Loved it. Debut author, Szilvia Milner. What a profoundly-important, raw, unflinching, complex novel ! This is about a woman who has given birth to her first baby, a girl. Her spouse is kind. As a reader, we are inside the mind of the unnamed mother who is falling into postpartum depression. What was fantastic is Molnar didn’t demonize the mother character but rather brought the daily monotony and sleep-deprivation, and singular focus of feeding the baby alive through this cool technique of varying the sentence structures and paragraphs and chapters. I FELT the push and pull of early motherhood where the sole responsibility to keep the baby alive falls on the nursing mother. The unnamed mother is a translator by profession and that was so well done by juxtaposing her talent for getting in an author’s head to translate their thoughts while trying to translate what this baby’s cries mean as she attached to her to feed almost always. Really really good. I’m blown away. I’m so grateful to Pantheon for the advanced copy.

Thank you Netgalley for an Advanced Readers Copy!

This book follows a first time mom navigating it all. Pregnancy (through flashbacks), but most importantly postpartum. We get a glimpse of those first few days and weeks where all the days blend in and you don't even know what's going on.

This book really was insightful on postpartum and postpartum depression, as someone who was newly postpartum when I read this I related to it a lot.

There are some TW I would consider, especially if you struggle with Postpartum Depression this book might just be a little hard to read especially since there's a lot of talk about intrusive thoughts but none of the less, it was a great read.

TW: Postpartum Depression

The Nursery follows the unnamed narrator in a the first days after bringing her newborn, nicknamed Button, home. The new mom mourns the person she once was while trying to figure out her new identity after birth. In a stroke of luck, she meets her elderly upstairs neighbor, who is also feeling isolated and lonely. Peter, the upstairs neighbor, brings her an odd comfort while her husband, John, is away from the house.

I enjoyed this look at early motherhood and the chaos of physical and mental state that ensues. The nonlinear timeline aided to the presentation of timelessness in those early days. The author also does a great job of describing the feeling of finding your new identity after having children.

It becomes clear early on that the narrator is struggling with post partum depression. Personally, I did not experience PPD/PPA so I am unable to comment on that. However, while her intrusive thoughts are alarming to read, I believe that it depicts how alarming it is the mother encountering them. The narrator clearly struggles between these intrusive thoughts and her instinctive love for her baby. The trauma of losing her mother, and the lack of that relationship in this transformation, plays a big role in how she is learning to become one.

This is a difficult read at times but truly moving and I brought me right back to those days.

An unnamed mother takes us on her journey through post-partum depression and back.

This was a great read for any mother who has just had a baby and suffering from the transition and loneliness. My introduction to motherhood was a lot different, but I appreciated this portrayal and genuineness. The writing style is raw and emotional, and just so realistic. It was hard to read at times and I had to take small breaks. It was a pretty fast and short read.

“I have been a mother for as long as Button has been outside of me, and I have yet to embrace the title ad much as I have had to embrace her.”

The Nursery comes out 3/17.

Well, first of all, I’m the idiot who didn’t realize the cover was a blurred out image of a nipple dripping breastmilk. So, there’s that.

This was interesting. It’s a sort of stream of consciousness narrative of a new mother with postpartum depression. It’s very raw and narrows in on every little detail of post-childbirth life, even down to the mesh underwear and squirt bottles and cracked nipples. It’s realistic but made me cringe because I don’t particularly want to relive that. I also don’t want to relive the postpartum depression I went through which was nowhere near as bad as this woman’s. I at least had a lot of support and medical care. No one, absolutely no one, should have this character’s experience. It was excruciating to watch develop. No partner or friends should be as oblivious and unsupportive and selfish as everyone around this mother was. It’s an awful experience to read about. I think it will either be very relatable or very triggering depending on your birth and postpartum experience so be aware of that if you choose to read it.

The Nursery follows the mind of an unnamed narrator in the weeks after she has given birth, and highlights her experience with postpartum depression.

I think this is an incredible book. The story is told in a detached, dreamlike style that effectively highlights the narrator’s feeling of detachment from her own body and the way she’s losing her grip on her own identity. Speaking of the narrator’s loss of identity, I thought it was a smart choice to leave her unnamed. Every character around her is given a name, but we never learn hers. The repetitiveness of her daily tasks is written in a way that makes it easy to understand what makes her life so draining. Among the understated sentences that make up the majority of The Nursery Szilvia Molnar scattered the narrator’s intrusive thoughts about hurting her baby. But she never emphasized those thoughts. It was clear that the narrator was never going to hurt the baby, but it was also clear that she regularly had those thoughts with no sign of them going away. I can’t praise the descriptions of the narrator’s body highly enough. Her constant awareness of every part of her body felt suffocating and exhausting to me as a reader, and I’m sure that that was the intended effect.

