the motherload

Cover of The Motherload book

The Motherload is candid and propulsive take on motherhood. It turns the ecstatic narrative women have been fed—one of immediate connection to your child, followed by a joyful path of maternal discovery—on its head. It’s a book about learning to forgive yourself. And it’s a rejection of the cultural idea of the mother as a perfect being.

If you are looking for an honest, take on the vicissitudes of marriage, love, life, and parenting, this is it.

Here’s what others are saying about it:

“A stunning memoir about the turbulent yet clarifying initiation into motherhood, and about learning who you are on the other side, The Motherload reads like a no-holds-barred conversation with your funniest best friend. Sarah Hoover has a voice I’d follow anywhere. I kept thinking, Wow, I want everyone to read this wholly vital book about marriage, intimacy, identity, family, art and creativity, and, yes, our relationships with our own mothers. A completely absorbing and addicting ride.”

—Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman and Godshot

“Finally, a funny, smart, and unapologetic treatise on the gap between motherhood’s promises and its realities, Sarah Hoover takes readers on a journey marked by hard questions and truths too often buried by cultural narratives that still—despite so many women’s experiences to the contrary—frame motherhood as the epitome of womanhood itself. The Motherload is a classic: hilarious, strikingly honest, and utterly unputdownable.”

—Allie Rowbottom, author of Jell-O Girls and Aesthetica

“A poignant and grimly funny antidote to the saccharine mythology of motherhood and a universal story of the female fight for autonomy in a world dead set on denying it. With page-turning urgency, Hoover takes readers through a long, dark tunnel that ultimately opens onto the messy truth and painful beauty of love.”

—Molly Roden Winter, author of More: A Memoir of Open Marriage

“I devoured The Motherload in one sitting. Hoover writes with thrilling urgency, drawing readers into the most complex and least discussed aspects of love and marriage. But this book’s most powerful gift is its frank, raw, and nearly inadvisable level of honesty around the experience of having a child. Hoover’s unvarnished candor about the darkest, most challenging aspects of motherhood ultimately illuminates its profound and transformative power.”

—Chloé Cooper Jones, author of Easy Beauty