I didn’t like this book. I didn’t like the story or the manner in which the story unfolds. But I also didn’t have any objections to it. It didn’t bother me, or trigger anything in my life. It was just “bleh”...nothing special to me. It took me a while to read because I kept stopping. It felt boring and I had no connection to the characters. But oddly enough...I can see why some readers will be drawn to this story and I can also see why this book will also trigger a lot of uncomfortable feelings for many out there. Read at your own caution. Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

An easy read, but seemed very derivative.
Made me think of We Need to Talk about Kevin and Baby Teeth but I didn't like it as much.

Ahhh! This book is so good. The imagery is so crisp, the narrator so relatable. A great spin on the "everyone thinks the mom is losing it" trope.

Wow!!! This book was unlike anything I've ever read! It was equal parts disturbing and enthralling. I couldn't stop reading!!!

As a mother, it gutted me at times!
It made me feel so many emotions... anger, sadness, empathy, disgust, heartbreak, and sometimes even joy. This book is very dark, and I commend the author for tackling such a dark corner of the human experience, and doing it exceptionally well.

I have a feeling I'll be reeling from this one for weeks.

Thank you NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for my free copy of "The Push" in exchange for my honest review.

*Reviews posted on Goodreads and Amazon.*

Here is a book that you can't put down, whether you want to or not. It's a terrifying, psychological thriller with a somewhat dissatisfying and expected conclusion. I often wonder if the author leaves the ending up to interpretation, should it be considered a copout or a means for diversity of opinions?
The plot of "nature vs. nurturing" has been examined repeatedly and is always mystifying. This book seemed to reinterpret the "bad seed." It attempted to define whether a child is born "bad" or a result of bad parenting. Blythe, the mother in the story, was reared by a damaged, unloving mother. When her own daughter, Violet, behaves so erratically and dangerously herself, her mother questions whether she's imagining her daughter's danger signs or there is no plausible explanation for her behavior.
The story is so dark. I couldn't stop reading it so if a seething mystery is what you're looking for, it's a must read.

It occurs to me that most of the books I read are not written in a first person narrative. Maybe this is why the first chapter really confused me. I had this book on my shelf for a while before picking it up to read it. I found myself going back to reading the description because I couldn’t make sense of what I was reading in the first chapter. The rest of the book flowed. I went back and read the first chapter when I finished the book and then it made sense. I don’t think this qualifies as a spoiler alert. I’m just saying, the author chose a certain style of writing that I was not tuned into. A well written but bleak story. Not a book I would recommend for a mother with a child of a young age as it would be very hard to read without feeling very sad. Thanks to NetGalley for a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

I hate to say it, but I’ve seen something very similar to The Push by Ashley Audrain. This story about a woman who grows to fear one of her own children and questioning her ability to be a mother looks a lot like Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin. Perhaps the fact that that Audrain wrote and published a similar story means that it’s slowly more acceptable for women to talk about their (our) feelings when they run counter to what our society tells them (us). We are told that mothers are an endless spring of unconditional love, naturally nurturing. After reading The Push (and We Need to Talk About Kevin), I have to question just how natural our model of the perfect mother in a nuclear family really is.

Blythe Connor didn’t want to be a mother. She was more than content to live with her husband, occasionally publishing short stories. It’s hard to say how much of Blythe’s reluctance comes from her family history and how much is her own anxiety. She has unpleasant memories of being abandoned by her own mother—who was abused by her mother. How can Blythe be a mother when she never learned how? In spite of Blythe’s reluctance, she goes ahead with the pregnancy. After all—she is assured—a lot of women are nervous and things usually work out just fine. Things don’t work out fine; we knew that from the beginning when Blythe drives to a house where her husband lives with his new family.

She and her daughter can’t seem to bond. Her daughter, Violet, won’t sleep through the night, meaning that Blythe can’t sleep. Breastfeeding is a nightmare. Violet has inexplicable rages that change into very disturbing behavior when she is sent to daycare. All of this is compounded by Blythe’s inability to really talk about what’s going wrong. Her husband just thinks Blythe isn’t trying hard enough. Other mothers are always quick to say that all of the hardships are worth it. But it never gets better no matter how hard Blythe tries.

