***Thank you to Net Galley for giving me access to an ARC.***

The Nursery by Szilvia Molnar is perhaps one of the most real and visceral portrayals of post-partum motherhood/depression/anxiety I’ve read since becoming a mother. Our narrator is a Swedish translator who has just given birth to a baby girl we know as Button. The Nursery accounts her days, weeks, months, who knows? navigating post-partum healing, mental health, motherhood, partnership, and friendship. Mixed with elements of psychological horror (which post-partum ANYTHING sometimes feels like), magical realism, and the brutal repetition of newborn life, this story leaves you feeling tense, out of air, and relieved all at the same time. 

The details are raw and not withholding. The anxiety and obsessive compulsion is REAL. The maddening and all-encompassing love is real. Motherhood is madness and fierce love and anyone who births a child deserves to be taken care of. As a society, we toss mothers to the wolves after the baby is born and this book captures it so shockingly well. Sometimes it feels like our strange and lonely neighbor (literal or metaphorical) is our only friend who gets what you feel, or maybe doesn’t get it, but actually makes you feel heard and seen. 

While the ending is left open, “Does our narrator get the help she so desperately needs?” I felt hopeful. I could see the light at the end of the deep dark pit of despair and fear. I loved this, but I can see it wouldn’t be for anyone. It’s sad! It gets DARK. For the childless wondering if parenthood is the next step, this might make you think otherwise. For the caregivers and mothers out there this might fill you with anxiety but it also filled me with sweet bitter catharsis. 

This quote has not been cross checked with the final copy.