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Afterbirth
For fans of
Nightbitch
,
Motherthing
, and
Baby Teeth
, a “mommy horror” masterpiece as hypnotic as it is terrifying, from bold new talent Emma Cleary
A fractured sisterhood. A disturbing transformation. A desperate obsession.
Abandoning the ruins of her stalled life after an ill-omened romance, Brooke flies to Vancouver to care for her estranged sister, Izzy, who is recovering from reproductive surgery. But Izzy’s rapidly decaying apartment building, its hallways stalked by an ominous crone known only as Medusa, offers little of the refuge Brooke craves.
Seeking solace in the horror movies her ex-girlfriend loved, Brooke soon finds traces of horror bleeding from the screen into their lives. As old wounds reopen, strange forces begin to exert their power over the sisters, culminating in an unexpected and inexplicably accelerating pregnancy that will lock Brooke and Izzy in a nightmarish rivalry, and send one of them spiraling into dangerous obsession.
Eerie, macabre, and startlingly original, Emma Cleary’s haunting literary debut powerfully explores questions of maternity, sisterhood, and bodily autonomy. Threaded with a beautifully evoked yearning, Afterbirth reverberates with menace and the echoes of classic horror cinema, lingering in the mind long after the final seconds play.
A fractured sisterhood. A disturbing transformation. A desperate obsession.
Abandoning the ruins of her stalled life after an ill-omened romance, Brooke flies to Vancouver to care for her estranged sister, Izzy, who is recovering from reproductive surgery. But Izzy’s rapidly decaying apartment building, its hallways stalked by an ominous crone known only as Medusa, offers little of the refuge Brooke craves.
Seeking solace in the horror movies her ex-girlfriend loved, Brooke soon finds traces of horror bleeding from the screen into their lives. As old wounds reopen, strange forces begin to exert their power over the sisters, culminating in an unexpected and inexplicably accelerating pregnancy that will lock Brooke and Izzy in a nightmarish rivalry, and send one of them spiraling into dangerous obsession.
Eerie, macabre, and startlingly original, Emma Cleary’s haunting literary debut powerfully explores questions of maternity, sisterhood, and bodily autonomy. Threaded with a beautifully evoked yearning, Afterbirth reverberates with menace and the echoes of classic horror cinema, lingering in the mind long after the final seconds play.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published March 12, 2026
23 people are currently reading
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
March 25, 2026
meh. not for me
November 5, 2025
A true feminine horror tale with messy family drama mixed in. The writing was so well done in this book and the plot is hauntingly captivating. It really is like reading how horror movies come to life. This book was very edgy and had me anticipating what would happen next. This book is spooky, relevant, and a vivid exploration of desire. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
December 3, 2025
That was a WILD ride.
Brooke has just left Japan after a teaching job and relationship ended- and she goes to Vancouver to help her sister with her dog while she has surgery to remove a mass in her abdomen. As Brooke gets to Izzy’s apartment she realizes how run down it is, with mold on the ceilings, trash, and a crazy old woman named Marisa that seems to appear out of nowhere and scare everyone- but Izzy seems content. While Brooke cares for her sister and her beloved dog, she starts to notice strange noises, figures, and feelings in the apartment- but no one else seems to notice anything. Izzy continues to get better, but Brooke starts to get worse- and as the girls switch roles, jealousy, want, and violence creep in and fester until one of them does something they can never take back.
This book is the definition of mommy horror and it grips you from the start then chips you away page by page creeping into your subconscious and festering inside your brain. It’s like a scab you pick only for it to bleed and return over and over.
You can feel the ick dripping off the pages and the undercurrent of unease never lets up.
If you like mommy horror- pick this one up. You won’t regret it.
Thank you to Harper Collins Publishing and NetGalley for the privilege of reading this ARC in exchange for an honest review
Brooke has just left Japan after a teaching job and relationship ended- and she goes to Vancouver to help her sister with her dog while she has surgery to remove a mass in her abdomen. As Brooke gets to Izzy’s apartment she realizes how run down it is, with mold on the ceilings, trash, and a crazy old woman named Marisa that seems to appear out of nowhere and scare everyone- but Izzy seems content. While Brooke cares for her sister and her beloved dog, she starts to notice strange noises, figures, and feelings in the apartment- but no one else seems to notice anything. Izzy continues to get better, but Brooke starts to get worse- and as the girls switch roles, jealousy, want, and violence creep in and fester until one of them does something they can never take back.
This book is the definition of mommy horror and it grips you from the start then chips you away page by page creeping into your subconscious and festering inside your brain. It’s like a scab you pick only for it to bleed and return over and over.
You can feel the ick dripping off the pages and the undercurrent of unease never lets up.
If you like mommy horror- pick this one up. You won’t regret it.
Thank you to Harper Collins Publishing and NetGalley for the privilege of reading this ARC in exchange for an honest review
December 31, 2025
This was a great first novel by Emma Cleary. I am not super well versed in mommy horror as a genre of fiction, but it resonates deeply with the complexities and fears of modern day motherhood.
We follow our protagonist Brooke, who temporarily moves in with her sister Izzy to be her at home caretaker while Izzy recovers from a cyst removal. Her surgery goes "wrong" for Izzy, when they end up learning that the growht has spread and Izzy needs a hysterectomy. That is when we/Brooke learns how badly her sister wanted a child. Through that, we learn of the struggles the whole family has gone through for children, and how brooke herself is basically a miracle baby. the desperate yearn for children that many women innately feel is palpable, and yet the infertility and/or lack of machinery that many women suffer from is portrayed through Izzy's struggles.
Alongside all of this, we have brooke's main story line, which is to become suddenly pregnant with some unknown demon "knot". Her sister becomes obsessed, thinking the baby growing inside Brooke must be hers, while brooke absolutely abhors and refusing to acknowledge it as her own baby.
I really liked how brooke's view is portrayed. I think it's a really strong way of explaining the feelings that some women have when they say they do not want children. There is no maternal desire. And for others, its everything they could possibly want and more- they're desperate for children, as seen through Izzy.
Brooke's experience metamorphasizes the gruesome realities of pregnancy and childbirth. How disgusting your body becomes, how painful, the horrible urges that arise, and how bloody and gorey birth can be. And at no point does Brooke ever actually want this child/thing, so we are just rawly seeing the horror.
I liked that a lot.
There are definitely elements to this book that detract from it. The cecelia/japan story line is pretty integrated, but doesn't seem to really do much for the plot aside from giving our protagonist some back ground. I feel we're introduced to many characters with "clues" dropped (eg Lucie and the tarot cards, wendy/kioko and the song) but little feels done to actually bring these together in the end gracefully. These unnecessary bits can make the beginning drag a long a bit, but I find once the story got going, it really went.
And I don't feel that these elements detracted too much from the actual story. I was immersed very early on and stayed hooked through it. Overall, really enjoyed this book. Thank you goodreads & emma cleary for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
We follow our protagonist Brooke, who temporarily moves in with her sister Izzy to be her at home caretaker while Izzy recovers from a cyst removal. Her surgery goes "wrong" for Izzy, when they end up learning that the growht has spread and Izzy needs a hysterectomy. That is when we/Brooke learns how badly her sister wanted a child. Through that, we learn of the struggles the whole family has gone through for children, and how brooke herself is basically a miracle baby. the desperate yearn for children that many women innately feel is palpable, and yet the infertility and/or lack of machinery that many women suffer from is portrayed through Izzy's struggles.
Alongside all of this, we have brooke's main story line, which is to become suddenly pregnant with some unknown demon "knot". Her sister becomes obsessed, thinking the baby growing inside Brooke must be hers, while brooke absolutely abhors and refusing to acknowledge it as her own baby.