I have no experience with giving birth or having postpartum depression but one thing I do know is that sometimes depression masquerades as tiredness. It feels like maybe if you get enough sleep or have a long enough break from your stressors the weight you carry might leave you alone. But no matter how much you try to rest it doesn’t cure you. That experience was shown in The Nursery. The narrator didn’t get much rest, but even when she did it only helped her a bit.

So here’s why I had to give The Nursery 4 stars instead of 5: I didn’t really like reading it. I think it’s a masterpiece in terms of the writing, but after I got about 100 pages into it every time I picked it up I just wanted it to be over. I don’t have an explanation for this, and I really wish I could give you one. It’s not difficult to read, it’s very short, it’s well written, and I cared about the topic. I just couldn’t stay invested in the book itself. I’m very very glad I’ve read it, but I also know that I’ll probably never think about it again and it won’t become one of those books I frequently recommend.

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, Pantheon and NetGalley for an Electronic Advanced Readers Copy of this novel.

If I had to describe this novel in one word, I would have to say unsettling. The Nursery, by Szilvia Molnar is an upclose and frank depiction of an unnamed new mother and her baby in the early days after the baby is born. Unflinching in her description of her postpartum body and the mechanics of what happens after you give birth, her unmoored life is changed when she strikes up a tentative friendship with her ailing upstairs neighbor Peter, who has come down to her apartment to complain about the baby's crying. This narrative is contrasted with her actions and thoughts throughout her pregnancy, when she had no idea how much her life would change. It delves into postpartum depression, a well meaning but somewhat unhelpful husband, and a baby whose needs have to be taken care of, no matter how reluctant the new mother is.

This raw and honest description of new motherhood is not for everyone - I found myself not really wanting to read it as it was disturbing. You have to be in the right mindset to delve into this thought provoking book. It was well written and really sticks with you.

I received a digital ARC from Pantheon Books through NetGalley.

Thee reader follows an unnamed new mother through glimpses of trying to get pregnant, pregnancy and mostly the first week after her daughter’s birth. Reading this book, the reader is basically reading the new mom’s every thought, no matter how raw, and uncomfortable they are.

This book is a dual timeline between pregnant and postpartum. Wow. The mental, physical, and emotional that comes with a new baby can be overwhelming and this took me right back to my days as a new mom.
A totally real and relatable description of what this time is like. I can’t wait to read more from this author.

***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 I’ve read since becoming a mother. Our narrator, self named Miffo, is a Swedish translator who has just given birth to a baby girl we know as Button. The Nursery accounts Miffo and 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 Miffo 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. 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.

“Motherhood might be about having lost my mind, and I am about to spend the rest of my life searching for it.”

Postpartum depression is so hard. I felt like this book was written as a stream of consciousness for the mother/main character and really showed how isolating being a new mother could be, even when you seemingly have support. I enjoyed reading this book. Thank you!

Evokes: A Yellow Wallpaper, Virginia Woolf, the Gothic genre, claustrophobia, waves, a waltz, leaky tits.

Postpartum depression illuminated in prose about a translator. Deftly woven language, moments, vignettes, flashbacks, flashforwards, dialogue, thoughts, mundanity.

Not extremely engaging or riveting but caught my attention nonetheless.

“How do you schedule a piece of splinter?”

“And if a mother’s work is mostly work that is unseen, then translating is perhaps more mother-like than I have given it credit for in the past.”

“There’s no maternal waltz…”

“Does a mother have language? Can she grow her own mother tongue?”

The setting: "... a visceral and revelatory portrait of a woman struggling with maternal fear and its looming madness, showing how difficult and fragile those postpartum days can be ... in the maternal prison of her apartment, a new mother finds herself spiraling into a state of complete disaffection. As a translator, she is usually happy to spend her days as the invisible interpreter. But now home alone with her newborn, she is ill at ease with this state of perpetual giving, carrying, feeding. The instinct to keep her baby safe conflicts with the intrusive thoughts of causing the baby harm, and she struggles to reclaim her identity just as it seems to dissolve from underneath her.... Joyful early days of her pregnancy mingle with the anxious arrival of the baby, and culminate in a painful confrontation—mostly, between our narrator and herself."

