When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the question over and over, Bela understands that unless she says yes, her family will soon pay.
Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe, but other incidents show cracks in her parents’ marriage. The safety Bela relies on is about to unravel.
But Other Mommy needs an answer.
When I saw that this was the book that inspired the new horror movie Other Mommy, I was immediately interested. After all, the trailers I've seen for the movie look promising, and I was curious to see what kind of story had inspired them. This book, however? An utter bore that took me far too long to finish.
Part of the problem was the formatting. For some reason, there are absolutely no quotation marks used throughout the book, which made it difficult at times to figure out whether a character was actually speaking or simply thinking something. And while I can appreciate an author wanting to do something different stylistically, when I'm constantly having to stop and reread passages just to figure out what's happening, it becomes more frustrating than effective. But honestly? The formatting was only part of the problem. The bigger issue was the characters and the story itself.
To begin with, the entire book is told from the perspective of Bela, an eight-year-old girl to whom the entity of Other Mommy has become attached to. I understand what the author was trying to accomplish here. By telling the story through the eyes of a child, we're limited to Bela's understanding of the world and, presumably, what this entity actually is. In theory, that could have been an excellent way to build suspense and keep readers guessing about what's really going on. Except in this case, it just didn't work. Pretty much everything we need to know about Other Mommy is laid out within the first few chapters, so there's very little mystery left to unravel. Rather than slowly building that creeping sense of unease that makes a good horror story so effective, the book gives away too much too soon and then seems unsure what to do with the information for the rest of it. Personally, I would have preferred a much slower introduction. Let Other Mommy start out as an imaginary friend, something Bela talks about that her parents initially dismiss as a child's imagination. Then gradually introduce the unsettling details, the little things that don't quite add up, and the moments that make both the reader and the parents question whether something sinister is happening. You know, actually build some suspense. Instead, I was left waiting for the story to deliver the tension and atmosphere I had been hoping for, and being left sadly disappointed.
Unfortunately, the storytelling wasn't the only thing that had me questioning what the heck I was reading. The parents were an entirely different problem, and quite frankly, I don't think I've encountered two more incompetent parents in my life. When they aren't hosting parties downstairs with their friends, where everyone appears to be drinking and smoking (marijuana, from the sound of it), they're encouraging Bela to “dress up” and come “dance for them and their friends.” I'm sorry, WHAT? She's eight years old! Why on earth are these adults encouraging a child to perform for a room full of intoxicated grown-ups? And why is this being treated as though it's just another perfectly ordinary evening in the household?
Then there are the conversations. When they're not treating Bela like entertainment for their friends, her parents are sitting at the end of her bed talking about their very adult problems while they they think she's asleep (spoiler alert, she's not). And once they realize that Other Mommy might actually be real, they somehow decide that the appropriate response is to involve their eight-year-old daughter in even more adult conversations and philosophical musings that she simply isn't old enough to understand. More than once, I wanted to scream at my Kindle that she's was their daughter, not their therapist!
I understand that the author may have been trying to show how dysfunctional this family is, but there were moments when I found myself more frustrated with the parents than frightened by the supposed horror unfolding around them. And when the adults responsible for protecting the child seem to have absolutely no idea how to behave like responsible adults, it's hard to feel anything other than exasperation.
Then we have Daddo, who is practically portrayed as a saint among men. Apparently, he has no darkness within him and can always find the positive in every situation. Or, and hear me out, perhaps he simply doesn't have a backbone. Because from where I'm sitting, Daddo doesn't come across as some wonderfully enlightened man who sees the good in everyone. He comes across as someone who allows people to walk all over him, particularly his wife, rather than standing up for himself or addressing the problems in his marriage. There's a difference between being kind and being so passive that you refuse to confront anything unpleasant, and I found myself leaning toward the latter in his case.
And Mommy? Oh, where do I even begin? She's a serial cheater who repeatedly goes out of her way to justify her behavior, even when she's talking to her own daughter. There are moments when she seems determined to explain away her actions, as though if she can just find the right words, she'll somehow make everything acceptable. And then we get to her comments about feeling trapped in her marriage and, at times, feeling trapped as a mother. Lady, get over yourself. I understand that motherhood can be difficult, that marriages can become unhappy, and that people can feel stuck in circumstances they don't know how to change. I'm not suggesting that parents aren't allowed to struggle or have complicated feelings. But there's a difference between exploring those feelings in a thoughtful way and repeatedly unloading your adult problems onto your eight-year-old child.
Bela is a little girl who should be able to depend on her parents for safety and reassurance. Instead, she's surrounded by adults who seem far more concerned with their own problems, their own justifications, and their own emotional needs than with protecting her from things she shouldn't have to carry. And somehow, we're also supposed to find time to be frightened by Other Mommy in the middle of all this. Honestly, the family dynamics were so frustrating that they often overshadowed the horror elements altogether. Rather than being drawn into the mystery of the entity and worrying about what might happen next, I found myself questioning the parents' decisions and wondering how any of these people managed to get through an ordinary day without someone stepping in to tell them to get their act together.
Overall, Other Mommy was a major disappointment. The premise had potential, and the idea of exploring a supernatural threat through the limited understanding of an eight-year-old could have made for a genuinely unsettling read. Unfortunately, the lack of suspense, the frustrating formatting, and the utterly dysfunctional parenting left me struggling to find much to enjoy.
I'm still curious about the movie, because the trailers look promising, and I'm hoping the adaptation manages to deliver the creepy atmosphere this book was missing. But as for the source material? Let's just say I'm glad I finally finished it.
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