I really liked how brooke's view is portrayed. I think it's a really strong way of explaining the feelings that some women have when they say they do not want children. There is no maternal desire. And for others, its everything they could possibly want and more- they're desperate for children, as seen through Izzy.
Brooke's experience metamorphasizes the gruesome realities of pregnancy and childbirth. How disgusting your body becomes, how painful, the horrible urges that arise, and how bloody and gorey birth can be. And at no point does Brooke ever actually want this child/thing, so we are just rawly seeing the horror.
I liked that a lot.
There are definitely elements to this book that detract from it. The cecelia/japan story line is pretty integrated, but doesn't seem to really do much for the plot aside from giving our protagonist some back ground. I feel we're introduced to many characters with "clues" dropped (eg Lucie and the tarot cards, wendy/kioko and the song) but little feels done to actually bring these together in the end gracefully. These unnecessary bits can make the beginning drag a long a bit, but I find once the story got going, it really went.
And I don't feel that these elements detracted too much from the actual story. I was immersed very early on and stayed hooked through it. Overall, really enjoyed this book. Thank you goodreads & emma cleary for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
I received this ARC book as a goodreads giveaway. I want to thank Emma Cleary and Harper Collins Publishers for a chance to read Afterbirth before it is published.
Brooke and Izzy are the two main characters of this book. Izzy is having surgery and it didn't go as expected and she had to have a full hysterectomy. Brooke is the younger sister who came to help take care of Izzy during her hospital stay and after her hospital stay.
I will not spoil the book for any reader. Just know this book is twisted and creepy. Emma Cleary has captured mommy horror really well. I am not one for horror books and movies but I half way enjoyed Afterbirth. So I am giving this book a four star rating due to how well she captured mommy horror, the twists and turns, the unexpected help from Medusa that Brooke received, and Sunshine (Izzy's dog).
I did not like the fact that in some parts of the book it was hard to figure out if Brooke was dreaming or having a flashback, and the ending not knowing if Brooke was able to go back home.
Brooke and Izzy are the two main characters of this book. Izzy is having surgery and it didn't go as expected and she had to have a full hysterectomy. Brooke is the younger sister who came to help take care of Izzy during her hospital stay and after her hospital stay.
I will not spoil the book for any reader. Just know this book is twisted and creepy. Emma Cleary has captured mommy horror really well. I am not one for horror books and movies but I half way enjoyed Afterbirth. So I am giving this book a four star rating due to how well she captured mommy horror, the twists and turns, the unexpected help from Medusa that Brooke received, and Sunshine (Izzy's dog).
I did not like the fact that in some parts of the book it was hard to figure out if Brooke was dreaming or having a flashback, and the ending not knowing if Brooke was able to go back home.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Ich bin überhaupt nicht sicher, was ich von diesem Buch halten soll.
Stilistisch zeigt es großes Potential, vor allem in Richtung Horror, aber gleichzeitig hat es sich dem Horror nicht wirklich hingegeben, wollte zu literarisch sein?
Auch finde ich das Einbauen der Erlebnisse in Japan und dem Folkhorror immer etwas ... off? Es hat sich für mich nie vollständig eingefügt, teilweise wirkt es im Nachhinein wie ein versuchter Beweis, dass Brooke queer ist. Zu wenig von der Beziehung mit einer anderen Frau hatte einen Einfluss auf die Geschichte, hat zu wenig Sinn für mich ergeben im größeren Kontext.
Schade, ich hätte gern viel mehr Spaß an dem Buch gehabt, aber ich denke, hier wurde versucht, viel Kluges einzubauen, aber es gelang nicht richtig.
Stilistisch zeigt es großes Potential, vor allem in Richtung Horror, aber gleichzeitig hat es sich dem Horror nicht wirklich hingegeben, wollte zu literarisch sein?
Auch finde ich das Einbauen der Erlebnisse in Japan und dem Folkhorror immer etwas ... off? Es hat sich für mich nie vollständig eingefügt, teilweise wirkt es im Nachhinein wie ein versuchter Beweis, dass Brooke queer ist. Zu wenig von der Beziehung mit einer anderen Frau hatte einen Einfluss auf die Geschichte, hat zu wenig Sinn für mich ergeben im größeren Kontext.
Schade, ich hätte gern viel mehr Spaß an dem Buch gehabt, aber ich denke, hier wurde versucht, viel Kluges einzubauen, aber es gelang nicht richtig.
March 18, 2026
Sisterhood of the travelling cyst
BWAF Score: 7/10
TL;DR: Emma Cleary’s debut grafts body horror onto a story about sisters so emotionally precise it would work without a single supernatural element. The prose is lush, the dread is earned, and the final act is a full-contact nightmare that grows from real tenderness. Slow to ignite, but once it catches, Our Monstrous Bodies / Afterbirth burns a shape you won’t forget.
About a third of the way through Our Monstrous Bodies Brooke, our narrator, presses her fingers into her sister Izzy’s swollen abdomen and feels the fibroid cyst shift beneath her skin. She describes it as “a spare knee or something.” Izzy snorts. The exchange is funny and tender and a little bit nauseating, and it is doing about six things at once, which is more or less the operating frequency of this entire novel.
Brooke, twenty-seven, queer, recently back at her parents’ house after a teaching stint in Japan and a gutting breakup, flies to Vancouver to help her older half-sister Izzy recover from surgery to remove a uterine growth. Walk the dog, make noodles, be a warm body in the apartment. Instead, Izzy’s routine myomectomy goes catastrophically wrong and becomes an emergency hysterectomy, the dog vanishes, a terrifying elderly neighbor named Medusa keeps materializing inside their locked apartment, and Brooke’s own body begins to betray her in ways that feel increasingly impossible. Cleary takes this slow domestic burn and ratchets it into something feral and mythic without ever fully abandoning the realist register. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it really fucking works.
Cleary writes with a textural density that borders on obsessive: the mint-green bathtub, the pink grit ringing the tub, the parma violets smell of old ladies’ handbags. It creates a world you can almost taste, which matters enormously once that world starts to curdle. At its best, the writing has a quality like touching something in the dark and slowly realizing it’s alive. At its worst, it trips over its own richness. There are passages in the back half where the momentum is screaming forward but the prose wants to stop and layer one more image, and the tension sags just enough for the spell to wobble. Cleary is plainly in love with language, and most of the time that love is contagious, but she hasn’t quite learned when to kill her darlings and let a scene just rip.
Emma Cleary is a Liverpool-born, Vancouver-based writer who serves as editor-in-chief of Geist, one of Canada’s more interesting literary magazines. She holds both a PhD in literature and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and her short fiction has appeared in Best British Short Stories and the James Baldwin Review. The novel was developed under the working title All Those Strangers and acquired in a three-publisher deal by HarperCollins Canada, Borough Press in the UK, and Harper in the US, where it’s published as Afterbirth. You can feel the literary-academic DNA in the book’s architecture, the way it braids horror cinema and visual art and fairy tale into the sisters’ story, but it never reads like a dissertation. This is a debut that reads like someone who’s been thinking about these ideas for a very long time, and the fact that she built it during an MFA makes its ambition feel earned rather than reckless.
The horror operates on a principle of contamination. Brooke watches The Babadook, Ringu, Don’t Look Now, and the imagery starts bleeding into her waking life. Cleary is explicit about the mechanism, and it could feel heavy-handed but mostly doesn’t because Brooke’s relationship with these films is so specific, filtered through her ex-girlfriend Cecelia’s obsession with “mommy horror.” The scariest moments aren’t the supernatural ones. They’re the ones where bodies do what bodies do: bleed, swell, expel, betray. The image of Izzy’s hospital gown with its single tiny brown bloodstain next to her ashen face. The scene where Brooke and James have sex and something goes horribly wrong at the mirror, her reflection warping into something ancient while he recoils. Izzy late in the novel holding up tiny yellow knitted booties and saying “Aren’t they cute?” and the bottom dropping clean out of everything, warmth curdled to menace. These scenes will stick to the inside of your skull.
