the terrors of giving life and the lengths that our mothers often, but not always, go to in order to protect their hearts - sometimes even from themselves.
I finished this book a couple of weeks ago. It’s taken until now for me to fully collate my thoughts— not because my experience with it was anything less than brilliant but rather these words, as complimentary as they are, still struggle to fully convey the terrifying joy this book captures.
I’d also love to just make a note about the way mental health is approached in this book. I find with a lot of lit-fic that the authors often either overdramatise, fetishise, or embellish often serious mental health issues — but with this, Booth, gives space and these topics are approached with the safety, grace, and respect they deserve.
Thank you to Little Brown Books for the advance copy.
April 14, 2025
I’m a bit of a Naomi Booth mega fan so I knew this was going to be a big release for me this year, but I wasn’t ready for just how touching and beautiful and familiar this book would be. I’m not a parent, but I’ve long admired how Booth writes about the transformative power of pregnancy and birth. In raw content, this is combined with an achingly relatable story about the impact of old wounds and new decisions - I found it profoundly moving. There’s also a new level in the prose that I just loved; I’ve always admired the writing, but here I was just swept away by the confidence, the clarity of language. A truly stunning book by a writer who feels like they are just getting better and better.
January 21, 2026
A powerful and really important story about post-natal depression, intrusive thoughts and the general fear of being a new mother suddenly responsible for a little life. (Not talking from experience!) I found reading it a pretty visceral experience, especially when it came to Grace’s anxiety and her love for her baby. A gripping but pretty terrifying read!
March 13, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group for the ARC!
4 stars!! Changed mt rating because stewing on this made it hit me so much more
Intrusive thoughts, doubts, worries, fears, etc. are all what Grace is having when she gives birth. This took a look into the side of motherhood that doesn't really get explored. Reading about how Grace would think about quite dark, shocking intrusive things or fears with her daughter can be hard for some to read, but it was interesting to see how she just wants to be a good mother and yet think of these things. As if her protective side and fearful side mix and go to a whole new level of well what if....
The first part of this was really great and gripped me and even more in the middle once we get to see how she is and what she thinks. It just felt a little repetitive at times, if this has been shorter, it would have still have had a strong story within it. But that's just me and my experience. This really does make you think once you've finished about what people go through and the mental state of what people can experience whether you're a parent or not.
4 stars!! Changed mt rating because stewing on this made it hit me so much more
Intrusive thoughts, doubts, worries, fears, etc. are all what Grace is having when she gives birth. This took a look into the side of motherhood that doesn't really get explored. Reading about how Grace would think about quite dark, shocking intrusive things or fears with her daughter can be hard for some to read, but it was interesting to see how she just wants to be a good mother and yet think of these things. As if her protective side and fearful side mix and go to a whole new level of well what if....
The first part of this was really great and gripped me and even more in the middle once we get to see how she is and what she thinks. It just felt a little repetitive at times, if this has been shorter, it would have still have had a strong story within it. But that's just me and my experience. This really does make you think once you've finished about what people go through and the mental state of what people can experience whether you're a parent or not.
May 14, 2025
CW: graphic depictions of childbirth, parental abandonment, graphic descriptions of postpartum depression/anxiety/OCD, visions of infanticide and child harm
🌟 Literary Fiction
🌟 Motherhood
🌈 Mental health representation (PPD, PPA, PPOCD)
This is the most raw and unflinching exploration of postpartum mental health and recovery I've read in fiction and it was both respectful and beautiful in equal measure.
The book centres around Grace and her experiences postnatally. The battles with her mental health and her unflinching love for her newborn.
The way in which the descriptions within this book are presented are nothing but stunning. From the visceral language used around childbirth and the appearance of a newborn, to her love for her newborn, to the tragic visions Grace has when she is almost in a psychosis like state were breathtaking. How something so tender could be described so violently and how something so grim could be described so beautifully was shocking, but it added so much depth to the writing. And the descriptions somehow make so much sense regardless of how juxtaposed they are with each other.
Having given birth and experienced postnatal mental health difficulties, this book resonated with me in a way I wasn't expecting. It was validating, it assuaged guilt, and it truly showed the depths of a mothers love even in the throes of despair.
Absolutely stunning.
