Review: In need of PUSH Rehab
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 9, 2014
Baffled...Consumed...DisturbedBaffled by the layers and complexity of this story.Consumed by the layers and complexity of this story.Disturbed by the layers and complexity of this story.PUSH is a book that will leave you wondering and keep you thinking.  PUSH, will challenge you to reconcile your ability to love and be horrified at the same time, it exposes you to your own "light & dark" and pushes your personal limits...it made me wonder how I can understand and justify something so dark and sinister and then, can I really.  If nothing else, PUSH will make you feel - just about every emotion on the spectrum and doesn't leave you sitting with any one particular emotion for any length of time.  The story is fluid and readers reaction changes accordingly, practically from page to page.The main characters, Emma and David are both damaged, broken souls.  The list of despicable secondary characters is long as is the list of secondary characters where you just wonder how they fit in.  Yet within the horrendous circumstances, that is life for Emma and David, you see a loving, almost functional union of two people, but a union based on lies, lies by omission or half truths. And is Emma,  victim to yet another horrible situation that has plagued her, her entire life or is she the heroine, for overcoming the demons of her past?As the reader, these are the choices you get to make.  You can't help but ask yourself, how can I possibly like, even love someone who isn't completely honest and whose behavior is atrocious and yet acts caring and lovingly at the same time.  How can I possibly feel that way...that is "so wrong, everything about him is wrong", yet at the end of the book, there is no way NOT to be asking yourself that very question.  And there are times when you want to shake some sense into Emma and say "open your eyes and think about this...really think".....A story and an author that can make you feel all these things with their words alone, is nothing short of brilliant.  PUSH is the debut novel for Claire Wallis and the "To Be Continued" cannot come soon enough.