A haunting portrait of isolation and the mental health struggles of postpartum depression/OCD. Molnar is really successful at bringing the reader into the mental state of the unnamed narrator; as I was reading I, too, was disoriented and frustrated and didn’t quite understand the way time passed in the narrative. I was both fascinated and moved by this.

A VERY SLOW book… I was 80% in thinking that a whole 3 months has passed in the book, before the narrator mentions “a week”. The idea is educational and informative, giving readers a first-hand look into the ruminative mind of a new mother with post-partum depression.

I appreciated the endless, cyclical, spiraling rumination of the narrator that shows how isolating and agonising post-partum depression (or just motherhood) can be. The writer did not shy away from truths, thoughts that mothers can have, even if they were pretty heavy & appalling thoughts (intrusive thoughts about hurting one’s baby, contemplating the potential of your spouse sexually abusing your child). I also liked that the writer veered into the hallucinatory, allowing the reader to witness how isolated a new mother can feel. Which parts were figments of the narrator’s imagination and which parts weren’t? 

The depiction of a loving yet clueless husband was also great- I thought it showed accurately how even the men who love us will never understand the entire experience of birth, of creation from one’s body, of motherhood and its physical demands, its brutality.

I’m not too sure of the rest of the execution though.. the timeline between chapters is confusing, it alternates between pre and post-birth; although time (or the lack of time, the lack of keeping track of time) is a huge theme in this as the narrator is so overwhelmed with fatigue that she isn’t of sound mind. I just don’t see this lack of clarity in chapter timeline serving this theme in any way.  

Then there’s the thing with the upstairs neighbour, I don’t really get that part/character and its purpose…