When Blythe falls pregnant with her daughter Violet, she's determined to do better than her mother, and grandmother that came before her. But when the baby arrives, Blythe struggles as all new mothers do from lack of sleep, a fussy baby and a husband that remains fairly clueless to the struggles a woman has to go through from birth, to feeding and all of the in between. As Violet grows, Blythe loves her but begins to notice there's something not quite right, though again her husband dismisses her fears. But then tragedy happens, and Blythe realises she may have birth a monster.

Wow, what an intense, thrilling ride for a whole book that is a lot more suspect than any actual action. At first I was wary of the second person narrative as the whole story is told via Blythe's narration directly to her husband Fox but over time this was the perfect way to frame a story that centered around motherhood but was damaged by Fox's constant dismissal of Blythe's worries and fears, and the countless ways he turned his back on his suffering wife.

I really loved how the story built up from Violet as a baby to a child, and how the whole time the reader couldn't ever really be sure if we were getting the truth from Blythe. As someone who didn't have the best mother for a role model, and she was damaged in turn before that, you couldn't blame Blythe for her fears over bonding with her little one, and how those fears could exacerbate a frail connection.

As the story continued, and Violet's actions become more motivated and cold, even cruel, it was just such a tense reading experience but in the best way. Ashley Audrain was able to really hype up the suspense of this book in an excellent way with just words and feelings rather than a load of crazy action scenes - everything we were reading was purely domestic, and in any other setting or book would have been perfectly homely and normal - but not with Violet around. It was sad to see Blythe become such an anguished, lonely figure as the actions of her daughter meant she was the one pushed out into the cold, the one left alone to starve and to cry out warnings that no-one took seriously.

I really liked how this horrific story really gazed at the true moments surrounding motherhood, particularly for first time parents. From the expectation upon women to be the 'perfect mother' to being the ones having to survive without sleep, for their bodies to be wrecked from giving birth and further mutilated if they're breastfeeding. How pain and suffering is part of the normality of motherhood yet when mothers speak up about their emotions and feelings going through all of this, they're often dismissed and ignored by those around them. How you can love your child through it all even when they're causing you pain but also how it should be okay to feel a distance from your child because of what you're going through. Motherhood isn't a perfect from the get go - it's a journey and a struggle.

There was no big bang or explosion at the end of this book but the ending still gave a terrific wave of vindication for the reader (in my case anyway!).