The book is from Blythe’s perspective, and the “you” isn’t so much us, the reader, but Fox, her husband-turned-ex-husband, and the father to two of her children, Violet and Sam. I said “surprised” because I’m not usually a fan of second-person point-of-view, but it worked here! I think it added to both the sense of foreboding afoot and to the sense of how … exhausting parenthood can be, and the ways in which that creates ever growing distance between you and your spouse, if you let it. The book also surprised me because it’s written in second-person point-of-view, and I can’t recall the last time I read a book in that voice. Rather, the book is a reflection of how difficult, and generationally consequential, parenting is, and how it tests relationships, with a little bit of fictional flourish thrown in.Īudrain’s novel is a fast-paced book, due in part to switching between those generations, with Blythe in the present, and her mother, Cecilia, and Cecilia’s mother, Etta, in the past, and partly owing to each of the 85 chapters being a handful of pages at most. Which, to be fair, isn’t the author’s intention, as Audrain is a mother, after all. I’m already not someone who considers themselves a “kid person,” but I’m especially feeling that way after reading Ashley Audrain’s 2021 novel, The Push. My copy of the book, with Benny photobombing.
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