Violet may simply be an adolescent experiencing normal pressures and set-backs, rather than be the serial killer Blythe imagines. Blythe divorces her husband, but still wants to be a mother for Violet. Cecilia dealt with her unhappiness by leaving her family in search of a new life. Gemma's final call to Blythe is what Blythe wishes she would hear (validation of her fears), but is it realistic that Gemma would have called Blythe if something actually happened to Jet? Looking at the inter-generational story, Etta couldn't deal with her unhappiness and hanged herself. When Violet drew the picture of Elijah, was she admitting guilt or expressing grief? Was Violet reaching to push Sam's stroller, or to grab it? In the final chapter on Christmas Eve, Blythe thinks she hears Violet say 'I pushed him', but isn't sure. The introduction ends with the words 'This is my side of the story.' Many of the key events had alternate, more realistic, explanations.

I felt this story was told by a subjective narrator whose interpretation of events is affected by her fears and paranoias. 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.(view spoiler) [I had the same reaction as Lori. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. Then their son Sam is born–and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. 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. Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. –Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author of THE NIGHTINGALE A NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES & #1 GLOBE AND MAIL BESTSELLERĪ 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 fearedīlythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had.īut 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. “Starkly original and compulsively readable, The Push is a deep dive into the darkest nooks and crannies of motherhood.”

The push ashley