The Push

Received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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.

I wanted to read this book because I love a tense psychological drama. Stories about motherhood are not necessarily my thing, but I went into this not really knowing what to expect.

Blythe’s story, which was intertwined with that of her mother and her mother’s mother, was a frustrating and sad, at times heart-wrenching, read. It was also hard to read at times and made me uncomfortable.

This was certainly a really tense page-turner, but it also left me feeling kind of wrung out and bleak by the end. View Spoiler »I was thinking about nature vs nurture, and whether sometimes people are just born a certain way or whether something in our upbringing, no matter how early on, can have a lifelong impact on who we become. « Hide Spoiler

If you are looking for a dark psychological thriller, this might just fit the bill!