The sister dynamic is the engine. Brooke and Izzy are eleven years apart, their relationship built on love and resentment and mutual incomprehension that Cleary renders with painful accuracy. You believe every step because Cleary has laid the emotional groundwork with such patience. Where it loses me is in pacing. Part One is long. There’s a stretch of maybe sixty pages that feels like it’s accumulating atmosphere at the expense of forward motion, and I spent a chunk of the early book thinking okay, I trust you, can we go now? The novel could lose thirty pages up front and be tighter for it. James, Brooke’s love interest, also feels underserved. He’s compelling on the page, but his arc trails off rather than resolves.
This isn’t a book for everyone. It’s slow to start, deliberately ambiguous about its own supernatural rules, and viscerally uncomfortable in ways that will test some readers. But it’s one of the most distinctive horror debuts I’ve read in a while, a book that uses the genre as a lens for looking at things too painful to examine directly: grief, bodily autonomy, the violence of reproductive medicine, the way sisters can love each other and still become each other’s monsters. Cleary is a real talent, and I will read whatever the hell she writes next.
BWAF Score: 7/10
TL;DR: Emma Cleary’s debut grafts body horror onto a story about sisters so emotionally precise it would work without a single supernatural element. The prose is lush, the dread is earned, and the final act is a full-contact nightmare that grows from real tenderness. Slow to ignite, but once it catches, Our Monstrous Bodies / Afterbirth burns a shape you won’t forget.
About a third of the way through Our Monstrous Bodies Brooke, our narrator, presses her fingers into her sister Izzy’s swollen abdomen and feels the fibroid cyst shift beneath her skin. She describes it as “a spare knee or something.” Izzy snorts. The exchange is funny and tender and a little bit nauseating, and it is doing about six things at once, which is more or less the operating frequency of this entire novel.
Brooke, twenty-seven, queer, recently back at her parents’ house after a teaching stint in Japan and a gutting breakup, flies to Vancouver to help her older half-sister Izzy recover from surgery to remove a uterine growth. Walk the dog, make noodles, be a warm body in the apartment. Instead, Izzy’s routine myomectomy goes catastrophically wrong and becomes an emergency hysterectomy, the dog vanishes, a terrifying elderly neighbor named Medusa keeps materializing inside their locked apartment, and Brooke’s own body begins to betray her in ways that feel increasingly impossible. Cleary takes this slow domestic burn and ratchets it into something feral and mythic without ever fully abandoning the realist register. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it really fucking works.
Cleary writes with a textural density that borders on obsessive: the mint-green bathtub, the pink grit ringing the tub, the parma violets smell of old ladies’ handbags. It creates a world you can almost taste, which matters enormously once that world starts to curdle. At its best, the writing has a quality like touching something in the dark and slowly realizing it’s alive. At its worst, it trips over its own richness. There are passages in the back half where the momentum is screaming forward but the prose wants to stop and layer one more image, and the tension sags just enough for the spell to wobble. Cleary is plainly in love with language, and most of the time that love is contagious, but she hasn’t quite learned when to kill her darlings and let a scene just rip.
Emma Cleary is a Liverpool-born, Vancouver-based writer who serves as editor-in-chief of Geist, one of Canada’s more interesting literary magazines. She holds both a PhD in literature and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and her short fiction has appeared in Best British Short Stories and the James Baldwin Review. The novel was developed under the working title All Those Strangers and acquired in a three-publisher deal by HarperCollins Canada, Borough Press in the UK, and Harper in the US, where it’s published as Afterbirth. You can feel the literary-academic DNA in the book’s architecture, the way it braids horror cinema and visual art and fairy tale into the sisters’ story, but it never reads like a dissertation. This is a debut that reads like someone who’s been thinking about these ideas for a very long time, and the fact that she built it during an MFA makes its ambition feel earned rather than reckless.
The horror operates on a principle of contamination. Brooke watches The Babadook, Ringu, Don’t Look Now, and the imagery starts bleeding into her waking life. Cleary is explicit about the mechanism, and it could feel heavy-handed but mostly doesn’t because Brooke’s relationship with these films is so specific, filtered through her ex-girlfriend Cecelia’s obsession with “mommy horror.” The scariest moments aren’t the supernatural ones. They’re the ones where bodies do what bodies do: bleed, swell, expel, betray. The image of Izzy’s hospital gown with its single tiny brown bloodstain next to her ashen face. The scene where Brooke and James have sex and something goes horribly wrong at the mirror, her reflection warping into something ancient while he recoils. Izzy late in the novel holding up tiny yellow knitted booties and saying “Aren’t they cute?” and the bottom dropping clean out of everything, warmth curdled to menace. These scenes will stick to the inside of your skull.
The sister dynamic is the engine. Brooke and Izzy are eleven years apart, their relationship built on love and resentment and mutual incomprehension that Cleary renders with painful accuracy. You believe every step because Cleary has laid the emotional groundwork with such patience. Where it loses me is in pacing. Part One is long. There’s a stretch of maybe sixty pages that feels like it’s accumulating atmosphere at the expense of forward motion, and I spent a chunk of the early book thinking okay, I trust you, can we go now? The novel could lose thirty pages up front and be tighter for it. James, Brooke’s love interest, also feels underserved. He’s compelling on the page, but his arc trails off rather than resolves.
This isn’t a book for everyone. It’s slow to start, deliberately ambiguous about its own supernatural rules, and viscerally uncomfortable in ways that will test some readers. But it’s one of the most distinctive horror debuts I’ve read in a while, a book that uses the genre as a lens for looking at things too painful to examine directly: grief, bodily autonomy, the violence of reproductive medicine, the way sisters can love each other and still become each other’s monsters. Cleary is a real talent, and I will read whatever the hell she writes next.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to Harper Collins/ Borough Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Brooke, a young woman who has recently come out of a relationship and has a history of disordered eating, goes to Vancouver to help her sister Izzy recover from surgery for a large cyst which goes sadly wrong.
While in Izzy's apartment, Brooke starts to see and hear strange things, culminating in a horrifying reflection of herself during a passionate encounter with a local she meets. What follows becomes more and more unhinged as Brooke finds her body rapidly changing, and her sister's behaviour increasingly unsettling.
I liked the themes of female bodies and motherhood that the author explores here, and Brooke and Izzy's relationship felt realistic.
The first part of the book was very slow, and as compelling as the second part was, I thought the whole story could have been shorter. There were also characters that initially seemed important and then there was no conclusion to their threads, which was a shame.
Generally a great literary horror debut, I really liked this book.
Brooke, a young woman who has recently come out of a relationship and has a history of disordered eating, goes to Vancouver to help her sister Izzy recover from surgery for a large cyst which goes sadly wrong.
While in Izzy's apartment, Brooke starts to see and hear strange things, culminating in a horrifying reflection of herself during a passionate encounter with a local she meets. What follows becomes more and more unhinged as Brooke finds her body rapidly changing, and her sister's behaviour increasingly unsettling.
I liked the themes of female bodies and motherhood that the author explores here, and Brooke and Izzy's relationship felt realistic.
The first part of the book was very slow, and as compelling as the second part was, I thought the whole story could have been shorter. There were also characters that initially seemed important and then there was no conclusion to their threads, which was a shame.
Generally a great literary horror debut, I really liked this book.