Perhaps I should have read the blurb more carefully; I might have been dissuaded from requesting. To commend: it's short and a fairly easy read. Just not for me.

I think the book is 90% about breastfeeding, Isolation, sleeplessness, exhaustion, anxiety. Titled the nursery because of constant nursing [I imagine].

Before [pregnancy] and after [post-partum]. The state of marriage--before birth and after. Raw and honest.

Note: the author is a writer and the foreign rights director at a New York-based Literary agency. She is originally from Budapest; was raised in Sweden [there are a few Swedish words interspersed] and currently lives in Austin. I wonder how much is autobiographical . This is her debut novel; she has written short storys, essays, poems.

The parts about translating are quite interesting--especially as I read books that have been translated.

New words: miffo [used a few times] and one shot deals: bryophyte/bryology, gemmae

Book cover: a blurry nipple.

2.5, rounding up because not awful, just note: NOT RECOMMENDING [unless, perhaps you are a new mother--it might resonate].

Raw, honest, immersive. This was a great interpretation of postpartum depression and experience in general.
My only hangup was the aspect of abrupt transition between past and present throughout the whole book. This did not serve as an aid to the disjointed nature of the main character, just made it confusing for piecing together some events (i.e. the upstairs neighbor).
Overall, I feel grateful for the author sending this real perspective out into the world and could relate very much being just one year postpartum myself.

Heart pounding thriller that left me on the edge of my seat. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one. Definitely one of the best books this year.

I have the feeling that "unhappy mothering" and postpartum depression have been taboo subjects for a long time, that's why I was intrigued by this book (and also because, just like the main character, I'm a literary translator myself). I really liked the writing, the staggering honesty of the narrator, the courage in lingering on "raw" details. Not particularly compelling, maybe - but this is not a flaw, in my opinion.

The Nursery is a brutally honest look into the life of a new mother. It jumps in time from learning about her pregnancy to several weeks after her new baby comes home. The novel does not pull any punches; the story describes in detail all of the physical and emotional struggles that a woman faces immediately after birth. Pain, sleep deprivation, loneliness, losing a sense of self... and most brutally of all, struggling with postpartum depression.

While the subject matter was difficult, I found this book to be enjoyable. There was a good balance of positive to go with the negative. I think most mothers would feel kinship with the main character, though I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for a woman immediately before having her first child.

A Swedish-English translator is struggling with postpartum depression. Isolation, lack of sleep, and exhaustion took their toll. This honest novel will be at least partly relatable to mothers — those who share the experience of taking care of a newborn baby.

The Nursery is a short novel but a powerful one.

Thanks to Pantheon for the ARC and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review and all opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for this advanced copy of the e-book in exchange for an honest review.

This book has a dual timeline where the nameless main character deals with pregnancy and post partum depression. The timeline jumps back and forth while exploring the excitement of pregnancy followed by the horrible thought processes, feelings, and isolation of motherhood. I applaud this book for being so honest and for painting the picture that not everything is all rainbows and butterflies.

A great debut novel!

Thank You to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, NetGalley, and Szilvia Molnar for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

I’ve read books that deal with trying to express what postpartum depression feels like, but none have captured it quite as perfectly as The Nursery does. From days blending together, exhaustion creating hallucinations, sleep feeling like mere seconds because the tired feeling in your bones never really lifts completely, where drinking a cup of coffee is a reprieve over an every day activity that most just consider a part of their every day routine, to the intrusive thoughts you can’t speak out loud for fear of being judged or having your baby taken away, we get the clearest picture of how suffering with depression after having a child is isolating.

This book really takes you through exactly why new moms feel so alone in their suffering; everything our narrator does, even while in pain, is so that her husband is comfortable, so that Button is comfortable, so that Peter is comfortable, all as undisturbed as possible while she slowly starts unraveling inside, afraid to speak of the horrors she feels at times for fear of losing the people she loves the most even if it causes her to sit on the brink of insanity.

The point is really driven home when we are left never knowing the alias Miffo’s real name, because she feels her identity is all but her own now. As a work of fiction, this tale speaks nothing but truths.

I look forward to reading more stories from this author!