As The Push moves back and forth through time—going back two generations to show us Blythe’s mother and grandmother and forward from Violet’s birth to whatever broke the family apart—we slowly delve into the side of motherhood that no one seems to want to talk about. Motherhood is hard and mothers need all the help they can get. We need to be more willing to discuss the hard parts without glossing over them to say that if a mother just tries a little bit harder, it will all work out. No amount of trying will magically fix Violet and Blythe’s relationship or Violet’s sinister impulses.

Because I’ve read We Need to Talk About Kevin and because I found the ending of The Push to have undeveloped twists, I’m not as enamored of this book as others seem to be in reviews I’ve read. I thought We Need to Talk About Kevin packed a harder emotional punch. That said, I really appreciated that The Push continues an important but uncomfortable conversation.

Well that was disturbing. It felt a slower pace than most thrillers, but the psychological aspect was riveting. I will say I never got used to the second person and was often surprised by it after a section of dialogue, but otherwise the whole thing was thought provoking.

There has been a lot of buzz about this book, and people have been raving. That always makes me a little cautious, but in this case the hype was well-deserved. Going deep into the mind of Blythe was frightening, surreal, but I couldn't look away or stop reading until the very end. Highly recommended and you won't be able to put this book down!

This debut novel is being marketed as a “page-turning psychological drama,”, which I interpreted to mean psychological thriller…but, it’s NOT that. I’d say it’s a dark, emotionally intense, dysfunctional family story focused on motherhood. It’s not a book for everyone and it will be divisive, but I loved it. It’s deeply unsettling and emotionally taut. Audrain makes excellent observations about the dark side of motherhood and says things I’m sure many mothers think at some point, but would be judged for if they said out loud. She examines society’s expectations of how mothers “should” act and the harmful repercussions of these expectations for many women. It’s also about a mother constantly questioning whether she’s really seeing what she thinks she’s seeing…and what happens when your husband doesn’t believe you. The Push will generate lots of discussion and would make an excellent book club selection. 5 stars!

A haunting and hypnotic book about loss, love, and pain. A mysterious novel that delves into the dark crevices of what happens to a family when a child is lost. Expertly written, it was impossible not to feel the pain and disorientation that the mother experienced.

**I received an electronic ARC in exchange for a fair and unbiased review of this book.

The Push is a creative, original story, by Ashley Audrain, that delves into the sinister.

First of all is the title. Initially is appears the novel is about women giving birth, but as the layers of the story unfold, readers soon learn it is about many more pushes. Sorry, no spoiler details.

As the novel opens Blythe describes her growing relationship with Fox, her soon to be husband, and her struggling writing career. Among all this are snippets of Blythe’s family history. Soon Blythe and Fox welcome their daughter, Violet, into the family. This is where the focus turns to Blythe trying to establish a relationship with her newborn, while Fox becomes the peacekeeper between Blythe and Violet during this struggle.

Readers see Blythe, Fox, and Violet through about thirteen years.

The Push is an incredible story.

This boo was a quick read; I enjoyed the storyline, however it was very very similar to the Bad Seed. I did like the contrast between the male characters to the women in the story. I did go into the story expecting to read a page-turner. The ending, was also not a surprise.

I found this book disturbing--so disturbing that I read it in one setting; I just could not quit swiping and put it down. It is told from Blythe's point of view in a letter to her husband. It took a bit to understand who the narrator was and who the "you" was that she was talking to, but once that was understood the rest of the story and the multiple time periods just flowed. And just when the reader thought that maybe everything was working out for everyone, the last sentence in the book sends chills racing up the spine. A real thriller!!

The Push by Ashley Audrain tackles the challenges of motherhood that are rarely spoken about. Blythe has given birth to her first child, a daughter she's named Violet. Blythe has a difficult time forming a connection to Violet despite trying hard. As time goes on she begins to have suspicions about Violet's nature that are quite unsettling. Her husband thinks it's all in her head. Blythe must decide whether to believe her instincts or disregard them at a possible peril to her loved ones. Lots of suspense and drama keeps this story moving right along. Read and enjoy!

Oh my!! This book is AMAZing!!

Right away, introduction, I was amazed.