December 14, 2025
Afterbirth by Emma Cleary. Thanks to @harperbooks for the gifted Arc ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Brooke has arrived in Vancouver to take care of her older sister who will be convalescing from reproductive surgery. There’s an odd woman who stalks the halls of the apartment. Brooke soon starts exhibiting strange symptoms and wonders if the building, or the strange woman, are affecting her.
This one was quite the wild ride. I felt a little lost at the end and I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I do know it was creepy as heck. It kept my interest and I liked the main characters, especially how much they loved their dog. There’s some Japanese folklore and classic horror background to the story. I loved the relationship between the sisters and how it was disturbed but not broken.
“I didn’t like the idea of some force that could take over your body, kill your only chance at the thing you most wanted, and give you something else in its place.”
Read this if you like:
-Sister relationships
-Abstract horror
-Japanese horror or folklore
-Medical or pregnancy dramas
Afterbirth comes out 3/24.
Brooke has arrived in Vancouver to take care of her older sister who will be convalescing from reproductive surgery. There’s an odd woman who stalks the halls of the apartment. Brooke soon starts exhibiting strange symptoms and wonders if the building, or the strange woman, are affecting her.
This one was quite the wild ride. I felt a little lost at the end and I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I do know it was creepy as heck. It kept my interest and I liked the main characters, especially how much they loved their dog. There’s some Japanese folklore and classic horror background to the story. I loved the relationship between the sisters and how it was disturbed but not broken.
“I didn’t like the idea of some force that could take over your body, kill your only chance at the thing you most wanted, and give you something else in its place.”
Read this if you like:
-Sister relationships
-Abstract horror
-Japanese horror or folklore
-Medical or pregnancy dramas
Afterbirth comes out 3/24.
March 25, 2026
Haunting, bold, eerie, chilling and totally captivating, Our Monstrous Hearts is a mesmerising literary horror that had me hooked. Beautifully written and evocative, debut author Emma Clearly has crafted an unforgettable exploration of a woman’s bodily autonomy, motherhood, female rage, heartbreak and loneliness that is told through the lens of the mommy horror genre. I’ll admit, it's a genre I know little about and I haven’t actually seen Rosemary’s Baby, which is the movie this is compared to in the publisher’s synopsis. But that didn’t stop me from appreciating the art of Emma’s horror storytelling or understanding the themes she explores on these pages. This story will resonate with so many women and perfectly captures the expectations, challenges and fears that surround modern womanhood and motherhood.
The story follows sisters Brooke and Izzy. Still reeling from a recent heartbreak, Brooke travels to Vancouver to help Izzy recover from major reproductive surgery. It’s been some time since they were together and they are very different people, so when Brooke first arrives there are some teething problems. These aren’t helped by where Izzy lives. Her decaying apartment building is haunted by a strange old crown known only as Medusa who stalks the halls, and Brooke is sure she sees and hears things that Izzy doesn’t believe are real. Seeking solace, Brooke turns to the horror films that her ex-girlfriend loved, only to find that some of the horror seeps from the screen into her own life.
Brooke’s curious symptoms only grow, and it is here that the sisters’ different stances on motherhood turn the chasm between them into a gulf as Izzy’s desire turns to obsession. Ms. Clearly perfectly captures both sides: Izzy’s all-consuming yearning for motherhood and the empty void of maternal desire that exists in Brooke. She also evocatively captures the gruelling and gruesome physical realities of pregnancy and childbirth: the awful symptoms, the way your body changes, the gory mess of childbirth, and how it’s all completely out of your control. Because Brooke has a complete lack of maternal desire, we see all of this in stark detail, without the soft warm glow that maternal longing usually paints over the terrible side of pregnancy and birth. Instead, it is pure horror. Gruesome. Raw. Terrifying.
Don’t miss this spectacular debut.
The story follows sisters Brooke and Izzy. Still reeling from a recent heartbreak, Brooke travels to Vancouver to help Izzy recover from major reproductive surgery. It’s been some time since they were together and they are very different people, so when Brooke first arrives there are some teething problems. These aren’t helped by where Izzy lives. Her decaying apartment building is haunted by a strange old crown known only as Medusa who stalks the halls, and Brooke is sure she sees and hears things that Izzy doesn’t believe are real. Seeking solace, Brooke turns to the horror films that her ex-girlfriend loved, only to find that some of the horror seeps from the screen into her own life.
Brooke’s curious symptoms only grow, and it is here that the sisters’ different stances on motherhood turn the chasm between them into a gulf as Izzy’s desire turns to obsession. Ms. Clearly perfectly captures both sides: Izzy’s all-consuming yearning for motherhood and the empty void of maternal desire that exists in Brooke. She also evocatively captures the gruelling and gruesome physical realities of pregnancy and childbirth: the awful symptoms, the way your body changes, the gory mess of childbirth, and how it’s all completely out of your control. Because Brooke has a complete lack of maternal desire, we see all of this in stark detail, without the soft warm glow that maternal longing usually paints over the terrible side of pregnancy and birth. Instead, it is pure horror. Gruesome. Raw. Terrifying.
Don’t miss this spectacular debut.
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
Family drama, toxic relationships, crazy entities and some very strange feminine horror with a touch of gore- you mean I'll feel uncomfortable?
👌🏻 please and thank you!
There are a few scenes in this that will haunt me for a very long time.
I can also imagine this being a really fun movie
🎬 👀 just sayin'!
I'm excited to see what else this author puts out because this was a wild a$$ debute.
While the first part can feel a bit slow 🐌 🐌
It really starts to pick up and by the time you finish it feels like you just stepped off some kind of twisted roller coaster 😅
👌🏻 please and thank you!
There are a few scenes in this that will haunt me for a very long time.
I can also imagine this being a really fun movie
🎬 👀 just sayin'!
I'm excited to see what else this author puts out because this was a wild a$$ debute.
While the first part can feel a bit slow 🐌 🐌
It really starts to pick up and by the time you finish it feels like you just stepped off some kind of twisted roller coaster 😅
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
2.5*
March 22, 2026
Wow! I am new to the horror genre, especially “mommy horror”, and this was an absolute trip. Highly emotional, creepy, and bizarre, it was unlike anything I’ve read before. I enjoyed the story!
March 24, 2026
DNF at 40%. So much said, so little happening. I tried.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Thank you so much for the proof!!
3 stars
Currently thinking over my thoughts for a review because that was a ride and I enjoyed it but then it just fell flat for me???? confused and conflicted atm
3 stars
Currently thinking over my thoughts for a review because that was a ride and I enjoyed it but then it just fell flat for me???? confused and conflicted atm
March 24, 2026
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thank you to NetGalley and Harper for the ARC.
📝 Short Summary
Afterbirth follows Brooke as she leaves behind the mess of her own life and heads to Vancouver to care for her estranged sister, Izzy, after reproductive surgery. But nothing about this visit feels normal. Izzy’s apartment building is decaying, an eerie woman known as Medusa seems to haunt the halls, and the line between horror movies and real life begins to blur. As the sisters’ already fragile relationship starts to crack open, strange and disturbing events build into something deeply unsettling, raw, and impossible to look away from.
Review
This was mommy horror at its best for me. It is strange, raw, uncomfortable, and the kind of book that keeps you questioning everything the whole time. I kept asking myself, is this real, is this imagined, is this some kind of dream logic, and that made the reading experience even more intense.
One of the strongest parts of this book was the atmosphere. Emma Cleary knows how to create images that get under your skin. The descriptions were honestly stunning in that dark, unsettling way where you can see everything so clearly even when you wish you could not. There is a very eerie, almost hypnotic quality to the writing that really worked for me.
This is definitely not a book for everyone, and I think that is part of what makes it stand out. It takes its time getting where it is going, so yes, it has a slow start, but for me that slower build helped the dread settle in. It gives the story room to grow stranger and more unnerving, and by the time things really start escalating, you are already fully trapped in that discomfort.
