After Birth in The Toast

May 22, 2015 Melanie Greene rated it really liked it

Great narration by Amy Rubinate on the audiobook.

I flipped between loving this and getting personally aggravated by the narrator. Which was part of the point. She's so bitter and stubborn and depressed and self-sabotaging at times (or maybe I mean she's always like that, but sometime less so than others), and the character is drawn so fully that it all makes sense, but it doesn't make for pleasant company. But I understand her, and how easy it really is to sink into various arms of the many-tent ...more

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Feb 27, 2018 Rachel Simone rated it really liked it

I do not have any children, nor do I think you need to have them in order to appreciate this book. This is a hard hitting book. It is intense and raw. I think it articulates a lot of fears people have, which can be uncomfortable. Throughout the book, she details various fierce (and usually unhealthy) female friendships that Ari had in her life stemming from that of her own mother.

It does veer a bit much into stream of consciousness at times, but I was moved by this book (despite an awful narrato ...more

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Aug 27, 2015 Emily rated it it was amazing

I've been having trouble sleeping lately. "After Birth" was the perfect companion for small, half-awake bits of time between 2 and 4 a.m.

Elisa Albert's protagonist, Ari, is a sleep-deprived, lonely new mother. An unreliable narrator, she vacillates between biting humor, misplaced rage, crippling anxiety, and intense longing for connection. Many readers took issue with her contradictions between academic feminism coupled with her (misogyny-rooted) inability to form meaningful female friendships ( ...more

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May 14, 2017 G rated it really liked it

I really loved this. It would be amazing to teach in concert with "The Argonauts" - both examine (here in fictional form) women with fraught relationships to traditional constructions of femininity, who become mothers and wrestle with the theoretical and practical after effects. Here, there's a very interesting pushback against second-wave feminism (and Butler-sequel gender theory), and a rallying cry for the uniqueness and supremacy of the female body. I don't necessarily agree, but it was fasc ...more

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Aug 29, 2015 Hannah Notess rated it liked it

A great test of the "likable narrator" conundrum. In other words this book definitely shows that, yes, a female narrator can be a completely self-absorbed, insufferable person and still be really fun and funny to read. Especially in fiction. ...more

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Aug 02, 2014 Sarah rated it it was ok

I didn't give this two stars because it wasn't good or important, I gave this book two stars because it was too much for me at one time, even while taking breaks. Motherhood academia marriage adultery feminism violence gender identity depression suicide the Holocaust. All of the issues all at once all the time. ...more

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