#REVIEW: Trad Wife, by Saratoga Schaefer

On March 8, 2026 By Luther M. SilerIn Reading, ReviewsLeave a comment

I’ve been suffering through a little bit of a book drought lately— of the seven books I’ve read in March, I’ve only ranked two of them above three stars, and if you’ve paid any attention to my Goodreads or Storygraph accounts (Follow me! I want friends!) you know that I tend to rate generously, as I don’t often buy books I don’t expect to like.

My wife was a little startled to see that I’d picked up Trad Wife, though, which probably doesn’t look like something I’d usually read, especially if you don’t happen to notice that clawed hand on the cover. I own this because of my Aardvark book box subscription; it’s pretty easy to get me to take a risk on a hardcover if it’s only $10, and the club in general has had a pretty good record for horror novels for me.

Because, yeah, this is a horror novel. It’s Rosemary’s Baby crossed with Nightbitch for the TikTok/Instagram generation, which was not a thing I ever expected to type. Main character Camille Deming is an aspiring Instagram influencer and “trad wife” person, meaning she stays at home and cooks and cleans and constantly posts pictures and videos of her perfect house and her perfect lifestyle. The problem is that she doesn’t have a baby, and she feels like her social media is never really going to take off (I feel you, sister) unless she manages to get herself knocked up. The problem is it keeps not happening, and her husband seems to be losing interest in her.

So obviously she’s gonna fuck the first demon who invades her dreams to promise her a child. I mean, really, who wouldn’t? And if the baby doesn’t turn out … quite like she expected, well. Do it for the ‘gram. Or something. I feel like young people at least used to say that.

I actually posted a review of this to GR/SG, and it read, in full, “Absolutely deranged. I loved it.”

A few hours later, this is probably going to be one of those books that declines a bit in my esteem with the passage of time, but its strength is that it’s a fast, propulsive read (only 300 pages) that you will probably finish far too quickly to think about it too much. Once you sit down and think about it— and, to be clear, this is something that I don’t recommend— it’s gonna develop a couple of holes here and there, and a couple of things about the setting are going to feel like they were contrived specifically so that the plot would work. Camille and her husband have just moved to a new home in a new town, for example, away from family and friends. Camille has no one other than her husband and an infuriatingly persistent and nosy neighbor who she’d rather do without, and she kind of has to be isolated for the plot to work— if she even had one good girlfriend the book would not have been able to unfold the way it did.

The book doesn’t actually really address her lack of friends; I assume it’s because she’s decided to dedicate herself solely to her husband; you’re gonna have to roll with it if you want to have a good time. Similarly, if her husband was even vaguely interested in being a good husband or a good father— either! it doesn’t have to be both!— a whole lot would have gone very differently. You will be annoyed by things like this if things like this generally annoy you. Do you want to like your main characters? You may not like Camille very much. I’m not certain you’re supposed to; I’m not sure the author likes her very much. But Trad Wife succeeds at being a creepy page-turner for the few hours you’ll spend with it, and sometimes that’s enough. I needed something I could dive into and enjoy, and it filled that role nicely.

The most exciting thing that happened today: Saturday edition

On March 7, 2026 By Luther M. SilerIn lifeLeave a comment

One:

Two:

Three:

Patching, repainting and putting the trim back in place is gonna wait to next weekend, and rearranging the room until the weekend after that, but that job was a lot easier than either of us thought it was going to be.

The most exciting thing that happened today

On March 6, 2026 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocyLeave a comment

I have made this observation in three different places so far, which is almost certainly more than it deserves: the most impressive thing about the Big Arch I had for lunch today is that it looks exactly like every picture of the Big Arch that McDonald’s has been using to advertise it. If you eat at restaurants at all you know how ridiculously uncommon that is. The review: pretty damn tasty, almost too big, although I could still taste it three hours later and I suspect my breath may still slightly smell of onions.

This week was utter madness.

Two different two-hour fog delays, which led to me talking for five hours straight on Thursday, as everything I had planned for that day had to be compressed into two hours less class time, meaning I did nothing but lecture the entire day. This is not a thing I do. I was so tired when I got home I forgot to take my Mounjaro shot, which has been a regular Thursday thing for at least a year now. Today they took the test I was doing the guided notes for yesterday; I still have two classes to grade, but early indications are that the bed appears to not have been shit in. Monday and Tuesday were it’s getting warm and there’s a full moon behaviors and Wednesday was an e-learning day and tons of meetings.

Y’all, I am exhausted. And all of this is before we get to the bit where the fucking world set itself on fire more than once in the last couple of weeks– have I even used the word “Iran” on this blog yet? How long ago was the first attack? It could have been anything from yesterday to a month ago at this point; I’m so fried I can’t even tell. The second-dumbest guy in the Senate is apparently getting promoted? Gas prices have shot up by a dollar a gallon since I filled the tank on Monday.

Oh, and while I’ve generally tried not to talk too much about some of the medical issues my son has been having, for probably-obvious reasons, I cannot pass up mentioning that he was prescribed a nasal spray this week for migraines that are somehow in his abdomen, and no part of me is capable of dealing with the fact that that sentence represents something real and is not word salad.

So naturally tomorrow we’re going to tear down a wall in the bedroom. Wish me luck.