🌟 Literary Fiction
🌟 Motherhood
🌈 Mental health representation (PPD, PPA, PPOCD)
This is the most raw and unflinching exploration of postpartum mental health and recovery I've read in fiction and it was both respectful and beautiful in equal measure.
The book centres around Grace and her experiences postnatally. The battles with her mental health and her unflinching love for her newborn.
The way in which the descriptions within this book are presented are nothing but stunning. From the visceral language used around childbirth and the appearance of a newborn, to her love for her newborn, to the tragic visions Grace has when she is almost in a psychosis like state were breathtaking. How something so tender could be described so violently and how something so grim could be described so beautifully was shocking, but it added so much depth to the writing. And the descriptions somehow make so much sense regardless of how juxtaposed they are with each other.
Having given birth and experienced postnatal mental health difficulties, this book resonated with me in a way I wasn't expecting. It was validating, it assuaged guilt, and it truly showed the depths of a mothers love even in the throes of despair.
Absolutely stunning.
Read
March 13, 2025Naomi Booth’s new novel ‘Raw Content’ follows a new mother dealing with the stress of having a baby to look after, while feeling completely unprepared. She exists in a state of constant anxiety, imagining awful things happening to her baby - struggling to trust herself to even walk with the pram near train tracks or rivers, for fear that she’ll be overcome with the urge to do something awful.
This was a really heavy read. The protagonist, Grace, grapples with a lot of mental health issues, and struggles to reach out to her friends and family, the father of her baby (who she doesn’t even know particularly well), or a mental health professional - and Booth’s unflinching prose makes her spirals into anxiety and intrusive thoughts feel very real. We see also the impacts of childhood and generational trauma, and parental abandonment, and how these have affected both Grace and her sister, who struggles with drug addiction.
While I enjoyed this for its honest and realistic depiction of mental health issues, I did ultimately find it a little repetitive. I’d recommend this to those who enjoyed Claire Kilroy’s ‘Soldier Sailor’, a similarly stressful novel about the struggles of early motherhood.
This was a really heavy read. The protagonist, Grace, grapples with a lot of mental health issues, and struggles to reach out to her friends and family, the father of her baby (who she doesn’t even know particularly well), or a mental health professional - and Booth’s unflinching prose makes her spirals into anxiety and intrusive thoughts feel very real. We see also the impacts of childhood and generational trauma, and parental abandonment, and how these have affected both Grace and her sister, who struggles with drug addiction.
While I enjoyed this for its honest and realistic depiction of mental health issues, I did ultimately find it a little repetitive. I’d recommend this to those who enjoyed Claire Kilroy’s ‘Soldier Sailor’, a similarly stressful novel about the struggles of early motherhood.
March 20, 2025
Raw Content is dark but hopeful as it delves into the impact of motherhood on mothers’ mental health.
We follow Grace, the daughter of a police officer father who worked on an infamous child abuse case that continues to haunt him, and a mother who was institutionalised when Grace and her sister Isobel were young. After her rebellious teenage years, Grace settled in York with a successful job proofreading legal files. However, her father’s violent history in the police force and her mother’s absence are entrenched in her mind, resulting in sporadic intruding deliberations. This spirals when Grace becomes unexpectedly pregnant. Following the relief of a relatively easy birth, Grace is engulfed by intrusive thoughts. She imagines holding her baby over Lendal Bridge and listening for the splash as the River Ouse submerges the infant, rids the flat of anything that could harm Rosa and avoids the steep stairs leading up to her flat in fear of dropping her baby. Everyday tasks and objects suddenly ignite visceral all-consuming fears.
Raw Content is a profound, realistic depiction of motherhood and post-natal mental health issues, particularly exploring OCD. Naomi Booth eloquently captures the joys and beauties of motherhood but also emphasises the doubt and fears in this insightful literary fiction.
We follow Grace, the daughter of a police officer father who worked on an infamous child abuse case that continues to haunt him, and a mother who was institutionalised when Grace and her sister Isobel were young. After her rebellious teenage years, Grace settled in York with a successful job proofreading legal files. However, her father’s violent history in the police force and her mother’s absence are entrenched in her mind, resulting in sporadic intruding deliberations. This spirals when Grace becomes unexpectedly pregnant. Following the relief of a relatively easy birth, Grace is engulfed by intrusive thoughts. She imagines holding her baby over Lendal Bridge and listening for the splash as the River Ouse submerges the infant, rids the flat of anything that could harm Rosa and avoids the steep stairs leading up to her flat in fear of dropping her baby. Everyday tasks and objects suddenly ignite visceral all-consuming fears.
