Book review: ‘The Push’ – An a

Debut author Ashley Audrain has taken the book world by storm with her new psychological thriller ‘The Push’. Image via Twitter @audrain

Book review: ‘The Push’ – An absolute must-read

The book world is buzzing with talk about debut author Ashley Audrain’s psychological thriller, The Push, that has taken the reading community by storm.

Book review: ‘The Push’ – An a

Debut author Ashley Audrain has taken the book world by storm with her new psychological thriller ‘The Push’. Image via Twitter @audrain

“One day you’ll understand, Blythe. The women in this family…we’re different”.

A tense and thrilling page-turner of a psychological drama all about the making and breaking of one family–and a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she prayed for–and everything she feared.

Author Ashley Audrain will have your nerves on edge

She explores the intimate psychological toll that motherhood takes on an unsuspecting young, first-time mom when her seemingly perfect daughter makes her dreams of parenting turns into a nightmare.

Audrain is a master of tense writing and manages to capture your senses in a whirlwind of spine-tingling horror. 

Her ability to tell a story is unparallel and she effortlessly enchants the reader with a gripping tale, which will have you flying through this book in no time.

‘The Push’: Plot Synopsis

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 exhaustingly never-ending 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 says she’s imagining things. The more her husband 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.

Memorable Quotes

The things that come to mind when I think about the beginning of us:Your mother and father. This might not have been as important to other people, but with you came a family. My only family. The generous gifts, the airplane tickers to be with you all somewhere sunny on vacation. Their house smelled like warm, laundered linens, always, and I never wanted to leave when we visited.

Those rare nights were like gifts to me, although she would never know it. I was desperate to know who she was before she became my mother. I started to understand, during those sleepless nights replaying the things I’d overheard, that we are all grown from something. That we can the seed, and I was a part of her garden.

Eventually I left my bed and turned my attention back to Life. I cleaned up Violet’s breakfast, I made make-believe castles, I threw pile after pile of clothes on the dryer. But when he wasn’t with me, my mind was with him, up in that nursery.

Praise for ‘The Push’

“Starkly original and compulsively readable, The Push is a deep dive into the darkest nooks and crannies of motherhood.”

– KRISTIN HANNAH, #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE NIGHTINGALE

“Ashley Audrain’s The Push is not only a propulsively entertaining, read-in-one-sitting novel, it is also a deeply provocative and fearless look at motherhood written in some of the prettiest prose you’ll read all year.”

– AIMEE MOLLOY, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE PERFECT MOTHER

The Push was a poetic, propulsive read that set my nerves jangling in both horror and recognition. I read it one sitting and it stayed with me for days afterwards. Not to be missed”

– LISA JEWELL, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF INVISIBLE GIRL AND THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS

More about the author

The Push is Ashely Audrain’s first novel. She previously worked as the publicity director of Penguin Books Canada. Prior to Penguin, she worked in public relations.

She is a graduate of the Media, Information & Technoculture program at Western University. She lives in Toronto, where she and her partner are raising their two young children. The Push is her first novel and the reading community is eagerly awaiting her next work.