I’m sure it’ll be fine.

Today: Also garbage

On March 5, 2026 By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Today has been one of those days where absolutely nothing, nothing at all, has gone right, and I absolutely and thoroughly Cannot right now. Sorry.

So far in 2026…

On March 4, 2026 By Luther M. SilerIn life, Teaching1 Comment

The older brother of a kid in my building was murdered by the police.

A former student was shot a couple of miles from school and may be paralyzed for life.

And just yesterday another former student was arrested for murder. Despite being a minor the police are releasing his name all over the fucking place.

Oh, and another younger brother of former students who would have been one of mine in a couple of years got airlifted to a hospital in Indianapolis today for unspecified reasons and is expected to be gone “indefinitely.”

I have a doctor’s appointment in a couple of weeks and she’s going to ask me about my mental health. I’m going to have to lie.

Conversations with students

On March 3, 2026March 5, 2026 By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

Second hour, my Algebra class. Supposedly the smart ones. I overhear one of my boys listing off ingredients.

“Stop looking up the Big Arch and do your math.”

The boys at the table exchange glances.

“How did you know that was the ingredients for the Big Arch?”

“I’m fat. Do your work.”

During sixth hour, I have to explain to a student that we have a “turn off the lights and hide” policy during lockdown drills because it is, in fact, a better idea for 800+ kids to be quiet and hiding during an emergency than jumping out the windows and running away, which is what he suggests the right idea would be.

He points out that most school shooters are students of the school (a fact I’m not completely sure of, but whatever) and that they would surely know which classes had students in them and would not be fooled by darkness and silence.

I ask him “Does Mrs. So-and-so have a fourth hour class?”

“Why would I know that?”

Today’s assignment has sixteen “real” questions and, just so that the points end up as a multiple of 10, which I care about for no reason, I include four questions taken from preschool standards, just to give the grades a little bump for the hell of it. Four students miss at least one of these questions and I have to explain to one of them, a native English speaker, what “fewer” means.

A teacher is absent and I am covering her homeroom, which means that both classes will be in my room at the same time. My prep period is fourth hour which is right before Advisory. A student knocks on my door at the beginning of fourth hour.

“I’m in Mrs. Such-and-so’s class.”

“I’m covering her advisory, not her fourth hour.”

“But <other adult> told me to come here.”

“There is a literal sign on her door saying that her Advisory class should come to me. Not her fourth hour. I’m not covering her fourth.”

“What should I do?”

“Mrs. Whatshername is covering her fourth. So if they aren’t in Mrs. So-and-so’s room they’re probably in her class. Go look and see if there’s a sign on the door.”

She repeats that the other adult told her to come to me.

I step out of the way and grandly reveal the empty classroom.

“There are no other students in here. I’m not sure what else I can tell you.”

She stares at me.

I close the door.

A student tells me she wants a rat and a snake as pets. I ask if she plans to put them in the same cage. She says she might have to since “there’s not enough room.” I ask what she means.

There are four humans, four cats, and three dogs living in her home. The dogs are a pit bull mix, some sort of dog with the word “mountain” in the name, and a St. Bernard. She lives in a trailer.

I had at least one more when I was prewriting this. If I remember what it was I’ll add it in. This was a ridiculous day.

I’m a loser, baby

On March 2, 2026March 2, 2026 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, Teaching2 Comments

I considered not posting tonight; after all, if I’m going to lose one significant streak, I may as well lose more than one, but here I am nonetheless. I’ve already disappointed myself, surely I can’t follow that up by disappointing my adoring public.

Shut up, yes you are. And yes you do.

I am … superstitious isn’t the right word, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is– in exactly one way: I’m fully convinced that full moons fuck kids up. To wit, as I was leaving work today, someone mentioned that tomorrow was the full moon, and suddenly the utter fucking ridiculousness of my day just clicked. Like, oh, of course there’s a full moon. You were in that classroom. You saw those kids. And that’s the thing; when I walk into my day entirely unaware of the phase of the moon, experience the psychotic behavior from my lovely lil’ dipshits, and then find out that’s what was going on? That’s evidence, dammit. I shouted one room into twenty minutes of complete silence today. I’ve had such a good year that these kids have barely heard me raise my voice at all, so when I do lose my temper it gets a real reaction.

There are days where I simply can’t make this shit any simpler, and today was one of them. “See this number? See this number? Divide them shits. Make sure this one’s on top.” That was it. Calculating scale factors just isn’t that hard. And my third hour in particular made it abundantly clear that every second of my instruction had literally just passed through their heads like a neutrino through aerogel, leaving not a fucking trace of a mark behind. There’s only so many times I can be asked questions which I have literally just answered before I lose my shit, and asking a room full of fourteen-year-olds what three divided by one was and getting “one” and “four” as answers– this is not a fucking joke, it really happened– was the last straw.

I don’t give a damn if your parents tell you to go to school. You’re clearly already used to being a disappointment; what’s one more thing? If this is all the effort I’m going to get out of y’all, you can go. The office is down the hall. I’m not even going to write you up. Just fuck off. Go home, go to hell, I don’t care which. You aren’t entitled to my fucking oxygen if you’re not going to be a student.

Bah.