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A review by sarratbb
The Push by Ashley Audrain
5.0
The Push - Ashley Audrain
I am scared.
Today I read The Push. It was a highly emotional book and it felt more real than anything I have ever read.
It tells Blythe’s story, a woman who was on the receiving end of a generational trauma perpetuated by the women in the family. They were all bad mothers. Blythe is afraid of having a child, she is afraid she is going to mess up, and she does in so many ways as all new mothers do! However, with her past and the distance building in her marriage, she feels more and more confused about how she feels towards her daughter as days and months pass. Her husband, Fox, always manages to gaslight her or soothe her in a way. On the other hand, he had the perfect parents growing up, which stresses Blythe out even more since her parenting expectations are even higher. Their daughter, Violet, seems to have some kind of anger issues and expresses on many occasions how much she hates Blythe (she was always closer to her father), she also gets violent towards other kids at school and allegedly causes a little boy’s death. Blythe then decides she wants another child to redeem herself. When the little boy, Sam, is born, she feels amazing, she feels loving and it seems like his presence solved the conflicts in the family, Violet even gets kinder and takes care of the baby. While Blythe is becoming more confident and letting go of her fears, Violet becomes weird again, threatening the baby. Fox blames Blythe for making Violet jealous and accuses her of loving Sam more, although it is not necessarily true. Sam dies and Violet seems to have pushed the stroller on the road on purpose. After his passing, Blythe and Fox go through grief, and the latter’s affair with his secretary, Gemma. The couple ends up having a divorce and Fox is granted full custody of Violet with visitations from Blythe. She gets close to her ex-husband’s new girlfriend/wife by faking her identity, Violet still resents her mom, and one day, Blythe grabs her daughter’s arm too hard. As a result, Fox stops the visitations. The woman continues to "visit" her daughter, watching her sometimes from her car. After a while, Blythe starts to think she really was the issue and takes therapy in hopes to move on. Later on, we learn Gemma’s son, Jet, died and it is implied Violet killed her step-brother.
All the focus in the first half of the book is on Blythe’s fear of motherhood. We get flashbacks of memories that Blythe recollects from her childhood and her complicated relationship with her mom, Cecilia, that ended in her abandoning her daughter at the age of 12. We also get stories of Cecilia’s Childhood, her own mother, Etta, being very abusive and violent towards her. We understand how after two generations of bad parenthood, Blythe would be scared of having a baby herself and becoming one of the abusive women in her family. Her husband, Fox, is pictured as the ideal man, and the "healthy" partner, as healthy as he is though, he does not try to learn about Blythe’s trauma to understand her better, he just pushes her to be the perfect mother. While a child should be the priority of their parents, it is important to deal with the parent’s issues and that they take care of themselves in the process. Blythe feels left out. She sacrificed her hobbies and dreams (writing) as well as her own sanity for Fox’s happiness, and instead of receiving it back, Violet and her father form a bond, and she feels left out of it, abandoned, forgotten, erased, she describes herself as "Violet’s caregiver". The couple does not have a healthy routine, they spend almost no time together anymore which only adds to Blythe’s struggles. Suddenly, there is a shift in the main theme of the story, since now, the real problem is Violet’s behavior and not Blythe’s fears anymore. When she tries to deal with her daughter’s obvious anger issues or whatever problems she may have, Fox is in denial, he doesn’t see it, he gaslights Blythe and accuses her of being the cause for the abnormal behavior (he never recognizes the behavior is abnormal). When Sam is born and Blythe is finally happy, it seems like he doesn’t like it. He hates seeing her happier and more at ease with the second kid, he expresses more jealousy than Violet does, which creates a weird dynamic in the family, in which he portrays Blythe as an antagonist again. After Sam’s death, again gaslighting, blaming, and … AFFAIR!!!!! The marriage ends, she only sees her daughter during visitations and keeps on noticing her odd ways and her violent hateful tendencies (obviously her seeing Violet kill Sam was the last straw, had Fox been more down to earth and supportive of Blythe, they could have dealt with their daughter’s problem early on). Violet is manipulative and reinforces the bad mom narrative. Gemma is completely oblivious to all that, she, of course, can only believe what she saw and heard so far, which is that Violet is a sweet girl with a complicated past. That is after the visitations are canceled and Blythe gets completely thrown out of the family that the intrusive negative thoughts come back and she decides to get therapy to deal with her "flaws" and fears. In the end, Jet’s death only confirms that Blythe was in no way the evil bad mother she thought she was or the one her husband wanted to say she was, she was right and she was the normal one with a complicated past. Surely, her past affected her decisions, emotions, thoughts, marriage, etc, but it was not the bigger picture, the real issue was Violet and her ass of a father Fox. (just my opinion)
