This Page-Turning Novel Examines Female Guilt and New Motherhood with a Thrilling Speculative Twist

In books and movies, the experience of motherhood is currently getting some much-deserved cultural attention. Nightbitch. The Push. The School for Good Mothers. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Die My Love. These are not cozy, sweet images of being a mother told through rose-colored glasses. They are dark and gritty stories accompanied by labels like body horror, psychological thriller, dystopian, and dark comedy. The mothers in this book are not Marmee from Little Women.

Entering this pantheon is a book with a fascinating premise: what if there was a pill that erased all mom guilt? As soon as I heard the hook for this book, I was - well - hooked. I knew I had to get my hands on it.

The Guilt Pill by Saumya Dave

Maya Patel is the CEO of a startup company and a brand new mom trying to balance it all. To her colleagues, friends, and social media followers, she wants to portray herself as a woman who has it all. But in reality, every aspect of her life is crumbling. She’s out of sync with her husband and best friend. Her male colleagues are trying to usurp her power and calling her maternity leave a “vacation." Her mother-in-law can’t stop criticizing her. And her baby is struggling to get enough to eat through breastfeeding. No matter what she spends her time doing, she has intense guilt that she’s not doing more. There is always something that needs her attention. And she’s aware that as a very public, female, and Indian American, CEO she needs to prove herself even more.

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