As an avid reader (and crazy dog mom) who’s always on the lookout for an original story, the premise of Rachel Yoder’s book Nightbitch definitely caught me eye. A stay-at-home mom who thinks she’s becoming a dog? Sign. Me. Up!

One day, the mother was a mother but then, one night, she was quite suddenly something else…

Nightbitch was one of the most interesting books I read in 2024. I loved how bonkers the story was and how we never knew what was really happening because of the magical realism at play. Was she really becoming a dog? Or was the mother just going off the deep end? I was intrigued to say the least…

Nightbitch is heart-warming story about rediscovering yourself throughout the challenges of motherhood. Our unnamed protagonist puts her art career on hold to raise a kid while her partner’s professional life continues to flourish. He works away from home most of the week, leaving the bulk of the caregiving to her. Exhausted and at her wit’s end, her discontent festers into all aspects of her life and relationships. Cue the strange dog-like symptoms like back hair, sharper teeth, super smell, etc.

Woof…sounds delightful? Thankfully the book isn’t depressing for long once our Mother starts pursuing her dog transformation whole heartedly. My favorite part of the book was definitely the erratic, all-night canine escapades where we couldn’t tell whether or not she was in dog or human form! They were hysterical! Nightbitch manages to channel this feral energy into an art project as well as a new parenting approach that cures all her problems. Smiley, happy ending and a story I will remember fondly.

I waited excitedly all year to see Amy Adams portray this unhinged, feral character I’d become obsessed with on the big screen. Maybe it would even be enough to win her an Oscar? *sigh* sadly, no.

I am now a person I never imagined I would be, and I don’t know how to square that. I would like to be content, but instead I am stuck inside a prison of my own creation, where I torment myself endlessly, until I am left binge-eating Fig Newtons at midnight to keep from crying. I feel as though societal norms, gendered expectations, and the infuriating bluntness of biology have forced me to become this person
even though I’m having a hard time parsing how, precisely, I arrived at this place. I am angry all the time. I would one day like to direct my own artwork toward a critique of these modern-day systems that articulates all this, but my brain no longer functions as it did before the baby, and I am really dumb now. I am afraid I will never be smart or happy or thin again. I am afraid I might be turning into a dog.

-Nightbitch (Rachel Yoder) page 45 excerpt

So how does Nightbitch the movie compare to the book?

First of all, I appreciate how the movie took some lines straight out of the book. In fact, the excerpt above (probably my favorite of the book) is used as the opening scene of the movie and is nearly verbatim! I overlapped the text with the scene in my BookTube review. They even throw in the best line from the book, “I could crush a walnut with my vagina”, during the dinner scene. But unfortunately the movie doesn’t explain (in the book this was in reference to kegels!)

In regard to the book vs. the movie, the stories are the inherently the same, with the same themes and nearly the same ending. Although I noticed that certain elements of the book got left out of the movie that I really liked. For example, in the book we get the idea that the other local moms might also be dog women, which the movie only hints at. In the book they’re also are part of a hilarious pyramid scheme selling silly wellness supplements. Mom’s Little Helper.

Other things were played up in the movie that weren’t there in the book at all. The movie showed a lot of flashbacks to the mother’s (Amish?) childhood. It also eluded to her own mother having dog-like urges? I personally didn’t what this added to the plot.

I couldn’t help but feel like all the craziness I loved in the book got watered down and flattened out for the screen. What happened to all the weird stuff like Nightbitch pooping on her neighbor’s lawn?

I wanted more of this behavior 👇 (This GIF is misleading. The scene was only a millisecond long, representing what she wanted to do in her head, but didn’t actually act out on.)

The first part of the story shows us how unsatisfied the Mother is with her life. It was more interesting to read these poignant descriptions rather than seeing them acted out. Both me and my boyfriend were bored of seeing Amy Adams looking dejected in moomoos for the first half of the movie.

One of my fearful predictions was that they would turn Amy Adams into a horrendous CGI dog monster. To my happy surprise, not only did they use real dogs, but shelter dogs turned movie stars 😉

All in all, I walked away feeling kind of disappointed that the movie wasn’t as magical as the book for me. Maybe being a fan of a book will always set you up to not like book-to-screen adaptations as much?

Watch my full BookTube review of Nightbitch the book vs. the movie here 🙂