Hey Jessamine- I'll give you 4 out of 5 birds for The School for Good Mothers. I love books that are messed up, I will admit that this one did cause me a lot of anxiety- probably because I am a mom of three young kids. Overall, I liked the concept and how the author showed how much of our parenting is being watched and critiqued. This book made me think.... And also made me scared lol, but thats fine, right? I also raged about the inconsistencies in the mothers and fathers- but realize that's the point. So Jessamine nailed that. I loved that this book featured a women of asian dissent and showed the racism happening at the school and that is faced in parenting. Overall, I thought it was well-written, fear driven, and very much so like a Handmaiden's Tale. If you like that book/show then you would LOVE this book. It does have swearing and more than I wanted/needed to know about the character's sex lives. I want to thank NetGalley for the advanced copy in return for my honest review and Jessamine Chan for her unique perspective.

This book is so relevant to today. We may not have any official institutions for "bad mothers," but we definitely have a lot of biased sentencing based on gender roles.

Notable lines:

"The mothers aren't supposed to celebrate their birthdays. They can only talk about themselves in relation to their children."

" . . . what it means to age, how her body would change if she were real, what society expects of mothers and daughters, how they're expected to fight, how she fought with her own mother and now regrets every cruel word."

"Parents aren't supposed to feel lonely."

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me an ARC of this book!

“Fix the home,” she says, “and fix society.”

This book is a painful read. We are vividly shown the extent that a mother would go through to get their child back. We are also shown the cold, clinical extent that the government will go to prevent that from happening.

I enjoyed this book, but once we got to the second half, it felt repetitive and boring. While still uncomfortable, I feel this book sat on the edge of either being a contemporary or a thriller. Never deciding which one it wanted to be. Despite the somewhat lull in the second half, the ending was satisfying and interesting. This is truly a fantastic debut, and I can’t wait to read more from Jessamine Chan.

First, thank you to NetGalley, Jessamine Chan, and Simon & Schuster for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

This book. THIS BOOK. Easily the best I've read in many months, and that includes many of the Women's Prize in Fiction long listers. It follows Frida, a somewhat floundering middle-aged single mother in Philadelphia, through one "very bad day" that alters the course of her life and results in her child being taken from her. But it's more than that. It's searing, biting, funny, but punch-you-in-the-gut commentary on middle class parenting standards that are impossible to meet, on the demands of motherhood in particular, on female scrappiness and complexity, on love, on the balance between child safety advocacy and state domination. I can't seem to stay away from cliches here, but my heart was in my throat the entire novel. I'm a mom, and I don't think I'm alone (Chan doesn't seem to think so either) in the feeling that I just can't master motherhood the way social pressure dictates-- that even though I'm a good mom who loves her kids, I wouldn't pass state muster, I wouldn't pass the School for Good Mothers. Because that school-- the school that's "speculative" in Chan's fictional world-- intentionally hits close to the reality that mothers are often judged by unreachable standards that tap into latent sexism, that seek to translate subjective aspects of love and care into objective rubrics. Good God, it's good.

It's unputdownable, it's smart, it's beautiful. Read it.

DNF around 30% of the way through. Great writing, really compelling plot and world building, but the content is too dark and depressing for me right now. I’m sure this book will get lots of great reviews when it’s published though. I might finish it someday when I’m in a better headspace.

I struggled with getting into this book from the beginning. The characters fall a bit flat and I had a hard time picking back up the book to continue my reading, I really needed to push myself to get through each next chapter. The plot lines surrounding the investigation were so exaggerated to me that it was difficult to keep reading. I’m sure that it will be a great read for those with broader imaginations, I just could not get myself there. I appreciated the overall commentary on parenting, but the delivery was not enjoyable.

•A R C•B O O K•R E V I E W•
2021 Book #58 out of 80
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THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD MOTHERS
by JESSAMINE CHAN
Publication date January 4, 2022
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of 5 stars
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Content Warnings: Loss of Child, Child Abuse and Neglect, Reference to Drugs and Alcohol

QUICK SYNOPSIS:
Frida Liu describes the day of her losing custody as a "very bad day." From her mistake, Frida has to do whatever it takes to get her baby back, even if it requires her to join an experimental Reformation Bootcamp practicing skills and treatments to become a "Good Mother." Frida is forced to participate in the dreaded parenting classes, parenting skills and practices, and evening talking circles to determine whether or not she passes to become a "Good Mother" so she can rejoin her baby.

STORYLINE & THOUGHTS:
~ Chan breaks down the barriers and addresses racism, sexism, and parenting expectations through this dystopian novel that gave me all the Black Mirror and The Handmaid's Tale feels.
~ The pacing of the book was well created, especially since the book had heavy topics and issues discussed to match the storyline.
~ My emotions were frequently twisted and turned to fit various situations and losses happening throughout the book. Although it was quite a roller coaster of a novel, these emotional pushes and pulls only drew me into reading more of the book.
~ Overall, this book is by far my favorite dystopian read for 2021!
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Thank you to @netgalley and @SimonandSchuster for this ARC Ebook. All reviews are fair and honest reviews. All opinions are my own.
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#ARC #AdvanceReaderCopy #Netgalley #Bookstagramfeature #Bookstagram #Goodreads #TBR #ToBeRead #InstaBook #readersofinstagram #readersofinsta #bookreview #bookish

Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for this ARC. The plot of this novel was super intriguing and unique, and it made me reflect on a lot of important questions which I think come up more and more often in our society, like what is the role of a mother? How does society judge mothers for mistakes? When does imperfection become a danger to the child? When is a child better off without their birth parent, and who can make those kinds of decisions? Why do we judge mothers so much more harshly than fathers? It reminded me a little of the movie "Gone Baby Gone" in that way. There's so much judgment of parents, especially in our age of social media. The book was a little repetitive to me, and I felt like a lot of the plot points could have been cut down. I got a little bored during the middle. It was an over-the-top concept, but I liked it because it is dystopian, though I feel there could have been a richer world developed which justified the crazy state of things.

