The Push

I really enjoyed this book. I found myself desperate to know where this went, on the edge of my seat with every chapter. The end was more subtle than I expected, but as I grapple with my expectations, I am also fascinated by how this story was told. It takes time to understand this story, told through the lens of the mothers of several generations. It's a study on motherhood, the expectations people put on women and mothers, grief, and generational trauma.

The book's climax was undeniably in the middle of the book. The second part of this book explores grief in a very detailed and compelling way. But it also loses a bit of the tension by punching you in the heart early on, as we try to understand that event through the eyes of someone we don't know is a reliable narrator or not.

What holds this book back from a 5-star rating is its ending. I kept expecting a huge twist or some chapter that revealed something that made everything suddenly make sense. We didn't get that, but rather we confirmed the suspicion we had all along. For as thrilling and confused as I was throughout the chapters, I wanted something more impactful as an ending.