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A review by leahsbooks
The Push by Ashley Audrain
4.0
CONTENT WARNING: parental abandonment, death, abuse, miscarriage, death of a child, infidelity, suicide, self-harm
All I knew about this book was how everyone said it was amazing, and I was surprised at what it delivered, even though it wasn't anything like what I had expected it to be.
It's told in two different timelines, one aspect revealing Blythe's upbringing and insight into her own mother's life, and the other is Blythe's own life, although it weaves between her present-day and the events that lead up to today. I found Blythe easy to empathize with, although it was difficult to decide whether she was a reliable narrator or not.
Despite her own difficult upbringing, when Blythe gets married and pregnant, she begins to look forward to motherhood. However, it isn't quite the dream that she expected. When she fails to make the expected connection with her baby, despite all the steps that she takes to facilitate this, she begins to have some questions about her own abilities as a mother. Even while participating in social groups of new mothers, she notices that she isn't bonding with Violet, her new baby, and it becomes clear that Violet isn't bonding with her, even though she appears to develop this bond with Fox, Blythe's husband. But when she becomes pregnant with another baby, and finally finds the connection that she was looking for with her son, Sam, she has some new revelations about herself as well as her daughter, even as her family falls apart in the aftermath of traumatic events.
This book doesn't romanticize motherhood. It talks about the ugly side of what happens to a body after a woman gives birth, the thoughts that can occur to a new mother, especially when motherhood isn't going as expected, and the cracks that appear in a marriage when things aren't quite what they look like on the outside. Even as I felt more and more deeply for Blythe, I started to resent her husband, Fox, more and more. He kind of just sailed in and played the hero role, gaslighting Blythe and making her look like the unbalanced woman who isn't a good mother. But all along, I wasn't so sure that Blythe was really unbalanced.
It was a difficult read, and I wouldn't necessarily say it was enjoyable, since it focuses on some uncomfortable topics. But I couldn't stop listening to the audiobook, and the narrator did such an amazing job with the story and the characters. I couldn't wait to find out what happened next, and to see what was actually going on, and most pressing, who was right. The ending is a bit open-ended, allowing me to make my own inference about what happened based on a pattern that ran through the story. But I was left with a deep curiosity about what happened next.
All I knew about this book was how everyone said it was amazing, and I was surprised at what it delivered, even though it wasn't anything like what I had expected it to be.
It's told in two different timelines, one aspect revealing Blythe's upbringing and insight into her own mother's life, and the other is Blythe's own life, although it weaves between her present-day and the events that lead up to today. I found Blythe easy to empathize with, although it was difficult to decide whether she was a reliable narrator or not.
Despite her own difficult upbringing, when Blythe gets married and pregnant, she begins to look forward to motherhood. However, it isn't quite the dream that she expected. When she fails to make the expected connection with her baby, despite all the steps that she takes to facilitate this, she begins to have some questions about her own abilities as a mother. Even while participating in social groups of new mothers, she notices that she isn't bonding with Violet, her new baby, and it becomes clear that Violet isn't bonding with her, even though she appears to develop this bond with Fox, Blythe's husband. But when she becomes pregnant with another baby, and finally finds the connection that she was looking for with her son, Sam, she has some new revelations about herself as well as her daughter, even as her family falls apart in the aftermath of traumatic events.
This book doesn't romanticize motherhood. It talks about the ugly side of what happens to a body after a woman gives birth, the thoughts that can occur to a new mother, especially when motherhood isn't going as expected, and the cracks that appear in a marriage when things aren't quite what they look like on the outside. Even as I felt more and more deeply for Blythe, I started to resent her husband, Fox, more and more. He kind of just sailed in and played the hero role, gaslighting Blythe and making her look like the unbalanced woman who isn't a good mother. But all along, I wasn't so sure that Blythe was really unbalanced.
It was a difficult read, and I wouldn't necessarily say it was enjoyable, since it focuses on some uncomfortable topics. But I couldn't stop listening to the audiobook, and the narrator did such an amazing job with the story and the characters. I couldn't wait to find out what happened next, and to see what was actually going on, and most pressing, who was right. The ending is a bit open-ended, allowing me to make my own inference about what happened based on a pattern that ran through the story. But I was left with a deep curiosity about what happened next.