- Title: The Push
- Author: Ashley Audrain
- Publisher: Michael Joseph
- Pub. date: 5 January 2021
- Series: DEBUT
- Page count: 320
- Genres: adult, thriller
This post uses affiliate links and I may receive a small commission for purchases made through my links at no additional cost to you.
A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family–and a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for–and everything she feared.
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.
Content warnings: abortion (mentioned), cheating, child abuse, death of an infant, gaslighting, grief, self-harm (suicide), mental health (including postnatal depression), miscarriage.
I was lucky to spot this book among my cousin’s stuff during a sleepover and am even luckier that she chose to let me borrow it! The Push is a Goodreads Choice Awards nominee right now and I remember loads of hype around this book when it came out all the way in January.
The Push follows the narrative of three women, spinning three different tales of motherhood and family that intersect across generations. The main voice of the story is Blythe Connor, who gets married and has a daughter with her partner. The picture-perfect life this couple has built so far starts cracking when Blythe starts to worry that her newborn daughter is not the perfect angel her husband seems to think she is.
Blythe’s story is interspersed with flashbacks to her mother, Cecilia’s, and her grandmother, Etta’s, experiences of motherhood and growing up. It is worth noting that these women’s mothering skills are negligent at best and downright abusive at their worst.
Majority of the story is written as though it’s a letter addressed to Blythe’s husband, Fox, using the secondhand narrative as Blythe looks back at the life they built together and crumbled. I thought this was an interesting approach since Blythe seems to be the outsider in the family since Fox and their daughter, Violet, develop a strong connection.
Audrain chose such a raw and gritty voice for Blythe’s character, and that really hits home as the reader gets to see what motherhood and Blythe’s own childhood brings to the story. Given the rawness of Blythe’s story, I initially struggled to keep reading. The pain and emotional trauma the characters go through felt disturbing and painful to even read.
Despite Blythe’s questionable parenting methods and her flaws, I warmed up to her the most out of all the characters in this book. It was painful to watch her struggle through motherhood and to see her brushed aside by her family repeatedly when all she needed was someone to listen to her. I also found Blythe’s story scary because I could easily see this happening to anyone on different scales of difficulty during motherhood.
I did not connect as intensely with Cecilia or Etta, but I feel that I might be biased based on Blythe’s childhood. I definitely did not like Fox because I think Blythe deserved a whole lot better. As for Violet, my feelings are a huge mess of sympathy, fear and paranoia. Violet was definitely one of the most complicated characters I have come across.
What was interesting about the plot was that since it is written in a kind of epistolary style, it makes the reader question whether everything that Blythe reports is actually true. Initially I was confused as well and I kept questioning Blythe and every other character that I came across. That’s what really kept me going in the first half of the story and the second half was purely because I got so invested in Blythe.
Another fascinating aspect of the plot of The Push is how sedately paced the story was. Thrillers usually maintain a fast pace with twists and turns when the reader least expects it, but The Push was a slow build-up to a horrifying climax, which gently tapered off to a chilling conclusion. I never thought I would like thrillers of this style but I really liked this calm storm that this book built up.
I haven’t read any book that had this raw, terrifying look at motherhood, so reading The Push was a bit of an eye-opener for me. The author explored a side to motherhood that is rarely portrayed in media and I found that equal parts scary and fascinating.
I found the book’s portrayal of parenthood and marriage just as foreboding with its depiction of how a marriage that starts out wholesome and wonderful can devolve into a messy divorce and ruined lives. I must also be a huge sucker for these depressing and terrifying themes because I loved it! I was absolutely pulled in by the intricacies of how much these factors played into a child’s upbringing and nurturing too.
The Push by Ashley Audrain is an intricately-spun thriller that questions what could go wrong in marriage and motherhood. Though disturbing and dark in nature, the sedately paced story makes a smooth, page-turning read that is sure to shock as well as reach out to readers. I loved the raw, dark quality of this book, and the beautiful writing, so I can’t wait to see what more Audrain will come up with in the future!
More The Push content: Alice’s review, Charlie’s review, Brenda’s Q&A with the author, and the Booktopian’s Q&A with the author
ASHLEY AUDRAIN previously worked as the publicity director of Penguin Books Canada. Prior to Penguin, she worked in public relations. She is a graduate of the Media, Information & Technoculture program at Western University. She lives in Toronto, where she and her partner are raising their two young children. The Push is her first novel.
Have you read The Push or will you be picking it up?