What I also appreciated is how messy and emotional this book feels. It is not horror just for shock value. There is so much here about sisterhood, maternity, bodily autonomy, obsession, and the way relationships can become twisted by old wounds and buried resentment. That gave the story a lot more depth and made the horror hit even harder.
I really loved how uncertain the whole book feels. It never lets you get too comfortable, and it keeps shifting just enough that you are always slightly off balance. That feeling of not fully trusting what you are seeing or reading worked so well here and added so much to the overall tension.
Overall, I thought this was a really strong and memorable horror debut. It is unsettling, beautifully written, and not afraid to make the reader uncomfortable. If you like raw, weird, deeply atmospheric horror, this is absolutely one to pick up. Just know going in that it is a slower burn and definitely not trying to play it safe.
✅ Would I Recommend It?
Yes, but to the right reader. If you like slow burn horror, body horror, and books that leave you feeling unsettled and a little haunted, this is worth reading.
Thank you to NetGalley and Harper for the ARC.
📝 Short Summary
Afterbirth follows Brooke as she leaves behind the mess of her own life and heads to Vancouver to care for her estranged sister, Izzy, after reproductive surgery. But nothing about this visit feels normal. Izzy’s apartment building is decaying, an eerie woman known as Medusa seems to haunt the halls, and the line between horror movies and real life begins to blur. As the sisters’ already fragile relationship starts to crack open, strange and disturbing events build into something deeply unsettling, raw, and impossible to look away from.
Review
This was mommy horror at its best for me. It is strange, raw, uncomfortable, and the kind of book that keeps you questioning everything the whole time. I kept asking myself, is this real, is this imagined, is this some kind of dream logic, and that made the reading experience even more intense.
One of the strongest parts of this book was the atmosphere. Emma Cleary knows how to create images that get under your skin. The descriptions were honestly stunning in that dark, unsettling way where you can see everything so clearly even when you wish you could not. There is a very eerie, almost hypnotic quality to the writing that really worked for me.
This is definitely not a book for everyone, and I think that is part of what makes it stand out. It takes its time getting where it is going, so yes, it has a slow start, but for me that slower build helped the dread settle in. It gives the story room to grow stranger and more unnerving, and by the time things really start escalating, you are already fully trapped in that discomfort.
What I also appreciated is how messy and emotional this book feels. It is not horror just for shock value. There is so much here about sisterhood, maternity, bodily autonomy, obsession, and the way relationships can become twisted by old wounds and buried resentment. That gave the story a lot more depth and made the horror hit even harder.
I really loved how uncertain the whole book feels. It never lets you get too comfortable, and it keeps shifting just enough that you are always slightly off balance. That feeling of not fully trusting what you are seeing or reading worked so well here and added so much to the overall tension.
Overall, I thought this was a really strong and memorable horror debut. It is unsettling, beautifully written, and not afraid to make the reader uncomfortable. If you like raw, weird, deeply atmospheric horror, this is absolutely one to pick up. Just know going in that it is a slower burn and definitely not trying to play it safe.
✅ Would I Recommend It?
Yes, but to the right reader. If you like slow burn horror, body horror, and books that leave you feeling unsettled and a little haunted, this is worth reading.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
When we meet our main character, Brooke is traveling to visit her sister Izzy to care for her after a reproductive surgery. Izzy is a decade older than Brooke and hasn’t been able to conceive a child due to health complications, and when the surgery doesn’t go to plan, Izzy’s chances of having a baby are farther than ever from reach. As Izzy’s recovery stretches on, the dynamic between the sisters begins to show more and more cracks. While Brooke cares for her sister, strange things begin happening in Izzy’s apartment building; mirrors reflect strange and monstrous creatures and things begin disappearing. Brooke and her sister descend into a shared breakdown that reveals so much about motherhood, bodily autonomy and choice, and the complex relationships between siblings.
Brooke and Izzy have a large age gap and are half sisters; their mother tried to conceive and sadly lost several pregnancies in the decade before Brooke was born. We are meant to understand early on that there is a great amount of shared trauma between the women in this family surrounding reproductive health, pregnancy, and loss. Through the book there is this sense that pain is transferable or can at least be felt by people who love you; early in the book Izzy is feeling the physical effects of her reproductive health problems and the loss of the future she had dreamed of, while Brooke has been healthy and mostly avoiding thinking about children. As the book progresses, Brooke takes on more and more of these experiences for her sister in a twisted and horrific portrayal of pregnancy and birth.
My only critique is that the book felt a bit slow to start, and that was largely due to spending a lot of time going into Brooke’s past relationship and time in Japan. We also spent a lot of time with various friends or neighbors who occasionally would do something ominous or sow division between the sisters. While no character was uninteresting per se, the time spent exploring these past and present relationships didn’t add a ton to the story.
*Thank you to Harper, NetGalley, and the author for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Brooke and Izzy have a large age gap and are half sisters; their mother tried to conceive and sadly lost several pregnancies in the decade before Brooke was born. We are meant to understand early on that there is a great amount of shared trauma between the women in this family surrounding reproductive health, pregnancy, and loss. Through the book there is this sense that pain is transferable or can at least be felt by people who love you; early in the book Izzy is feeling the physical effects of her reproductive health problems and the loss of the future she had dreamed of, while Brooke has been healthy and mostly avoiding thinking about children. As the book progresses, Brooke takes on more and more of these experiences for her sister in a twisted and horrific portrayal of pregnancy and birth.
My only critique is that the book felt a bit slow to start, and that was largely due to spending a lot of time going into Brooke’s past relationship and time in Japan. We also spent a lot of time with various friends or neighbors who occasionally would do something ominous or sow division between the sisters. While no character was uninteresting per se, the time spent exploring these past and present relationships didn’t add a ton to the story.
*Thank you to Harper, NetGalley, and the author for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
March 24, 2026
I received an advanced ARC of Afterbirth, and I’d like to thank NetGalley, Harper, and Emma Cleary.
First off, this is 100% on me. I read the description and still chose to pick it up anyway. I am, in fact, traumatized. The book is incredibly well done, but I was deeply horrified from start to finish. The final third of the novel made me so uncomfortable that I had to keep setting it down and taking breaks before I could finally push through to the end.
The story centers on two sisters: Brooke, the younger, and Izzy, the older. There’s a significant age gap between them, as Brooke has a different father due to their mother’s struggles with infertility, something Izzy appears to have inherited. The plot follows Brooke as she comes to care for Izzy after a reproductive health surgery that takes a serious turn. Once Brooke arrives at Izzy’s apartment, things quickly begin to unravel. The building is riddled with mold, and a deeply unsettling elderly woman known as “Medusa” seems to haunt the halls as if she owns the place.
After a wham bam thank you man with a random man she meets at a party, this is especially notable since Brooke has previously only been attracted to women, she finds herself unexpectedly and disturbingly “in the family way”… sort of. From there, the novel plunges headfirst into intense body and psychological horror that genuinely turned my stomach.
I won’t go into too much detail, but I do want to offer a strong content warning: if you have any sensitivities surrounding pregnancy or infertility, you may want to approach this book with caution.
My main issue with the novel is the ending. I wish it had been a bit clearer. I’m still not entirely sure what happened or what was truly going on with the apartment building and Medusa. It felt like I was missing pieces that might have made everything click more fully.
Overall, I gave Afterbirth a 3.75/5.
First off, this is 100% on me. I read the description and still chose to pick it up anyway. I am, in fact, traumatized. The book is incredibly well done, but I was deeply horrified from start to finish. The final third of the novel made me so uncomfortable that I had to keep setting it down and taking breaks before I could finally push through to the end.