Motherhood experiences are different for some of us.
Motherhood has expectations, everyone has expectations of mothers.
Mothers are pressured to raise good persons. Once we are mothers, our lives change.

We compare ourselves to other mothers, our children to other children.

This book is fantastic in shining a light on all of these areas.
This should be a must-read!

This book is not really about postpartum depression (although that is part of it) and it’s not really about mothers not bonding with their children (although that is part of it). It is about mental illness and what I think is really hard to swallow, is the mental illness of a child.

We want to think of kids as sweet and cute. We want to blame the mother. And in the case of The Push, the narrator’s mother and grandmother both either had mental illness or just never wanted to be mothers (it wasn’t really clear to me which). The narrator struggles to connect with her first child, but then bonds closely with her second and we feel that maternal pull and love and then the second child dies in an accident—or was it?

This is book is difficult to read at times. There are a lot of trigger warnings. But it is beautifully written and a powerful story. The prose is haunting and I know this book will stay with me for a long time to come.

Trigger warnings: postpartum depression, death of a toddler, mental illness of a child.

This debut is a jaw dropper. Told in a challenging but skillfully executed second person narrative, Audrain crafts a heartbreaking and harrowing tale of every mother’s worst nightmare. The voice is strong and raw, vulnerable and authentic to new motherhood. This book felt fresh and unlike anything I’d ever read before. I loved it. It’s not the next Gone Girl as you will hear. It’s in a class of its own.

I couldn’t put this book down! Absolutely fantastic and grabs you right at the beginning. I have already recommended to four of my coworkers while I was reading and cannot wait to share it with even more people. Five stars without a doubt!

One of my favorite movies of all time is the 1956 film, The Bad Seed, about a precocious, seemingly charming little girl, who is hiding a murderous dark side. Debut author Ashley Audrain's first novel The Push is an utterly compulsive novel in a similar vein. Fans of Zoje Stage's Baby Teeth should not miss The Push, which merges suspense fiction with literary fiction to create an absolutely horrifying, yet reflective tale. I absolutely loved this novel. After a series of recent lackluster reads, The Push reignited my love of reading and inspired me to find more intriguing books that spark my curiosity.

Blythe Connor is no stranger to bad mother-daughter relationships. Abandoned by her own mom at an early age, Blythe is hoping to foster a lifelong connection with her new baby girl, and cultivate the type of intimacy that she and her mother never had. But something is not quite right with Blythe's daughter Violet. As the years go by, Blythe can't quite put her finger on it, but in her eyes, Violet is one violent, manipulative, and vindictive little girl. The problem is no one believes Blythe's fears, and she finds herself living in trepidation of the daughter she is raising, while also being viewed as a hysterical and troubled woman by those she loves most. Everything comes to a head one fateful afternoon when in a split second, Blythe's life changes forever. Is Violet responsible, and if so, why does no one believe Blythe about her dangerous little girl?

The Push is told by Blythe, but the entire book is addressed in second person narrative to her former husband. This is Blythe telling her side of the story to the man she loved who wouldn't believe her over their daughter. While this narrative style seems to be off-putting to some, I found it to be incredibly intimate and compelling. I wanted to hear what Blythe had to say to the former love of her life, and I relished the fact that this was her account of things. Now the question is, can she be trusted? That's for the reader to determine as they peel back the layers of Blythe's life and get to know her personality and her family's long history with mental illness.

The Push is a story in threefold. There's, of course, Blythe's fragile and tenuous relationship with Violet, but the narrative also features Blythe's relationship with her husband, which becomes increasingly more and more tense as he continuously sides with his daughter over his wife. Furthermore, the book occasionally dives back into Blythe's family tree and explores the lives of her grandmother and mother and how the sins of the mother are inflicted on the child. Altogether, these pieces come together to paint a complete picture of Blythe, leaving the reader to decide for themselves if she is the reliable narrator she purports herself to be.

I listened to an audiobook production of The Push, which absolutely pulled me in and absorbed me in this horrifying story. Narrator Marin Ireland was believable as Blythe, and her excellent nuanced voice work made me feel as if I was actually listening to Blythe telling her story. I highly recommend the audiobook version of this novel for anyone who loves to listen to intimately-told novels.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Viking, Pamela Dorman Books for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.