A powerful dystopian novel about privilege, parenting, the judicial system, and womanhood. While this might be a hard read for some, I think it speaks to some important issues in our time, albeit a bit over the top and on the nose in some cases. Overall, I think it was a very good, entertaining read that I would definitely recommend.

The School for Good Mothers is absolutely chilling in the best possible way, especially since the first 50 pages or so could easily happen to anyone today. The story kept me flipping pages the whole way through, trying to get to the end. I did find the ending a little annoying, because I just personally dislike ambiguous endings, but I can certainly understand why Chan chose to end the book that way. On the whole, a fascinating examination of the modern day cult of “good” motherhood.

In "The School for Good Mothers," we meet Frida, who is mom to young Harriet. The book opens up on the bad day that Frida has with Harriet, resulting in the police being called and CPS. What follows is the case against Frida which proceeds in the typical fashion until we get to the actual consequence. Frida is going to be sent to a school to train her how to be a good mother. And that's where the book takes an unusual and different turn from the typical book about parents losing custody.

I found this book fascinating! I could not put it down. I was eager to read it and find out what happened next. The book moves along at a great pace. You really felt for the mothers in this school and for young Harriet. Frida is a saint for what she put up with from her ex-husband. I wanted to smack Susanna across her face several times as well as the "teachers" at this school.

I can't decide how I feel about the ending. It leaves you hanging a little but at the same time, it is easy to imagine what happens next.

I look forward to reading more from this author! Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read and review this book.

Helicopter parenting is put on trial in this subversive novel about a mother getting the blame for a moment’s lack of attention and her struggle to regain the right to parent her child in the eyes of society.

The title of Chan's novel sounds innocuous, not troubling at all. Still, it includes heavy and chilling threads of racism and sexism that currently run rampant in American life. In this novel, Frida Lui pays for having "a very bad day" with the revocation of her "motherhood, and she pays solely and unreasonably.
Chan is a skilled writer, drawing the reader into a " cruel dystopian world; in fact, the themes of the novel echo the work of Margaret Atwood. Chan is so engaging, though, that this novel is almost possible to put aside until it is finished. Thrilling and compelling!

I am a mother of three young children and this book is the stuff anxiety attacks are made of. Dystopian fiction with the grinding almost too real possibility of horror makes this novel so uncomfortable to read. I read through this book in two sittings making me feel absolutely ill nearly the entire time. This is sure to be a big hit with people who liked "The Push" and "Handmaids Tale". Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC.

** spoiler alert ** I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchanged for my honest review. I really, really liked this book. It also made me super, mega ill over the possibility of 1% of what happens in this book happening in real life. The book is set in a future where parents (mothers especially) are surveilled and held to a standard which no human could possibly ever reach. As a parent of many children, the thought of having my children taken away for a minor parenting infraction was enough to make me sick. It begs you to think about the standards for what actually makes a good parent. I enjoyed some of the sci-fi/futuristic elements and sincerely hope we never see them come to pass in our lifetime. Overall I really enjoyed this book and raced through it. It was a great read; made you think; made you feel for the characters (which were well-developed); and I enjoyed the ending (even if it is not the most fulfilling version of what you hoped would happen).

Wow. I experienced the full range of emotions while reading this heartbreaking story. This book left me literally breathless at times and I know I will think about it often

I have some mixed feelings about this book. What the main character did was bad and she deserved to be punished. The school, as a punishment is not a bad idea. However, I did not like the way the women were treated at the school. The poor dolls. The idea of a person being put on a registry was truly horrifying.

I also did not like that the men's school was not as harsh as the women's school.

As far as for the writing of the book I sometimes got confused as to how much time had passed. It sometimes felt that at least 4 months had passed and then I found it had only been a month or 2. I had a hard time following how far she was progressing in her sentence.

I was sad at the ending.

This book was heartbreaking and astonishing, and manages to be a successful page-turner, an exploration of motherhood, and an examination of the child welfare system all in one,

What a page turner! From the start to the finish, I looked forward to reading this book any chance I got. This book is a perfect representation of how far the system will go if we the people allow it to happen.

Reading this book as a mother of a young child was an emotional rollercoaster! I did not realize until about 1/3 of the way through the book that it was dystopian fiction or at least based in an alternate reality of sorts, and once that became clear, I started enjoying the book more.

Frida is the mother of Harriet, and Frida has a very bad day of mothering that sets in motion a series of events and state interventions. Harriet is removed from her care temporarily so that Frida can attend a new program for parents who have failed as parents in some way; the program is the School for Good Mothers, and over half of the book is Frida's year at this school.

This book tackles so many issues related to modern day motherhood, and as a mother myself it was difficult to read. I struggled to connect with the main character or have empathy for her; the action she takes that results in her child being removed from her home, while not violent, is so irresponsible and poorly justified.

However, as the book went along, I softened my stance on Frida, especially as the details of the school and the mothers' experiences there are told. Can mothering be taught? Is there a standard for good motherhood? Can and should the govt be in charge of parenting? The focus on selflessness mothering was very good. This book could lead to great book club discussions and debates The fact that Frida is Chinese American gives the book more depth and allows for more points of view.

When the book ended, I wanted more. I wanted to know what happened next and I had come to care about the characters, which is always a mark of a good story.