REVIEW || ‘The Push’ by Ashley Audrain
“A mother’s heart breaks a million ways in her lifetime.”
—Ashley Audrain
★★★★★
5/5 Stars
This may be one of the most difficult books I've ever read. I knew going in that I was either going to overwhelmingly love it or hate it/struggle finishing it. And admittedly I wasn't sure which way I was swaying as I devoured it. Now that I've finished, I can't get it out of my brain...and that's how I know it's one of my favorite books of 2021.
PLOT SPOT
Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had.
But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter–she doesn’t behave like most children do.
Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well.
Then their son Sam is born–and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.
The Push is a tour de force you will read in a sitting, an utterly immersive novel that will challenge everything you think you know about motherhood, about what we owe our children, and what it feels like when women are not believed.
WINS
Different POV style. It's meant to be read like one long letter from the protagonist to her ex-husband. A memoir, of sorts. It gives a very different perspective than a typical complex thriller [which BTW I wouldn't necessarily consider this a thriller - more suspenseful/dark/complex/psychological]. It also provides the perfect backdrop for you as the reader to question each and every thing you read. You're basically told from the get-go that this is just one side of the following story. Which perfectly segues into point 2...
Unreliable narrator. I understand why so many people dislike unreliable narrators, but I personally LOVE stories with a questionable protagonist. To me, it feels like a gift from the author. A sense of blind trust given to you by the architect of the story. In this case, Ashley Audrain gave us a beautifully woven tapestry with pieces of fact and fiction, truth and doubt seamlessly intersecting and blending throughout. But she trusted us as the readers to sift through the information and formulate our own opinion of what really happened. What's fact and what's fiction? What's real and what's imagined
Short, easy-to-read chapters. Because of the psychological nature of this book, I really enjoyed the creative touch Audrain used with chapter structure. Each subsequent installment felt like a memory or a fleeting thought of a desperate, heartbroken, lost, sad woman/mother/wife/daughter. Crazed to find the truth. Or to at least make her story heard and seen. I almost imagined myself as Blythe, writing my memoir spanning the events over the past 20+ years of my life. Reliving the heart break, the pain, the joy [which had to be equally as painful]. I can imagine I'd be frantic. Short. Clipped. Quickly flying from thought to thought in a desperate attempt to recount absolutely everything. Everything that might have contributed to the here and now. It was an absolutely brilliant tactic not lost on me.
LOSSES
Connection between final chapter and epilogue. We’re left with a year and a half in between the final chapter and the epilogue. I understand how all the characters reached that point and I have my opinions on why the main character switched her stance on going to therapy, but I wish a little more had been added to explain the work done mentally/emotionally to get to that place.
The very quick, slight mention of Blythe’s mother and what became of her. For someone who was so instrumental in forging the psyche of our protagonist, I felt the story just glossed over her fate like an afterthought.
Fox’s mother. I can’t get over her character because I’m so torn between wanting to love her and give her the benefit of the doubt, but also hating her and wanting to scream at her to be better. To not dig her head in the sand and say something when she noticed it. To recognize pain and suffering and in Blythe’s time of need, to be more maternal and loving than she was.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Anyone who enjoys dark psychological suspense that makes you think and leaves you feeling haunted long afterwards NEEDS to read this book. Now. But beware of the following triggers [because Audrain did such a phenomenal job writing & they are extremely hard to experience]: child loss, psychosis, gaslighting, psychological/emotional/verbal/mental/physical abuse, neglect, self-harm, depression, violence, sociopathy, adultery.
FOR FANS OF
