jaclynday's review
5.0
Holy shit, this book. It hit me hard and I finished it in the space of an hour or two because I couldn’t bear to put it down. To summarize: After Birth is about a woman’s friendships, family, and life generally in the aftermath of having her first child. It is unbearably raw and real. It’s the finest writing I’ve found about how becoming a mother inexorably changes a woman’s relationship to herself and to others. The often conflicting and sometimes disturbing emotions a mother can have in the vulnerable months or years after giving birth are unflinchingly on display in this book. Albert’s writing is honest, with truths that felt like someone had peeled back my scalp and shone a flashlight into dark recesses of my brain that I’d either long tucked away or forgotten existed. Because this book moved me so intensely, here are a few passages I noted to share with you:
The baby starts up with the whimpers. I take my cue. Keep the stroller moving, always moving, my reflexive animal sway. Respite over. Maneuver down the block toward the river, up Chestnut, and on home. Put some cheese on crackers and call it dinner. Another day gone, okay, and I get it, I got it: I’m over. I no longer exist. This is why there’s that ancient stipulation about the childless being ineligible for the study for religious mysticism. This is why there’s all that talk about kid having as express train to enlightenment. You can meditate, you can medicate, you can take peyote in the desert at sunrise, you can self-immolate, or you can have a baby, and disappear.
I’m not saying it happens every minute of every day, and I’m not saying it renders the other stuff unimportant, but there are moments of the most crazy all-encompassing joy. What a phenomenally beautiful kid. A funny, dear child. […] If the world interferes with him, with what is loving and open and funny in him, I will rear up in full roar. I will break the world’s neck with a swipe of my mighty paw, no warning. Anything fucks with this kid, I will fucking kill it. It’s the wildest thing: I really and truly love him more every day. I had no idea. You supposedly fall in love with them the moment they exit your body, but in the aftermath I was just like WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. And I have to believe he was just as much ‘what the fuck’ as was I. And there we both were. The relationship develops, the getting to know each other. I mean, he’s completely and totally dependent, which is very intense, but it’s not love. Over time I have to let go of him. That’s love. That’s the work.
brittanymariereads's review
3.0
The characters in this book can be very hard to root for. They are real and sometimes real is ugly. Nothing happens but everything is happening. The story is fiction but barely. There are women living this life everyday or at least variations of it. It was real and raw and sometimes dark. It was good but it wasn't great and I almost felt like that was the point.
shelfimprovement's review
4.0
I’ve never had a baby and I don’t plan on having one. For lots of reasons, some of which are echoed in this book. I have been depressed, though. I’ve been sad, angry, frustrated, and irritable for no other reason than because my brain hates me and that is definitely something that Elise Albert nails. When you are depressed, all logic and rational reasoning goes out the window in favor of negative beliefs and worries that serve to reinforce your depression.
I’ve read many negative reviews of this book that were kind of shocking in their lack of empathy. I get that not everyone likes to read about characters who are depressed or wants to read about characters that are depressed, but when it comes to topics like postpartum depression awareness and empathy are some of the best weapons at our disposal. Comments like “motherhood isn’t that bad, stop complaining” demonstrate how badly we need to have representations of what is a very serious problem that many new mothers struggle with.
So, yeah, this is a decidedly uncheery look at new motherhood through the eyes of Ari, who has struggled with depression throughout her life. In prose reminiscent of Virginia Woolf, Albert describes the ways Ari struggles throughout her first year of being a mom. She also highlights the ways in which Ari has always struggled to find and maintain female friendships, which is a factor that compounds her postpartum depression. The fact that Ari lost her mother as a teen and the fact that she has so few female friends in her life means that she doesn’t have a strong female support system that can guide her through that first year. Feeling like she can't relate to other women isolates her, which only exacerbates her depression.
Over the course of the book, Ari befriends another new mother struggling with depression and she learns how she can become that support system for others. In that regard, the book is very encouraging. It is not particularly plot heavy or linear (that Woolf influence). The tone is fairly bleak and at times crass. It is by no means a pleasant read, but it’s well-written and phenomenally honest. The negative self-talk, the difficulty relating to others, the sense of hopelessness that comes with depression – whether postpartum or not – all rings so very true to me even though I’m not a mother.
I’ve read many negative reviews of this book that were kind of shocking in their lack of empathy. I get that not everyone likes to read about characters who are depressed or wants to read about characters that are depressed, but when it comes to topics like postpartum depression awareness and empathy are some of the best weapons at our disposal. Comments like “motherhood isn’t that bad, stop complaining” demonstrate how badly we need to have representations of what is a very serious problem that many new mothers struggle with.
So, yeah, this is a decidedly uncheery look at new motherhood through the eyes of Ari, who has struggled with depression throughout her life. In prose reminiscent of Virginia Woolf, Albert describes the ways Ari struggles throughout her first year of being a mom. She also highlights the ways in which Ari has always struggled to find and maintain female friendships, which is a factor that compounds her postpartum depression. The fact that Ari lost her mother as a teen and the fact that she has so few female friends in her life means that she doesn’t have a strong female support system that can guide her through that first year. Feeling like she can't relate to other women isolates her, which only exacerbates her depression.
