My mother has been subscribing to People magazine even longer than I’ve been alive, so along with the the novel Girl A, Ashley Audrain’s novel The Push was featured in the same week. I love a book that sounds eerie and potentially thrilling, and that’s just what the brief reviews in the magazine provided me! I was sold and quickly got my name on the wait list for them.
I will say that right off the bat, this book reminded me of Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage, because both stories focused on some evil children. Although, in The Push, it’s hard to tell if Blythe’s daughter Violet is actually evil, as the story is only told from Blythe’s perspective to her husband. Another novel The Push reminded me of was We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. Kevin was also evil, but the story was told from Eva’s perspective to her husband in a series of letters. So overall, I would definitely say that this novel lives in this particular world, but it also has its uniqueness in that it’s not totally obvious if Blythe is a reliable narrator.
From the very start we are introduced to the women in Blythe’s life, first with her grandmother who had never wanted a child and barely acted as a mother before killing herself. Then, Blythe’s mother Cecilia went through basically the same ordeal, but instead of killing herself, she just removed herself from Blythe’s life completely. These women were short-tempered and emotionally abused their children, so even though stories told from a young Blythe’s perspective make her seem sympathetic and vastly different from her lineage, will she end up that way?
That’s clearly a fear she carries into her pregnancy with Violet, and she feels the hatred from her as soon as she’s born. Violet is definitely a daddy’s girl, and from a very young age knows what needs to be done and when to show her loyalty. As if her daughter’s hatred isn’t enough, Blythe is almost positive that Violet kicks another kid from the top of a slide to his death, but of course, no one wants to believe kids are capable of that. Blythe almost can’t take much more, so she decides that having another kid, a boy, will solve all of her problems, and hopefully will stop the line of destructive women in her family.
Blythe gets her wish, but only gets to enjoy baby Sam’s presence before his stroller is “pushed” into traffic, by Violet, according to Blythe. Again, no one wants to believe that a kid could do such a thing, and it’s unclear at that point if everything Blythe is reflecting on is tainted by a memory of something that might not have even happened. Personally, I chose to believe in Blythe’s account of her life with Violet, and part of that probably has to do with the fact that I’m not crazy about kids. So seeing them portrayed in this evil light, especially in a young girl, as well, is very appealing to me, rare, and a fairly unique take. With all that being said, I think the real focus of the story is about nature verses nurture, and also a lot about grief.
This story was quite complex and very entertaining, so if you enjoyed either of the novels I mentioned above, then definitely give this a try. Also, if you’ve seriously never read We Need to Talk About Kevin, then you have been deprived of some seriously amazing writing! Anyways, I really enjoyed this dark and twisted tale, and I think you would, too.