HYPED & TRENDY – TERRIFYING MOTHERHOOD READ – “THE PUSH”

Welcome to another “Hyped & Trendy” report where I tell you about hyped books that certainly lived up to the hype, like “The Push“!

Another perfect pick for International Women’s Day and my favorite reading month, U.S. Women’s History Month, because it is all about the intimate relationship between motherhood and womanhood! 

Must mothers ALWAYS love their kids? Must they love ALL their kids THE SAME? Must they love them even if they are EVIL? What about the dads?

When parenthood goes HORRIBLY WRONG…

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.

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.

5 UNSETTLING STARS!

CW(*): Child abuse, depression, postpartum depression, anxiety.

This was such a gripping and terrifying story in all its realism. I especially recommend the audiobook which I finished in one day, because I was totally hooked!

It talks about how new mothers can feel utterly inadequate, alone, misunderstood, isolated and terrified in their experience often because of the expectations of others and how they project their own parenthood experiences (either as a parent or a child) onto others, even though motherhood is a totally unique experience for each set of mother-child.

It is also about how parenthood changes our basic human nature and how we relate to the rest of the world; especially how we related to our partners and, therefore, how it can deeply affects parents’ relationship and marriage. About the psychological and physical effects of those first months of sleep depravation and isolation that can make many parents unable to function properly and make the world a very dark place for them.

But it mostly is about how parenthood can become very thick glasses that alter our perception of the world, especially when it comes to our children. How some times parents are unable to see their children for what they really are, especially when they behave plainly evil.

I particularly loved that two things that usually don’t work for me worked wonderfully in this book!

1. Alternate timelines. I’m not a fan of alternate timelines because they affect the flow of the story and usually don’t make the book an immersive experience. However the two different timelines showing Blythe’s and then her mom and grandma’s experiences were the perfect way to how motherhood trauma can carry down generations.

2. Second person point of view (POV), which it is not for everyone. Even though it’s my least favorite it worked amazingly for this book! Blythe’s timeline narrated second person POV (her talking to her husband) was the perfect way to show all her repressed anger and resentment. 

I can’t recommend this book enough!

You would enjoy this book if you like dark, edgy, unsettling psychological mystery/horror stories about the darkest depths human nature can achieve and about strained family relationships, especially tensed, dysfunctional motherhood experiences and mother-daughter relationships; and of these categories and topics:

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OTHER HYPED & TRENDY TO BE CURIOUS ABOUT

Have you read “The Push“ or any of the similar or the other hyped books? What did you think? Let’s chat in the comments!