I would like to add that I believe Violet's resentment for her mother is a result of the bizarre dynamic there was in the family, which I believe is mostly the father's fault, let me explain. When a child is so small, you don't expect them to pick up on things like adults do, but they pick up on the slightest facial expressions and body language we wouldn't notice much anymore. Some kids don't remember or get influenced by that in the long term but some do, which brings me to the case of Violet. I think the dad might have said or done some things to show that he believed, deep down, that Blythe would be a bad mom. Also, the fact that he would appear to "solve" all the problems without even trying to support the mother's decisions or attempts didn't really help?? For example, and I know it seems like nothing but it does affect the baby's behavior sometimes: When Blythe was trying to give Violet food and she didn't want to eat, she was throwing a tantrum and Blythe was panicking, then Fox comes back from work, he gives her something else to eat and she's just fine, without even acknowledging that Blythe was struggling trying to do her best. It is a pattern in this book, like Fox is the good cop and Violet his teammate. When Violet told him she hated her mother, he didn't say anything convincing or reassuring to really show her how wrong, unfounded and unfair that feeling is, he just said that she was her mother, Violet already knows that, however it is reinforced constantly that she and her dad are a team and Blythe is on the outside, Fox and his daughter have fun, they have a bond and Blythe is like the opponent, while in a healthier family, the mom and dad are a team already. Violet sensed that and her dad never did anything to prove her otherwise which confirmed the way she saw her mom. Like when Sam was born, she was not jealous since she remembered her mom taking care of her as a baby, however, Fox was jealous on her behalf, I suspect she could have heard their conversations and fights about the matter, and the feeling she had before (the teams and stuff) came back which brought her back to that dark place of hatred and resentment towards the "bad" parent. She eliminated Sam because she was eliminating the opponent team, hurting Blythe, and outnumbering her team (2 against 2 becomes 2 against 1 again, Blythe does not have any hope or happiness left after that, thus, they win). Of course, I'm trying to explain what I think happened in this kid's head. What happens to Jet later, I have many hypotheses about that event: either she felt like before, the teams and all that, or the built-up anger and the "habit" of murder is just part of her now and it comes to her without a big reason that would explain (not justify) her action.
The way the multiple traumas Blythe suffered from were described was terrific and the fact that the time jumps and flashbacks are not always announced gives even more depth to the story like we are reading a journal written spontaneously. I have to point out the pronouns used as well, as the narrator is Blythe (I/ me) and she talks to her ex-husband (you) in the whole novel, this way of telling the story, trying to give her side of the events to her past lover who destroyed her character and hurt her so deeply, makes the whole thing even more real and emotional. It also gives an incredibly precise and true description of motherhood, where nothing is kept silent and no feeling is taboo, it was a pleasure to read through Blythe's story, her emotions, her history, and her life, it felt like I was living the whole thing myself.
I am scared.
Today I read The Push. It was a highly emotional book and it felt more real than anything I have ever read.
It tells Blythe’s story, a woman who was on the receiving end of a generational trauma perpetuated by the women in the family. They were all bad mothers. Blythe is afraid of having a child, she is afraid she is going to mess up, and she does in so many ways as all new mothers do! However, with her past and the distance building in her marriage, she feels more and more confused about how she feels towards her daughter as days and months pass. Her husband, Fox, always manages to gaslight her or soothe her in a way. On the other hand, he had the perfect parents growing up, which stresses Blythe out even more since her parenting expectations are even higher. Their daughter, Violet, seems to have some kind of anger issues and expresses on many occasions how much she hates Blythe (she was always closer to her father), she also gets violent towards other kids at school and allegedly causes a little boy’s death. Blythe then decides she wants another child to redeem herself. When the little boy, Sam, is born, she feels amazing, she feels loving and it seems like his presence solved the conflicts in the family, Violet even gets kinder and takes care of the baby. While Blythe is becoming more confident and letting go of her fears, Violet becomes weird again, threatening the baby. Fox blames Blythe for making Violet jealous and accuses her of loving Sam more, although it is not necessarily true. Sam dies and Violet seems to have pushed the stroller on the road on purpose. After his passing, Blythe and Fox go through grief, and the latter’s affair with his secretary, Gemma. The couple ends up having a divorce and Fox is granted full custody of Violet with visitations from Blythe. She gets close to her ex-husband’s new girlfriend/wife by faking her identity, Violet still resents her mom, and one day, Blythe grabs her daughter’s arm too hard. As a result, Fox stops the visitations. The woman continues to "visit" her daughter, watching her sometimes from her car. After a while, Blythe starts to think she really was the issue and takes therapy in hopes to move on. Later on, we learn Gemma’s son, Jet, died and it is implied Violet killed her step-brother.