The story centers on two sisters: Brooke, the younger, and Izzy, the older. There’s a significant age gap between them, as Brooke has a different father due to their mother’s struggles with infertility, something Izzy appears to have inherited. The plot follows Brooke as she comes to care for Izzy after a reproductive health surgery that takes a serious turn. Once Brooke arrives at Izzy’s apartment, things quickly begin to unravel. The building is riddled with mold, and a deeply unsettling elderly woman known as “Medusa” seems to haunt the halls as if she owns the place.
After a wham bam thank you man with a random man she meets at a party, this is especially notable since Brooke has previously only been attracted to women, she finds herself unexpectedly and disturbingly “in the family way”… sort of. From there, the novel plunges headfirst into intense body and psychological horror that genuinely turned my stomach.
I won’t go into too much detail, but I do want to offer a strong content warning: if you have any sensitivities surrounding pregnancy or infertility, you may want to approach this book with caution.
My main issue with the novel is the ending. I wish it had been a bit clearer. I’m still not entirely sure what happened or what was truly going on with the apartment building and Medusa. It felt like I was missing pieces that might have made everything click more fully.
Overall, I gave Afterbirth a 3.75/5.
January 28, 2026
3.25 ⭐️
Afterbirth by Emma Clearly is a “mommy horror” sub genre, of which I had not read yet and was looking forward to exploring to understand this genre better. This is a story of two sisters, Izzy and Brooke. While Izzy desperately wants to become a mother by experiencing birthing a child, her sister Izzy is adamant that she does not. When Izzy requires a medical procedure, Brooke travels and stays with her to care for her (and her dog) while she recovers.
Highlights of things I found interesting:
- the portrayal and truth of a woman who doesn’t want to become a mom
- the portrayal of horror around reproduction, body changes, and birth itself
- important themes explored such as infertility, the inability to get pregnant due to medical reasons, the depth of desire to have a baby, and the fear of having a baby
- LGBTQ+ representation
However, I was often confused. I’m still not sure what some of the purposes of some characters were, and why there was initial build-up, but then they dropped off toward the end (Lucie, the neighbors, even her mum). I also was just plain confused at parts and didn’t understand the symbolisms or truths or dreams or what… I don’t know if this is because I’m knew to the genre and so it read completely different than anything I’ve come across. I honestly struggled to finish this book, however, I think it should find its hands into anyone who loves and appreciates mommy horror.
Thank you Harper Books and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
Afterbirth by Emma Clearly is a “mommy horror” sub genre, of which I had not read yet and was looking forward to exploring to understand this genre better. This is a story of two sisters, Izzy and Brooke. While Izzy desperately wants to become a mother by experiencing birthing a child, her sister Izzy is adamant that she does not. When Izzy requires a medical procedure, Brooke travels and stays with her to care for her (and her dog) while she recovers.
Highlights of things I found interesting:
- the portrayal and truth of a woman who doesn’t want to become a mom
- the portrayal of horror around reproduction, body changes, and birth itself
- important themes explored such as infertility, the inability to get pregnant due to medical reasons, the depth of desire to have a baby, and the fear of having a baby
- LGBTQ+ representation
However, I was often confused. I’m still not sure what some of the purposes of some characters were, and why there was initial build-up, but then they dropped off toward the end (Lucie, the neighbors, even her mum). I also was just plain confused at parts and didn’t understand the symbolisms or truths or dreams or what… I don’t know if this is because I’m knew to the genre and so it read completely different than anything I’ve come across. I honestly struggled to finish this book, however, I think it should find its hands into anyone who loves and appreciates mommy horror.
Thank you Harper Books and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
In this horror novel, a woman goes to stay with her older sister after surgery—only to find that something is not right in her sister’s building and some kind of presence lurks there.
What an interesting (and scary!) novel about sisterhood, motherhood, and desire. It touches on so much — from medical misogyny and gaslighting in the women’s health field to societal pressures to have children so that our lives as women have meaning.
This novel wove a very scary narrative out of horror movie plots about women’s bodies and familial relationships. The way the book mirrored these plots while creating its own horrors was very, very well done. These tense scenes were definitely the highlight of the book. However, sometimes the novel was bogged down by its similes and setup. Cleary writes very beautifully, but sometimes I felt like we were losing momentum as the tension was rising.
With that being said, this novel does an extremely good job of playing with body image, body horror, and the horrors of pregnancy and labor as it tells its story about how far we will go to obtain what we most wish for. I was genuinely shocked by a few of the scenes. So often we treat menstruating bodies as monstrous, and Cleary does masterful work in using these ideas to create a story about two sisters who are trying to live fulfilling lives in their bodies that have, in one way or another, “failed” them. The prevalence of menstrual blood and the use of that blood to really build up the horror of the novel absolutely caught my attention!
I am very grateful to NetGalley for the ARC.
What an interesting (and scary!) novel about sisterhood, motherhood, and desire. It touches on so much — from medical misogyny and gaslighting in the women’s health field to societal pressures to have children so that our lives as women have meaning.
This novel wove a very scary narrative out of horror movie plots about women’s bodies and familial relationships. The way the book mirrored these plots while creating its own horrors was very, very well done. These tense scenes were definitely the highlight of the book. However, sometimes the novel was bogged down by its similes and setup. Cleary writes very beautifully, but sometimes I felt like we were losing momentum as the tension was rising.
With that being said, this novel does an extremely good job of playing with body image, body horror, and the horrors of pregnancy and labor as it tells its story about how far we will go to obtain what we most wish for. I was genuinely shocked by a few of the scenes. So often we treat menstruating bodies as monstrous, and Cleary does masterful work in using these ideas to create a story about two sisters who are trying to live fulfilling lives in their bodies that have, in one way or another, “failed” them. The prevalence of menstrual blood and the use of that blood to really build up the horror of the novel absolutely caught my attention!
I am very grateful to NetGalley for the ARC.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
3.5 stars
This is a hard one for me to review, because I mostly enjoyed it, but at the same time, it didn't motivate me to keep reading, and it took me nearly a week to complete. It's a slow burn and intentionally vague, so we're left with most of our questions unanswered by the end, and that lack of clarity contributed to my frustration and blasé attitude towards finishing.
There's a lot going on here, with Brooke coming from living in Japan teaching English to Vancouver to care for her older sister after a routine reproductive procedure ends in an emergency hysterectomy. The claustrophobic, moldy old apartment building she resides in comes complete with a creepy old crone wandering the halls, and was giving Rosemary's Baby and Nestlings vibes. As the weeks go by, Brooke starts experiencing phantom pregnancy symptoms, and her sister Izzy goes off the deep end in her grief, thinking this is her chance to finally have what she lost.
I don't think the Japan side plot/folklore really added much to this story, and could have been omitted for brevity and helped with the pacing. I wish we had a little more explanation of who or what Medusa really was, but I thought the way the sisters' relationship was handled with underlying grief and jealousy was very well done and accurate. The depictions of pregnancy and birth were wild, and there is truly no more horrifying thing than going through that.
🤰🏻 Thank you Harper Books for the advanced copy
This is a hard one for me to review, because I mostly enjoyed it, but at the same time, it didn't motivate me to keep reading, and it took me nearly a week to complete. It's a slow burn and intentionally vague, so we're left with most of our questions unanswered by the end, and that lack of clarity contributed to my frustration and blasé attitude towards finishing.
There's a lot going on here, with Brooke coming from living in Japan teaching English to Vancouver to care for her older sister after a routine reproductive procedure ends in an emergency hysterectomy. The claustrophobic, moldy old apartment building she resides in comes complete with a creepy old crone wandering the halls, and was giving Rosemary's Baby and Nestlings vibes. As the weeks go by, Brooke starts experiencing phantom pregnancy symptoms, and her sister Izzy goes off the deep end in her grief, thinking this is her chance to finally have what she lost.