Raw Content is a profound, realistic depiction of motherhood and post-natal mental health issues, particularly exploring OCD. Naomi Booth eloquently captures the joys and beauties of motherhood but also emphasises the doubt and fears in this insightful literary fiction.
December 21, 2024
A very difficult book to read, but with good reason. Grace doesn’t choose to become a mother, it almost happens subconsciously with Ryan and before she knows it, she’s giving birth and going home with her baby. But the birth is the easy part, everything else she struggles with. From intrusive thoughts to irrational fears, she worries about the state of her newborn.
This was full of emotionally charged and incredibly upsetting scenes. Grace wants nothing more than to be a good mother but she’s afraid of her own mind. The writing was achingly heartbreaking, teetering on the edge of utter despair. I read this book with bated breath and I’m so happy that Grace got her happy ending.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for kindly providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. #RawContent #NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
This was full of emotionally charged and incredibly upsetting scenes. Grace wants nothing more than to be a good mother but she’s afraid of her own mind. The writing was achingly heartbreaking, teetering on the edge of utter despair. I read this book with bated breath and I’m so happy that Grace got her happy ending.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for kindly providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. #RawContent #NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
February 26, 2025
raw content is a beautifully real and at times gripping novel about a woman's life and her journey into motherhood. It's told in a stream of consciousness fashion that makes you unable to look away from the page. This book deals with the topics of OCD and intrusive thoughts really well, albeit lacking a bit of depth due to the novels length. My only critique of this book is that I think it should've been longer, and there was more to be told. I think the writing in this novel is commendable, and I am looking forward to other works from this author. I would highly recommend picking this up when it's out!
Thank you to both NetGalley and the publishers for access to an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to both NetGalley and the publishers for access to an arc in exchange for an honest review.
February 22, 2025
Top tip, maybe don’t read this if you’re in an incredibly anxious and overthinking state right now.
Booth definitely explores some interesting -and often taboo (particularly surrounding motherhood and mental health) topics within this highly -and VERY emotional charged narrative.
However, I found the storyline lacking cohesion (though maybe that’s a stylistic choice), and the subject matter (though again somewhat interesting in its representation of MH in motherhood), lacking any greater depth or nuance in its exploration of the more complex issues of OCD and intrusive thoughts -aside from the way it may affect you, once becoming a mother.
2/2.5 stars
Booth definitely explores some interesting -and often taboo (particularly surrounding motherhood and mental health) topics within this highly -and VERY emotional charged narrative.
However, I found the storyline lacking cohesion (though maybe that’s a stylistic choice), and the subject matter (though again somewhat interesting in its representation of MH in motherhood), lacking any greater depth or nuance in its exploration of the more complex issues of OCD and intrusive thoughts -aside from the way it may affect you, once becoming a mother.
2/2.5 stars
March 13, 2025
This is an intense and gripping read. It explores the unexpected realities of motherhood.
Grace’s life has been tainted by the violent history of her father’s police career and the absence of her mother from a young age. When she becomes pregnant, she is hoping it will bring joy but she is plagued by irrational fears and dangers around her baby’s safety.
It’s an emotional and upsetting read at times, exploring motherhood, grief and fear. I liked how it examines not just the beauty and joy of motherhood but also the dark side, the fears, the doubts. It’s so well done.
Definitely a read I would recommend, @naomi_r_booth is a fabulous writer.
Grace’s life has been tainted by the violent history of her father’s police career and the absence of her mother from a young age. When she becomes pregnant, she is hoping it will bring joy but she is plagued by irrational fears and dangers around her baby’s safety.
It’s an emotional and upsetting read at times, exploring motherhood, grief and fear. I liked how it examines not just the beauty and joy of motherhood but also the dark side, the fears, the doubts. It’s so well done.
Definitely a read I would recommend, @naomi_r_booth is a fabulous writer.
March 22, 2025
This is book was absolutely beautifully written while being bleak, harrowing yet hopeful at the same time.