Over the course of the book, Ari befriends another new mother struggling with depression and she learns how she can become that support system for others. In that regard, the book is very encouraging. It is not particularly plot heavy or linear (that Woolf influence). The tone is fairly bleak and at times crass. It is by no means a pleasant read, but it’s well-written and phenomenally honest. The negative self-talk, the difficulty relating to others, the sense of hopelessness that comes with depression – whether postpartum or not – all rings so very true to me even though I’m not a mother.
shelleyrae's review against another edition
3.0
After Birth is a provocative story of new motherhood.
The narrative is almost a stream of consciousness with Ari's unfiltered thoughts raging across each page. Ari is brutally honest about her experience, but abrasively so. She is angry, bitter and self pitying, however it's fair to say that she is also lost, lonely and deeply conflicted.
" Sometimes I’m with the baby and I think: you’re my heart and my soul, and I would die for you. Other times I think: tiny moron, leave me the f**k alone..."
It seems likely Ari is experiencing some level of post natal depression, exacerbated by a birth she viewed as traumatic and her difficult relationship with her deceased mother. Motherhood is undoubtedly a huge period of change and adjustment.
"There's before and there's after. To live in your body before is one thing. To live in your body after is another. Some deal by attempting to micromanage; some go crazy; some zone right the hell on out. Or all of the above. A blessed few resist any of these..."
There were parts of the novel I connected with, I have four children (three of whom were born in three years) so I can relate somewhat to Ari's experience. New motherhood can be a frustrating, exhausting, frightening and isolating period.
"Endless need. I did not understand how there could be no break. No rest. There was just no end to it. It went on and one and on. There was no end. And I couldn't relinquish him....because he was mine. There was an agony that bordered on physical when he wasn't in my arms."
However I had a hard time dredging up a lot of sustained sympathy for Ari who wallows in negativity. She is so angry, and self-righteous and entitled. I found her rants about c-sections and bottle-feeding particularly off putting.
"The baby's first birthday. Surgery day, I point out, because I have trouble calling it birth. Anniversary of the great failure."
For all of the rage in After Birth, Albert raises some important issues about the experience of modern motherhood. It can be such an isolating experience for many women, especially for those who lack the close support of family and friends and it is often difficult for new mother's to admit, and ask, for help.
"Two hundred years ago-hell, one hundred years ago- you'd have a child surrounded by other women: your mother, her mother, sisters, cousins, sisters -in-law, mother-in-law.... They'd help you, keep you company, show you how. Then you'd do the same. Not just people to share in the work of raising children, but people to share in the loving of children."
Albert also speaks about friendship, and the way women relate to each other in both positive and negative ways. Ari has few female friends, and her closest friends essentially abandon her after her son is born. She latches onto to Mina, the pregnant tenant of friends, who offers her much of the validation she craves.
We set up camp at my house or hers. We listen to music. I like the music she likes...."We say 'yes', 'exactly', 'poor thing' and 'I know', 'I know that's the whole problem' and 'really, well of course!'"
I think the rage in this novel has the potential to both ameliorate and alienate women, I rolled my eyes in derision of what it had to say as often as I nodded my head in agreement. I didn't enjoy After Birth, nor even really like it, but it is a thought provoking and powerful read.
lari19's review
2.0
The narrator was realistic but terrible. Her brand of "feminism" was annoying at best and downright internally misogynistic and transmisogynistic at worst. The only part of the book worth reading is her feelings about early motherhood, mostly because there are very few books that are honest about the difficulties of it all.
emmylou52's review
3.0
This book perfectly described some of the feelings I've had postpartum, many of which I didn't even realize were there until the author called them out. It was helpful for me to read considering where I am in life, but I'm not sure this book would resonate well with men, or with women who aren't of a certain age.
mwelting's review
3.0
Very mixed feelings. I found the main character profoundly unlikeable (which is not necessarily a bad thing for a book), but in ways that I also found not very interesting. So that made it hard for me to engage. I almost stopped reading after the first section, but in the end I'm glad I stuck with it. While there was much to dislike about the main character, there were moments where her articulation of early motherhood profoundly mirrored my own experience, and I greatly appreciated the camaraderie and empathy. On the other hand, there were also places where she spat out the all-too-common "mommy wars" rhetoric as noxiously as I've read, too. Rhetorical device or not, I've read that enough places and didn't feel the need to see it rehashed here.
Overall, I'm glad I read it (but glad my daughter was already more than a year old when I did, giving me a bit of distance to take what I wanted from it and leave the rest).
Overall, I'm glad I read it (but glad my daughter was already more than a year old when I did, giving me a bit of distance to take what I wanted from it and leave the rest).