I don't think the Japan side plot/folklore really added much to this story, and could have been omitted for brevity and helped with the pacing. I wish we had a little more explanation of who or what Medusa really was, but I thought the way the sisters' relationship was handled with underlying grief and jealousy was very well done and accurate. The depictions of pregnancy and birth were wild, and there is truly no more horrifying thing than going through that.
🤰🏻 Thank you Harper Books for the advanced copy
November 26, 2025
I think I might have over-dosed on female-authored body horror that takes issue with either food/eating or pregnancy - this plays in the space of the latter and takes its time to get to that place... at which point the narrative soars into menace and reading excitement. Sadly, it took a very long time to get there. The prose feels leaden for much of the first half with every minute detail spelled out unnecessarily - a ruthless edit might have honed and streamlined to greater effect.
If you read a lot of female authors as I do, then this unfortunately feels quite similar to many other books that have been published in the last few years - there is a good payoff but if I hadn't been reading an ARC I might well have bailed out before reaching that point. There isn't anything distinctive in the prose style which can get quite boggy in places or any startlingly original approach to topics of female bodily autonomy, the relationships between sisters and loneliness in a strange place.
The ending made this worth reading for me but it is distinctly samey to a lot of other female authored books, some of which are grabbier and do more to stretch the genre in interesting directions. But the blurb of Rosemary's Baby meets Conversations With Friends makes complete sense!
Thanks to Harper Collins for an ARC via NetGalley.
If you read a lot of female authors as I do, then this unfortunately feels quite similar to many other books that have been published in the last few years - there is a good payoff but if I hadn't been reading an ARC I might well have bailed out before reaching that point. There isn't anything distinctive in the prose style which can get quite boggy in places or any startlingly original approach to topics of female bodily autonomy, the relationships between sisters and loneliness in a strange place.
The ending made this worth reading for me but it is distinctly samey to a lot of other female authored books, some of which are grabbier and do more to stretch the genre in interesting directions. But the blurb of Rosemary's Baby meets Conversations With Friends makes complete sense!
Thanks to Harper Collins for an ARC via NetGalley.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley, HarperCollins Canada Audio, and HarperCollins Publishers for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
I really liked the concept of this novel. It sounded creepy AF, which is something I like in horror. I do some slasher novels, but something about a horror book with creepy vibes is also a great idea. I don’t necessarily have to be scared in order to enjoy a horror book. The vibes need to be on point for me to like it.
So, with that in mind, I really wanted to like this book. It was interesting, but it fell rather flat. The two-thirds was rather boring and uninteresting, making it hard to stay invested. It felt really slow, which I found frustrating. I understand all the craziness might not happen at page one, but things just felt a little mundane to start.
The last third was where it finally got good. I was invested and really wanted to find out how things would end. Things became so messed up and unsettling that I couldn’t stop reading. The climax was great too!
One thing I do want to note is that I found it odd to have a British narrator when the book is set in Vancouver, BC. Maybe that’s nitpicky, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
Overall, this debut novel had great potential, but it fell a bit flat for me. I’ll definitely give another book from this author a try in the future!
I really liked the concept of this novel. It sounded creepy AF, which is something I like in horror. I do some slasher novels, but something about a horror book with creepy vibes is also a great idea. I don’t necessarily have to be scared in order to enjoy a horror book. The vibes need to be on point for me to like it.
So, with that in mind, I really wanted to like this book. It was interesting, but it fell rather flat. The two-thirds was rather boring and uninteresting, making it hard to stay invested. It felt really slow, which I found frustrating. I understand all the craziness might not happen at page one, but things just felt a little mundane to start.
The last third was where it finally got good. I was invested and really wanted to find out how things would end. Things became so messed up and unsettling that I couldn’t stop reading. The climax was great too!
One thing I do want to note is that I found it odd to have a British narrator when the book is set in Vancouver, BC. Maybe that’s nitpicky, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
Overall, this debut novel had great potential, but it fell a bit flat for me. I’ll definitely give another book from this author a try in the future!
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Love a feminist mommy/body horror? Then you should definitely check this one out!
This story is definitely leans more literary horror with a slow build and explosive ending, but I really enjoyed the slow and creeping horror of the first half of the novel. I felt it could’ve been tidied up a bit as a whole, maybe shortened, and either delete or expand on some of the many plot threads- but in the end this is a story that will stick with me. I was captivated by the strange relationship between these sisters, the building that’s layout never seemed to make sense, the mold creeping through the room day after day, the haunting old woman spotted around corners and down hallways. And in the end, I absolutely loved what this novel had to say about the desperation of wanting to carry a child, the alien feeling of one growing inside you, and the body horror that is pregnancy. As pregnancy and infertility is the focus of this novel, please proceed with caution.
The last 100 pages is absolutely wild and there’s so much to unpack there, which makes me think this could be a great book club pick! Thank you Harper Books for my gifted early copy!
Also, I do want to add that I had a moment of confusion with the title. I kind of hate that sometimes books have different titles in different countries- and for this book specifically I do think Our Monstrous Bodies is superior!
This story is definitely leans more literary horror with a slow build and explosive ending, but I really enjoyed the slow and creeping horror of the first half of the novel. I felt it could’ve been tidied up a bit as a whole, maybe shortened, and either delete or expand on some of the many plot threads- but in the end this is a story that will stick with me. I was captivated by the strange relationship between these sisters, the building that’s layout never seemed to make sense, the mold creeping through the room day after day, the haunting old woman spotted around corners and down hallways. And in the end, I absolutely loved what this novel had to say about the desperation of wanting to carry a child, the alien feeling of one growing inside you, and the body horror that is pregnancy. As pregnancy and infertility is the focus of this novel, please proceed with caution.
The last 100 pages is absolutely wild and there’s so much to unpack there, which makes me think this could be a great book club pick! Thank you Harper Books for my gifted early copy!
Also, I do want to add that I had a moment of confusion with the title. I kind of hate that sometimes books have different titles in different countries- and for this book specifically I do think Our Monstrous Bodies is superior!
March 28, 2026
Afterbirth by Emma Cleary was a mommy horror I had really been excited for, unfortunately it didn't land the way I hoped but it was still an interesting premise.
When Brooke goes to stay with her distant older half sister Izzy, what starts Brooke supporting Izzy with her dog and surgical aftercare from - that left Izzy unable to become pregnant - becomes one of jealousy, desperation and abuse
This novel tells a story of what motherhood means to some women and how much of our self worth or purpose has been engrained in to our need/want in being a mother. With the twists of horror and the spiralling down the rabbit hole laced with aspects of mental health and grief, the plot was unique and well done but I think I just needed or wanted more in certain areas - an example being Izzy's drastic change as Brooke begins to experience her physical changes and their relationship begins to shift.
For Emma's debut novel I think it's a great start with lots of room for us to see some more interesting and unique novels from them in the future.
Thank you to HarperCollins Canada Audio and NetGalley for the advanced readers copy of the audiobook for my honest review.
When Brooke goes to stay with her distant older half sister Izzy, what starts Brooke supporting Izzy with her dog and surgical aftercare from - that left Izzy unable to become pregnant - becomes one of jealousy, desperation and abuse
This novel tells a story of what motherhood means to some women and how much of our self worth or purpose has been engrained in to our need/want in being a mother. With the twists of horror and the spiralling down the rabbit hole laced with aspects of mental health and grief, the plot was unique and well done but I think I just needed or wanted more in certain areas - an example being Izzy's drastic change as Brooke begins to experience her physical changes and their relationship begins to shift.
