The Push

“A mother's heart breaks a million ways in her lifetime.”

Determined to be a better mother than her own and give her husband the picture-perfect life he longs for, Blythe tries to dote upon her daughter Violet. Violet doesn't make it easy, though: she is a difficult baby and a mystifying toddler with a mean streak, who seems set on making Blythe miserable. Motherhood finally clicks for Blythe with the arrival of their second child, a son named Sam, with whom Blythe bonds and feels the unwavering love she never felt for Violet. After a shocking tragedy changes their family forever, Blythe wonders: is she overreacting, or is there something genuinely wrong with her daughter?

I found this book incredibly hard to put down. The short chapters sucked me in, and the oftentimes disturbing look at motherhood coupled with the tension between Blythe and Violet was compelling. The stylistic choice behind the narration took a few chapters for me to get used to, but I felt that it worked overall.

It reminded me a bit of We Need to Talk About Kevin in some surface-level ways (the epistolary-esque narration, the father's unwillingness to believe the mother, the bonding with the second child) but was still its own unique story. The depiction of the grieving process is definitely one that will stay with me a long time.

There is disturbing content in this one, though, and I haven't seen a lot in the way of content warnings (though it's possible I've missed them). I'll put some in spoiler tags, in case they are needed:

CW: miscarriage, sexual assault, child abuse, infant death, self-harm, suicide, mental health issues (including postpartum depression); mentions of abortion, racism

All in all, a haunting family drama that I'll be thinking about for quite some time. 4 mother lions out of 5.