The Push by Ashley Audrain

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“Before we were conceived, we existed in part as an egg in our mother’s ovary. All the eggs a woman will ever carry form in her ovaries while she is a four-month-old fetus in the womb of her mother. This means our cellular life as an egg begins in the womb of our grandmother. Each of us spent five months in our grandmother’s womb and she in turn formed within the womb of her grandmother. We vibrate to the rhythms of our mother’s blood before she herself is born.

The Push

The women in this family . . . we’re different,” her mother flatly tells Blythe as a child”

Blythe wanted to be nothing like her mother. She wants to love and coddle her daughter. But when Violet is born, she doesn’t feel the warmth, instead she struggles to love her. What seems effortless to every other mother in the world, feels so hard for her. Blythe wonders if she is even capable of mothering. As Violet grows up, Blythe wonders if it is her problem or the problem of the child itself?

The Push is a multi layered, suspenseful, character study about a mother and her relationship between a child. Its portrays an uncensored version of how a woman struggles to cope with the society’s expectation of what a mother should be. It talks about how a mother’s instinct is often dismissed and undervalued to the point where she doubts her own sanity or how a relationship between the couple changes after a child.

The society always talks about the bond between a mother and a child, the euphoria of motherhood. When you give birth to a child, you are supposed to love each other, right? They are indeed a part of you. What will you do if your child doesn’t like you? and you feel the same way about your child? Is it even possible? Why are you not like all the mothers? What happens if you start to think your child may actually be dangerous? What if no one believes you? Are the things you’re seeing really happening or have you convinced yourself they are?The grief, the paranoia, self doubt that Blythe feels are so realistic that you feel they creep into you. It slowly consumes you and your thoughts. In that aspect, I feel it is a very powerful book. I listened to the audiobook version of this book and I could not stop listening to it. Short punchy chapters and It was compelling throughout.

The push is a kind of book that makes you uncomfortable, pushes your limits and makes you think a lot. This book will stay with me for a long time.