For Emma's debut novel I think it's a great start with lots of room for us to see some more interesting and unique novels from them in the future.
Thank you to HarperCollins Canada Audio and NetGalley for the advanced readers copy of the audiobook for my honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Afterbirth is an incredible "mommy horror" book that bewildered over and over again (in a good way)! As I was reading the book, I found many moments where I thought I'd have a moment to breathe, take a break and step away, but the author immediately sucked me back into the book at those exact moments. I kept getting lulled into a false sense of security, even though there was (at times) an obvious underlying discomfort in whatever scenario I was reading. The writing itself was very fluid, and I enjoyed the way the author described the grotesque moments, conveying an apt amount of shock or discomfort.
I did find some characters to fall short; some felt fully irrelevant to the novel and early character interactions felt more like padding than world building. Despite this, I wouldn't give it anything less than a 5 as the book was thoroughly enjoyable.
When I decided to give Emma Cleary's debut novel a go, I hadn't read many thriller or horror novels. After this, I'm adding a lot more to my list, and I'm excited to see what they come up with in the future!
I did find some characters to fall short; some felt fully irrelevant to the novel and early character interactions felt more like padding than world building. Despite this, I wouldn't give it anything less than a 5 as the book was thoroughly enjoyable.
When I decided to give Emma Cleary's debut novel a go, I hadn't read many thriller or horror novels. After this, I'm adding a lot more to my list, and I'm excited to see what they come up with in the future!
February 17, 2026
Horror as a vessel for expressing familial strain, and the complexities of being a woman. Largely having to do with wanting or not wanting children. I want to touch as well on the two different illnesses the sisters experienced being a representation of the female experience. One illness has a clear physical manifestation that people can see and acknowledge, whereas the other sister has a quiet “undiagnosable” illness. I think there is something being said there! Okay so! Brooke travels to Vancouver to help her sister Izzy recuperate from a surgery. There is a nice dog. A creepy woman roaming the halls and the building is gross and old except for at golden hour. Cute! Decaying apartment building turns into decaying bodies, and mental facilitiyes. I feel like there were a lot of bread crumbs dropped (tarot cards, Japan, creepy nursery rhyme, dog woman) that weren’t like easily picked back up and caused things to kind of be tedious for a little while. Definitely hits its stride! A creepy, thought provoking story that I do not regret reading!
Also, twin peaks reference? Count me in.
Also, twin peaks reference? Count me in.
March 6, 2026
This was a tense story of obsession, desire, and being willing to do whatever it takes to get what you want.
Cleary introduces us to Brooke, a woman who, after suffering heartbreak and living in another country, flies to Vancouver to help her sister, Izzy, after her surgery. Izzy is distraught over the knowledge that despite wanting children, she’ll never be able to have her own. Brooke does her best to be there for Izzy, even if she can’t really understand the sorrow her sister is feeling. But Brooke is experiencing trouble of her own and she can’t decide if she’s going crazy or if Izzy’s apartment is decaying before her eyes.
The author sets us up well to feel the tension and terror that is seeping through the walls of the apartment, and creeping just outside the door. She also ramps up the creep factor through Brooke’s spontaneous pregnancy, and Izzy’s rapidly developing obsession over the “child” growing inside her sister. As the story edges closer to the ending, the insanity intensifies, leaving the reader reeling, and exposing Izzy’s desperation and unhinged behavior, while simultaneously pulling sympathy from us for both sisters. The grief and fear are real.
There’s nothing quite like pregnancy horror, and the idea that someone may do awful things to get what you have. Also, squirming bellies and crazy births are terrifying.
Thank you NetGalley, and Harper, for my arc. My opinion is my own.
Cleary introduces us to Brooke, a woman who, after suffering heartbreak and living in another country, flies to Vancouver to help her sister, Izzy, after her surgery. Izzy is distraught over the knowledge that despite wanting children, she’ll never be able to have her own. Brooke does her best to be there for Izzy, even if she can’t really understand the sorrow her sister is feeling. But Brooke is experiencing trouble of her own and she can’t decide if she’s going crazy or if Izzy’s apartment is decaying before her eyes.
The author sets us up well to feel the tension and terror that is seeping through the walls of the apartment, and creeping just outside the door. She also ramps up the creep factor through Brooke’s spontaneous pregnancy, and Izzy’s rapidly developing obsession over the “child” growing inside her sister. As the story edges closer to the ending, the insanity intensifies, leaving the reader reeling, and exposing Izzy’s desperation and unhinged behavior, while simultaneously pulling sympathy from us for both sisters. The grief and fear are real.
There’s nothing quite like pregnancy horror, and the idea that someone may do awful things to get what you have. Also, squirming bellies and crazy births are terrifying.
Thank you NetGalley, and Harper, for my arc. My opinion is my own.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Motherhood, bodily autonomy and the horrors of mold poisoning!!!
(not really.)
Afterbirth is a story of motherhood, loss and how grief can warp us. Brooke and Izzy are sisters with a ten-year age gap. After going through a weird break-up with a (questionable) ex-girlfriend, Brooke moves back in with her parents. Izzy is a chef living in Canada and wants nothing more than to have a child but physically cannot. Brooke travels to care for Izzy while she recovers from a surgery on her uterus and then weird stuff starts happening.
This certainly isn’t a light-hearted book and is one I could see being triggering for many people (would advise looking up TW before jumping into this as it has a lot). It focuses big-time on the themes of motherhood, bodily autonomy and grief. I liked how blunt this book was. Childbirth is not clean and sterile. It's a bloody, messy, primal thing and I appreciate that it isn’t sugar-coated.
Though it won’t be for everyone, I do appreciate the weirdness and how the weirdness gave way to a pretty cool story about grief.
(not really.)
Afterbirth is a story of motherhood, loss and how grief can warp us. Brooke and Izzy are sisters with a ten-year age gap. After going through a weird break-up with a (questionable) ex-girlfriend, Brooke moves back in with her parents. Izzy is a chef living in Canada and wants nothing more than to have a child but physically cannot. Brooke travels to care for Izzy while she recovers from a surgery on her uterus and then weird stuff starts happening.
This certainly isn’t a light-hearted book and is one I could see being triggering for many people (would advise looking up TW before jumping into this as it has a lot). It focuses big-time on the themes of motherhood, bodily autonomy and grief. I liked how blunt this book was. Childbirth is not clean and sterile. It's a bloody, messy, primal thing and I appreciate that it isn’t sugar-coated.
Though it won’t be for everyone, I do appreciate the weirdness and how the weirdness gave way to a pretty cool story about grief.
March 6, 2026
For me, this book felt disjointed and all over the place - it almost seemed as if the author had a ton of ideas and just shoved all of them together in one book without thinking about how all the parts worked together.
All the plot points felt half-baked:
1. What was the source of the parasite in the walls?
2. How did Medusa become the way she was? What happened to her?
3. Izzy’s transformation from concerned sister into deranged psycho was way too abrupt. It was never fully explained what caused it, the sympathetic magic or the rot in the walls?
4. Medusa made it seem as if the parasite’s been there for a long time yet no one else in the building seems to be affected.
On top of that, for a lot of this book I was just bored. Nothing was happening and I wasn’t excited to pick this up.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
All the plot points felt half-baked:
1. What was the source of the parasite in the walls?
2. How did Medusa become the way she was? What happened to her?
3. Izzy’s transformation from concerned sister into deranged psycho was way too abrupt. It was never fully explained what caused it, the sympathetic magic or the rot in the walls?
4. Medusa made it seem as if the parasite’s been there for a long time yet no one else in the building seems to be affected.
On top of that, for a lot of this book I was just bored. Nothing was happening and I wasn’t excited to pick this up.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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