“The world had gotten very quiet lately, even as very bad things happened. It was a specific and ominous kind of silence. A silence populated by faces without mouths.”
– Trad Wife by Sarah Langan
Trad Wife by Sarah Langan wasn’t really on my radar this year, but when Stephen King named it one of the best horror novels of the year and I saw my library had a copy, I immediately snagged it and am so glad I did. Trad Wife is a brilliant novel that makes you second guess everything until the very end. It was creepy with a ton of mind “fuckery” moments that left me on the edge of my seat. I’m so excited to check out another book by this author!
Jenny is a struggling journalist who hates the type of work she is assigned. One day she writes a scathing and honest essay that shows the troubled past she’s lived, including practically raising her sister and making the decision to have an abortion when her boyfriend has a psychotic episode and neither he or she can take care of him any longer. The essay goes viral and Jenny becomes a household name until she’s targeted by the Brotherhood of America for her decisions and choosing to write about it. It gets to the point where she is let go from her job and is scrambling to pick up the pieces.
Her former editor, Milton, offers her an olive branch- to travel to Pennsylvania to visit Black Swan Farm where Mia Wright, a famous trad wide invites her to write about herself, her brand and her family. Jenny is a little reluctant to go, but she takes the assignment anyway, hoping she can salvage her career.
Yet when she arrives at Black Swan, she realizes not everything is all as it seems. What Mia and her family are hiding goes much deeper than Jenny ever could have imagined and suddenly Jenny finds herself fighting for her very sanity and life as she tries to escape what fate has thrown at her.
Honestly this book is wild! In the best way. It was such a psychological torment to read, to try and figure out exactly what was going on, and I never really did, so the ending blew me away. It also had a lot of great feminist moments, and the contrast between Mia and Jenny left for a really strong story. This was such a great horror novel, and I can’t recommend it enough!
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