The Push: A GMA Book Club Pick: A Novel <— 5-STARS OF HOLY MOLY —> EXACTLY UP MY DOMESTIC-THRILLER ALLEY!!!! Wow… what a writer. I loved every single introspection, every observation, every hesitation, and despite some bone-headed moves (and misunderstandings) it had me hooked! I did not devour it in one sitting, but boy did I want to, and that, to me is the mark of a book I’ll never forget.
Michele G: Two other favorites I read recently – – The Push by Ashley Audrain….Oh.My.God….this book can’t even be described. Let’s just say “buckle up”! (Also, I did the audio for this and it was great!!!)
Maria: I LOVED it!!!
Adriane: I loveeeeed it!!
Kristen: It’s great!
Carian: I loved that book.
Okay, so… what can I tell you? I went in pretty much “blind”, got the book when it was on sale and only because the reviews were so incredible and hinting at creepiness and I was in. I knew there was something big happening here and it was as amazing as everyone was saying it was. I LOVED the ending, loved how it kept me anxious to pick it back up, I LOVED the direction it went in (ooooh I wanna tell you so bad!) and I loved not wanting to put it down. And again, I loved the writing. I know I already said that, but yeah... her writing has that refined feel, subtle in its darkness, quietly creeping up on you in all the right ways.
Now mind you, I went on SO blind, that I did it hard at first to figure out who the main character was. And who she was “talking” to/writing to. It was obvious there was some stalking and that she was watching a family,
I don’t normally watch for this long, but you’re all so beautiful tonight and I can’t bring myself to leave.
distraught over how happy they seemed to be.
I let myself imagine, for a moment, watching those boughs go up in flames while you all sleep tonight. I imagine the warm, butter-yellow glow of your house turning to a hot, crackling red.
But why?
Okay so what’s it about?
Blythe, the main character, is taking us through a before and now kind of journey via her memories. She’s telling us (or actually, the one she’s talking to or writing to) everything that happened. Her bittersweet memories, her emotional states from delight and pure love to utter despair and devastation (that you feel right along with her), her suspicions, her proof, her doubts… and piece by every unraveling piece, we get to that incredible ending. All through her eyes. And every moment in-between will keep you addicted, wanting to know where it’s going, and how it ends.
Okay so I digress… short and not-so-sweet?
Blythe meets the love of her life after living a life of rejection (we’ll experience that pattern throughout the book from her mother, to her grandmother), and after an utterly blissful few years of just the two of them…
We knew so little then about each other, about the people we would be.
We could have counted our problems on the petals of the daisy in my bouquet, but it wouldn’t be long before we were lost in a field of them.
they find out they are having a baby, and are delighted. Well… delighted, but in different ways and for different reasons.
Your excitement was endearing. You were going to be a wonderful father. And I would be your child’s wonderful mother.
I look back and marvel at the confidence I found then. I no longer felt like my mother’s daughter. I felt like your wife. I had been pretending I was perfect for you for years. I wanted to keep you happy. I wanted to be anyone other than the mother I came from. And so I wanted a baby, too.
But as she’s giving birth, right to the moment of holding her newborn, everything flies out the window,
“I don’t want this to happen,” I whispered to nobody. I was exhausted. You were standing two feet away, drinking the water the nurse had brought for me. I couldn’t keep it down.
“You don’t want what to happen?”
“The baby.”
“You mean the birth?”
“No, I mean the baby.”
…and she doesn’t bond with her, and that lack of bond is the start of her life’s unravelling.
The only mother who looked down at her daughter and thought, Please. Go away.
Violet cried only when she was with me; it felt like a betrayal.
We were supposed to want each other.
Where does the fault lie? Is it her? Is it her past? Is it her daughter? Is she an unreliable narrator? A terrible mother?
She smiled at you first. After bath time. You were wearing your reading glasses and said she must have seen her own reflection in the lens. But we both knew she wanted you the most from the beginning. I could never comfort her when she cried like you could—she melted into your skin and seemed to want to stay there, a part of you. My warmth and my smell seemed to mean nothing to her. They talk about the mother’s heartbeat and the familiar sound of her womb, but it’s as though I were a foreign country.
Could it be jealousy and insecurity, causing the divide? And who’s?
I watched you two and I was envious. I wanted what you had.
But this imbalance came at a cost. We had shifted away from our easy, treasured decade of comfort. Instead, my presence made you withdraw. Your judgment made me anxious. The more Violet got from you, the less you gave to me.
We still kissed hello and conversed over dinners at restaurants on the odd night we got out together. You always put your hand on the small of my back as we walked closer to our apartment, closer to the nest we’d built together. We had established certain motions and we still went through them. But there were subtle absences. We stopped doing crosswords together. You didn’t leave the bathroom door open when you showered. There was space where there hadn’t been before, and in that space was resentment.
Or does she have a problem child on her hands? Can a parent’s love be so blind?
I was so disappointed she was mine.
I knew some of her behavior could be classified as typical. You wrote it off as being just a phase, toddler crankiness, the symptoms of a developmental leap. Fair enough, I tried to convince myself. But she was missing the inherent sweetness of other children her age. She so rarely showed affection. She didn’t seem happy—not anymore. I saw a sharpness inside her that sometimes looked physically painful. I could see it in her face.
I have to stop there because what I’ve told you, and quoted here, is only the beginning. Every single moment of this story will keep you guessing, have you furious, keep you on your toes and often times certain of what the issue is, and then *poof* something will have you second guessing yourself (and herself). Because it’s certain that Blythe is flawed (maybe even deeply so)…
I sat on the floor in the hallway knowing nothing would be the same between us again. I had broken your trust. I had confirmed every doubt you quietly held about me.
but also, so very human. So very relatable, and her mother’s intuition is pinging on all levels.
I felt like I would never have with her what you had.
“It’s all in your head,” you said to me whenever I brought it up. “You’ve created this story about the two of you, and you can’t let it go.”
“She should want me. I’m her mother. She should need me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with her.”
Her. There was nothing wrong with her, you said.
And that’s the end of my review. There’s so much I want to say because the book is SO MUCH BETTER than what I’m making it sound like. I’ve omitted some VERY important parts. There’s so much more to it, so much heart, and so much heartlessness. So much meaning, and also, often so much emptiness.
She had looked down at me without any remorse in her eyes…
BUT, it’s way more exciting to experience reveal after reveal, moment by moment building to that ending (which to me, was utterly satisfying) and so obvious. Some readers questioned the ending, unsure, but to me, it’s so clear, and so concise and exactly what I love in a book!
5 STARS!! Go read this unsettling story and let me know what you think!!
PSYCH-THRILLER ALERT!!
The Push: A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel)
PSYCH-THRILLER/DOMESTIC THRILLER ALERT!! I JUST FINISHED IT & I 5-STAR LOVED IT!!
“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”
I’m reading “The Push” and going in blind other than a few reviews that make it sound awesome. I’m excited!!! Have you read it?
Maria: I LOVED it!!!
Adriane: I loveeeeed it!!
Kristen: It’s great!
Carian: I loved that book.
Michele G: Two other favorites I read recently – – The Push by Ashley Audrain….Oh.My.God….this book can’t even be described. Let’s just say “buckle up”! (Also, I did the audio for this and it was great!!!)
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