This is the most realistic book on motherhood I have ever read, from the way people talk to you when you’re pregnant, to health care professionals, it felt so realistic. That realism of the writing exacerbates the feeling of dread & heartbreak I felt as Grace falls deeper into her mental health struggles.
Postnatal health and generational trauma were dealt with carefully, there was so much nuance in the smallest of moments, a very well written psychological study of new motherhood.
This is the most realistic book on motherhood I have ever read, from the way people talk to you when you’re pregnant, to health care professionals, it felt so realistic. That realism of the writing exacerbates the feeling of dread & heartbreak I felt as Grace falls deeper into her mental health struggles.
Postnatal health and generational trauma were dealt with carefully, there was so much nuance in the smallest of moments, a very well written psychological study of new motherhood.
March 25, 2025
As a sufferer I consider this such an accurate portrayal of OCD. I don’t know if the author has personal experience somehow or just did amazing research but it’s great to see a book show it so well. Any destigmatisation (is that a word lol) that can be done is appreciated.
The descriptions of York and Yorkshire were delicious. Like word food. I felt like I was there.
I cried when it came to her mum. There was something intensely sad about her. Like she felt she had to shut herself away from everyone who knew her and loved her. It made me feel a lot.
Just a wonderful heartfelt book.
The descriptions of York and Yorkshire were delicious. Like word food. I felt like I was there.
I cried when it came to her mum. There was something intensely sad about her. Like she felt she had to shut herself away from everyone who knew her and loved her. It made me feel a lot.
Just a wonderful heartfelt book.
December 29, 2025
Such an accurate and intense representation of new motherhood, anxiety and OCD. I felt like I was transported back to when I first became a mother (almost 17 years ago now) and all of those overwhelming thoughts and fears. Still managing to find small glimmers of hope and unconditional love amongst the absolute dread of wondering if your baby would indeed, be better off without you. Beautiful and very emotional.
‘If only. If only I’d done things differently. If only I’d enjoyed those early, never-again days and weeks with Rosa, knowing she would still be here at the end of them’
‘If only. If only I’d done things differently. If only I’d enjoyed those early, never-again days and weeks with Rosa, knowing she would still be here at the end of them’
August 13, 2025
I very much enjoyed this novel (especially since it was first non Stephen King novel in four months), but I was disappointed when I realized that it yet another book about motherhood. Sealed was one of the best books I read in years, so I bought Raw Content without even a glance at the description. Naomi Booth’s writing is beautiful, and the book was mesmerizing at times, but I think I wanted just a little bit more.
December 1, 2024
One of those books that just left me a little bit emotional, and possibly not ok for quite a bit of it.
So many minor moments that were quite startling, I even gasped out loud at one point.
I'm not eloquent enough to describe why, but just know it's incredibly good.
So many minor moments that were quite startling, I even gasped out loud at one point.
I'm not eloquent enough to describe why, but just know it's incredibly good.
March 13, 2025
A sensitive, insightful and intimate portrait of the impact of motherhood on the mental health of a previously confident, competent professional woman. Intense and claustrophobic at times but interspersed with flashes of delightful humour that makes for a powerful but easily digested read.
May 3, 2025
A great read. Full of dark honest raw thoughts. Loved how the author wove a tapestry of past present and future whilst navigating the trials and tribulations of new parenthood.
Potentially biased as a Yorkshire reader living in Saddleworth area. Couldn’t put it down.
Potentially biased as a Yorkshire reader living in Saddleworth area. Couldn’t put it down.
July 10, 2025
“i wonder, in a moment of rapture, holding Rosa, why people ever saw fit to create the idea of a soul, when the body is so holy. and then i realise, in a flood of terror: because the body is so brief. because the body can be marred in a moment.”
September 21, 2025
I have given this 5 stars, but after reading just the first few chapters, I just wanted it to end. Raw and brutal, it felt like a punch in the stomach and a squeeze of everything inside. I think you need to be prepared to read this book, and I certainly wasn't. I don't recommend it lightly.
April 27, 2025
This book is masterful and wonderful
May 3, 2025
I feel harsh giving this three, but I just found it so boring. I didn’t really care for many of the characters, except maybe Isobel!
May 25, 2025
3.5/5
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