Reviews with content warning for Gaslighting - The Push

Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

The Push by Ashley Audrain

138 reviews

frozenheartv's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

4.5 stars
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗

No one writes about motherhood and mother-daughter relationship like Ashley Audrain. It took me a while to gather up all of the details together with the ending of the book to really got what they author wanted to tell us. The book was phenomenon. My jaw dropped after I had realized the things, and I had chills down my spine.

To get started, I would say that this book is really "heavy"; not literally, of course, but psychologically heavy. It was not a literal thriller or suspense book either. However, it gripped me from start to end, made me wanted to listen for more. It was written in the first-person point-of-view to make us felt like we were in Blythe's mind. Because of this, I felt more connected to Blythe. I felt her pain, her insecurities, her unstable mind and so on. Throughout the book, the author carefully sprinkled hints here and there for us to really understood the ending. The twist was not hard to guess but it made everything clearer and started to link with each other.

The author succeeded in portraying how trauma can pass on throughout every generations and how hard for the younger generations try to get rid of the toxic cycle.

Not only that, the author also depicts carefully and smartly the gaslighting technique that Fox did to Blythe. Blythe was clearly a victim of manipulation, abuse, neglect, trauma, maybe even mental illness and so on. Maybe I have an unpopular opinion here; I think Blythe might have internalized misogyny for treating Violet worse than Sam from the start or she just suffered from postpartum depression. "The Push" for me can mean the push that Violet did to Sam or the pushes from the society, family or Fox did to Blythe.

Parenting is difficult but I can never imagined it can be this difficult, especially for the mother. In the end, should we love our children unconditionally? How can we deal with both toxic relationship with our partner and the complicated parenthood with our children? The author leaves us readers to find out the answer within ourselves.

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kennedymartin's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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_chelseachelsea's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

While The Push doesn’t necessarily bring anything new to the genre (and its ending will leave you a bit dissatisfied) it’s certainly fast-paced and tense enough to keep you locked in. A tight, quick read that explores the choice of motherhood (and how often women feel as though it is not a choice) and the crushing responsibility of it. An excellent pick for your year-end list.

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ekaramanov's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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emhansen's review against another edition

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4.25

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kathryn_reads_paiges's review against another edition

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This was initially boring to me and the tropes here felt tired (nature vs nurture, unreliable narrator, etc.) I had a physical copy I flipped through and found it disturbing…yet predictable based on what I’d read.

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samlopez93's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Intense, chilling, and psychological, The Push is one book I could get out of my head for a while!! <Spoiler>Not sure if this is really a spoiler to say but I'll tag it just in case! Fans of The Good Son will very likely love this book!

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