All the focus in the first half of the book is on Blythe’s fear of motherhood. We get flashbacks of memories that Blythe recollects from her childhood and her complicated relationship with her mom, Cecilia, that ended in her abandoning her daughter at the age of 12. We also get stories of Cecilia’s Childhood, her own mother, Etta, being very abusive and violent towards her. We understand how after two generations of bad parenthood, Blythe would be scared of having a baby herself and becoming one of the abusive women in her family. Her husband, Fox, is pictured as the ideal man, and the "healthy" partner, as healthy as he is though, he does not try to learn about Blythe’s trauma to understand her better, he just pushes her to be the perfect mother. While a child should be the priority of their parents, it is important to deal with the parent’s issues and that they take care of themselves in the process. Blythe feels left out. She sacrificed her hobbies and dreams (writing) as well as her own sanity for Fox’s happiness, and instead of receiving it back, Violet and her father form a bond, and she feels left out of it, abandoned, forgotten, erased, she describes herself as "Violet’s caregiver". The couple does not have a healthy routine, they spend almost no time together anymore which only adds to Blythe’s struggles. Suddenly, there is a shift in the main theme of the story, since now, the real problem is Violet’s behavior and not Blythe’s fears anymore. When she tries to deal with her daughter’s obvious anger issues or whatever problems she may have, Fox is in denial, he doesn’t see it, he gaslights Blythe and accuses her of being the cause for the abnormal behavior (he never recognizes the behavior is abnormal). When Sam is born and Blythe is finally happy, it seems like he doesn’t like it. He hates seeing her happier and more at ease with the second kid, he expresses more jealousy than Violet does, which creates a weird dynamic in the family, in which he portrays Blythe as an antagonist again. After Sam’s death, again gaslighting, blaming, and … AFFAIR!!!!! The marriage ends, she only sees her daughter during visitations and keeps on noticing her odd ways and her violent hateful tendencies (obviously her seeing Violet kill Sam was the last straw, had Fox been more down to earth and supportive of Blythe, they could have dealt with their daughter’s problem early on). Violet is manipulative and reinforces the bad mom narrative. Gemma is completely oblivious to all that, she, of course, can only believe what she saw and heard so far, which is that Violet is a sweet girl with a complicated past. That is after the visitations are canceled and Blythe gets completely thrown out of the family that the intrusive negative thoughts come back and she decides to get therapy to deal with her "flaws" and fears. In the end, Jet’s death only confirms that Blythe was in no way the evil bad mother she thought she was or the one her husband wanted to say she was, she was right and she was the normal one with a complicated past. Surely, her past affected her decisions, emotions, thoughts, marriage, etc, but it was not the bigger picture, the real issue was Violet and her ass of a father Fox. (just my opinion)
I would like to add that I believe Violet's resentment for her mother is a result of the bizarre dynamic there was in the family, which I believe is mostly the father's fault, let me explain. When a child is so small, you don't expect them to pick up on things like adults do, but they pick up on the slightest facial expressions and body language we wouldn't notice much anymore. Some kids don't remember or get influenced by that in the long term but some do, which brings me to the case of Violet. I think the dad might have said or done some things to show that he believed, deep down, that Blythe would be a bad mom. Also, the fact that he would appear to "solve" all the problems without even trying to support the mother's decisions or attempts didn't really help?? For example, and I know it seems like nothing but it does affect the baby's behavior sometimes: When Blythe was trying to give Violet food and she didn't want to eat, she was throwing a tantrum and Blythe was panicking, then Fox comes back from work, he gives her something else to eat and she's just fine, without even acknowledging that Blythe was struggling trying to do her best. It is a pattern in this book, like Fox is the good cop and Violet his teammate. When Violet told him she hated her mother, he didn't say anything convincing or reassuring to really show her how wrong, unfounded and unfair that feeling is, he just said that she was her mother, Violet already knows that, however it is reinforced constantly that she and her dad are a team and Blythe is on the outside, Fox and his daughter have fun, they have a bond and Blythe is like the opponent, while in a healthier family, the mom and dad are a team already. Violet sensed that and her dad never did anything to prove her otherwise which confirmed the way she saw her mom. Like when Sam was born, she was not jealous since she remembered her mom taking care of her as a baby, however, Fox was jealous on her behalf, I suspect she could have heard their conversations and fights about the matter, and the feeling she had before (the teams and stuff) came back which brought her back to that dark place of hatred and resentment towards the "bad" parent. She eliminated Sam because she was eliminating the opponent team, hurting Blythe, and outnumbering her team (2 against 2 becomes 2 against 1 again, Blythe does not have any hope or happiness left after that, thus, they win). Of course, I'm trying to explain what I think happened in this kid's head. What happens to Jet later, I have many hypotheses about that event: either she felt like before, the teams and all that, or the built-up anger and the "habit" of murder is just part of her now and it comes to her without a big reason that would explain (not justify) her action.
The way the multiple traumas Blythe suffered from were described was terrific and the fact that the time jumps and flashbacks are not always announced gives even more depth to the story like we are reading a journal written spontaneously. I have to point out the pronouns used as well, as the narrator is Blythe (I/ me) and she talks to her ex-husband (you) in the whole novel, this way of telling the story, trying to give her side of the events to her past lover who destroyed her character and hurt her so deeply, makes the whole thing even more real and emotional. It also gives an incredibly precise and true description of motherhood, where nothing is kept silent and no feeling is taboo, it was a pleasure to read through Blythe's story, her emotions, her history, and her life, it felt like I was living the whole thing myself.