Underbelly cover art

Underbelly

The instant Sunday Times bestseller from Mother Pukka – the unmissable, gripping and electrifying fiction debut

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Underbelly

By: Anna Whitehouse
Narrated by: Jasmine Blackborow, Nathalie Buscombe
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Underbelly

[n.] singular

The soft underside or abdomen of a mammal.

An area vulnerable to attack.

A dark, hidden part of society.

Lo and Dylan are living parallel lives, worlds apart.

Lo is the ultimate middle-class mother, all perfectly polished Instagram posts and armchair activism. Dylan is just about surviving on a zero-hours telemarketing job from her flat, trying to keep food on the table. But when they meet at the school gates, they are catapulted into each other's homes and lives - with devastating consequences....

Explosive, sharply humorous and unflinchingly honest, Underbelly slices through the filtered surface of modern women's lives to expose the dark truth beneath.

Read by Nathalie Buscombe and Jasmine Blackborow, featuring the authors.

©2021 Anna Whitehouse (P)2021 Orion Publishing Group Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Psychological Women's Fiction Scary Witty Tear-jerking Suspense

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Stepping Up cover art
Memories of You cover art
Missing cover art
If I Let You Go cover art
Parenting the Sh*t out of Life cover art
Scissors, Paper, Stone cover art
When I First Held You cover art
Weirdo cover art
Single Bald Female cover art
Careless cover art
12 Hours to Say I Love You cover art
The Lonely Fajita cover art
Someone Else’s Baby cover art

Critic reviews

"Darkly voyeuristic but with heart - as funny as it is painful and true. We loved it." (Grazia)

"I don't think I've ever turned the pages of a book so quickly. So sharp, so tender...truly excellent storytelling." (Daisy Buchanan)

"Entertaining and playful but with huge depth, meaning and heart. I raced through it." (Emma Gannon)

All stars
Most relevant  
Absolutely loved this book. So relevant to any woman or girl in 2022 with a smartphone.

Incredibly relevant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It’s hard to review this book, as it isn’t a bad book but I didn’t enjoy it. The problem for me lies in the bleakness of the topic, something which is a relatively new and yet completely entrenched part of the world now; social media and the business of influencing. I have no doubt about the accuracy of the portrayal; Anna Whitehouse has lived and breathed this for years, but if it’s as described I have absolutely no idea why anyone ever does it. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that’s made me feel so unsettled and disturbed and maybe that was the point but this one a dark stuff. Worth it for awareness but really hard to understand why they do what they do. It’s also hard to distance Anna and Mother Pukka in this, something which I’m sure the writing team wouldn’t want. It just feels as though this is all stuff that’s happened, or so close to stuff that’s happened, rather than fiction, something which the narration didn’t help as the voice was incredibly similar to Anna’s.

Hard hitting stuff

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Sometimes an uncomfortable experience as you’re immersed in both main characters’ lives but so transformative and all women on social media should definitely read. A hugely relevant novel that i am sure most people will be able to relate to in some way. Beautifully written, and read too.

relevant and important

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Makes you Pause and Reflect. A well executed novel where you are forced to switch and change allegiance to the two narrators.

Makes you Pause and Reflect

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Fantastic, couldn’t press pause. I finished it super quickly! Definitely recommended to keep you entertained on a long car journey.

Fantastic, a brilliant listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Loved this book, I was really gripped by the 2 stories and the performances of the audiobook narrators Jasmine and Natalie were SO good. Genuinely made me reflect on the time I spend on my phone and social media. I think I was only disappointed that it came to an end! I wanted to know what happened next, but I think there was a point to it ending how it did.

Didn’t want it to stop!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I didn’t want it to end - really gripping story with such great characters. Please write more books Anna and Matt!

Fantastic

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I liked this book and I enjoyed reading. While reading I felt Dylan was very similar to what happened to Cash Garraway, and how she shared her struggles but the middle class 'insta mums' all ganged together to tear her down,

These aspirational insta mums who pretend they are scummy mummies because they feed their kids fish fingers once in a blue moon, promoting this when really they order Hello Fresh every night.

Thank you for writing this book.

Feels like what happened to Cash Garraway

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great story, fantastic narration, very topical and relatable, as a young woman. Recommended to those who perhaps spend more time than they might like on Instagram.

Great book!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You know you’re reading a good book when it’s the first thing you reach for when you wake up. When I wasn’t reading this book, I was thinking about it - and still am!

Devoured in a day!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews