In the alternate reality of The School for Good Mothers, women who the government deems to be "bad mothers" are sentenced to a one-year term at a mommy reform school. In this panopticon-like environment, the mothers will be observed at all times while they learn proper parenting skills ranging from how to make a nutritious meal, to the right type of hug to provide in various scenarios, to how to save their children from an oncoming vehicle or a child molester. Frida Liu is sentenced to one of these facilities after one "very bad day" during which she left her 18-month-old daughter home alone for several hours. She may have a chance to be reunited with her daughter, but she'll have to earn it by proving to the facility that she's been rehabilitated. And how can she prove she's a good mother in a society that tells women a mother can never be good enough?

I can't say that I necessarily enjoyed reading The School for Good Mothers, but I certainly appreciated what Jessamine Chan was trying to do with this book. With echoes of 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale, the narrative is loaded with social commentary. Chan addresses the unreasonable expectations and pressure society puts on mothers and the double standard that often exists for fathers; the way minority populations are often exploited or targeted by the child protective service system and the gaslighting and unfairness that exist in that system in general; how cultural differences play a role in parenting; the consequences of government overreach; racism, sexism, and issues of morality. She explores these topics using a series of increasingly absurd, exaggerated parenting lessons that are undeniably effective, although her desire to cram everything in results in a narrative that feels repetitive as it goes along.

As for why I didn't necessarily enjoy reading it -- I found it incredibly anxiety-inducing and infuriating, which, actually, is a testament to how effective it is, despite feeling a bit clinical and emotionally flat in its telling. Whether you love it or hate it, The School for Good Mothers is definitely a book that will incite a reaction, and one with a lot to unpack and discuss. I'll be thinking about this book for a long time. Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for the ARC! I was excited to read this much-hyped book, but ultimately it was not for me. It's an interesting premise, but the character and story development fell flat. Frida was not a character that it was easy to feel empathetic towards. I also found that it dragged through the middle. I do think it would foster interesting conversations for a book club and is therefore worth checking out for that reason.

The School For Good Mothers takes the reader on a journey through an only slightly-exaggerated social and legal system aimed at parents. That thin line between subjectivity and objectivity when the lives of children are at stake is super thin and super sharp. Taking into account the lives of the parents in these situations, Chen delivers an almost dystopian look at a new program that aims to re-educate parents who are deemed "bad" by the legal system. With our MC, we meet parents whose offenses range from leaving a child alone to bruises and broken bones. The social judgement from this book as well as the reader is part of the journey. The school itself is another look at hypocritcal and self-defeating expectations placed on parent - especially mothers.

This book really surprised me. I don't typically read, or even like, dystopian novels, but this was really well written and very captivating. As a mother and an adoption and foster care social worker, this book really hit a cord for me. Issues of race, surveillance, morality, and gender equality are all focal points of this beautiful piece of work.

4.5 stars

Helicopter Parenting meets Handmaids Tale meets Black Mirror. This book puts the high expectations that society puts on mothers in a whole new light. It was frustrating to read some of the characters, how they treat mothers and fathers differently and to see the different expectations and views placed on different races. Highly recommend this book to any parent, grandparent and future parent.

Thank you to #SimonSchuster #TheSchoolforGoodMothers #NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you to Simon&Schuster & NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy! A dystopian story of a woman who has to live with the consequences of a very bad day. It read like an episode of the Twilight Zone. Quick read and engrossing, I was so angry with some of the characters I wanted to throw my kindle. Definitely recommend!!

Frida Liu's husband left her for another woman. Her job is boring. She feels she has not lived up to expectations. The day readers meet Frida, she is not having a good day. Even though her young daughter is in her house, Frida leaves her daughter alone to get coffee and to stop at work. She is gone over two hours. Someone hears the child crying and calls the authorities. At this point, Frida's life begins to unravel. The government has changed their approach in dealing with bad mothers. A school has been established to educate women deemed to be bad mothers. If Frida has any hope of being in her daughter's life, she will have to agree to spend a year in the government school. She agrees. What follows is terrifying.

This is a tightly woven story. that deals with serious issues. The large and varied cast of characters are totally believable and vividly presented. Many are complicated people who are deeply flawed. Their relationships are often perplexing. Motherhood, parenting, and the love of a child are the prime focus of the narrative. Can anyone. live up to expectations? Will Frida's love of her daughter give her the strength to survive a year in this authoritarian institution?

I found this to be a provocative and engrossing story. Highly recommended.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley, The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

The School for Good Mothers is a dystopian novel revolving around the theme of motherhood. Chan infuses the pages with gnawing dread, which speaks to the woes of motherhood. The world-building was done well; the world in The School for Good Mothers felt so real, to the point where I only realized the book is a dystopian novel until I was several chapters in. I particularly loved how Chan seamlessly incorporated commentary on how mothers are treated differently from fathers by society. That being said, the pacing of The School for Good Mothers didn't quite work for me and I found the Nazi reference unnecessary.

I'd recommend The School for Good Mothers to anyone thinking about starting a family/parents (especially mothers!) because the commentary is on point.

Thank you Simon & Schuster for the ARC!

While I don’t love this book as much as Jenna Bush Hager who selected it for the January Today Show Book Club, I thought this was a thought-provoking book on what makes a “good” mother. This debut by Jessamine Chan is set in a dystopian society. Frida, a Chinese American, has a really bad day and she leaves her baby alone for a few hours. She’s a single mom, struggling to survive in Philadelphia with no friends and a husband, who while supportive of her has moved into the apartment of a wealthy girlfriend. Society has deemed Frida, a “bad mother” and this is the constant mantra she and other bad mothers are forced to repeat. She must pass a challenging and rote based year of learning. Each bad mother is given a robot IA doll to work with. The program is intrusive with not only her actions being recorded, but her brain is scanned for attributes that contribute to good mothering skills. Motherhood is a cultural experience, so Frida, raised by her Chinese grandmother and her immigrant college professor parents, struggle with the “American” child centered motherhood model and that of the Chinese which is a more adult centered childhood. It’s a very emotional look at parenthood from the viewpoint of a “bad” mother. While not my favorite book, this would be an excellent book for book club discussions.

The Handmaid's Tale meets 1984 in this dystopian novel by Jessamine Chan. The School for Good Mothers follows a woman who experiences a "lapse in judgement" in caring for her child that lands her in a big-brother like program for mothers who need to improve their parenting. Uncomfortable and unnerving, Chan's novel takes the way in which society critiques motherhood to a whole new level.

I really enjoyed this book. I had seen a lot of people recommending it and I really am glad I read it. I thought it did such a good job of toeing the line of being set in the real world while also being in a dystopian world that you could really believe would happen in our world. It was stressful and infuriating to read about what happened to Frida and I really liked this book.

This is, objectively, a very good book. However, it made me unbelievably anxious and angry while reading it. It is harrowing and heart breaking, and absolutely frustrating. Reader beware: therein lies great writing and emotional torture.

Side note: a bunch of summaries and reviews I read did not mention that this isn't exactly speculative fiction, but it's definitely not our reality. YMMV.

Published by ‎ Simon & Schuster on January 4, 2022

The School for Good Mothers projects all the flaws of the child protective services system into a future that demands the complete subjugation of mothers to the state’s authority. That’s easy to imagine, given the ease with which children are snatched away from parents based on the mere suspicion that they might be at risk. Removing children from their parents is sometimes necessary to protect them, but it is traumatic for children and devastating for innocent parents. There are almost always better ways to protect kids who are not being subjected to clear physical abuse.

Rather than tackling that issue in a realistic novel, Jessamine Chan writes about an “experimental” program that threatens parents with termination of their parental rights unless they complete a one-year program. During that year, they raise blue robotic dolls that are programmed to behave like children. Social workers micromanage the parents’ behavior with their dolls as well as their personal behavior when they aren’t with their dolls. The parents are held in captivity and are under constant surveillance. They are given a monthly Facetime call with their real kids but social workers are quick to remove that privilege when parents fail to meet the social workers’ impossible expectations.

Frida Liu is a recently divorced American-born Chinese woman whose former husband Gust is living with a woman named Suzanne. Frida misses Gust and still sleeps with him from time to time. They share custody of their young daughter Harriet, each parenting her for half the week.

Frida is feeling pressured by the demands placed on her at work. She decides to leave Frida at home while she runs to the office to pick up papers. She answers emails while she’s there, loses track of time, and doesn’t return home for a couple of hours. Frida’s cries from her crib somehow attract the attention of the police. Harriet is removed from Frida’s custody and given to Gust.

Nothing Frida has done would remotely jeopardize her parental rights, but social workers threaten to have those rights terminated unless she completes the experimental program. Nobody in the outside world is permitted to know what goes on in the program. In the real world, any competent lawyer would tell the social workers where they can shove their program, but Frida’s lawyer tells her that she risks losing Harriet unless he complies. That advice parallels the reality that lawyers commonly advise parents to play along with social workers for fear that the social workers will otherwise abuse the enormous power they wield over families.

The story follows Frida as she raises her blue doll with other mothers and their daughters inside an electrified fence. Apart from teaching mothers the importance of being a helicopter parent, the school teaches mothers how to hug their children (not to long, not too short), how to change the blue liquid that fuels the blue kids, how to avoid activities (like chatting with adults or having sex) that distract from parenting. Instructors teach mothers that they should never shame their children while shaming the mothers at every opportunity. “I am a bad mother,” the mothers must chant, “but I am learning to be better.”

Men are also sent to classes, but not much is expected of fathers. They don’t lose phone privileges with their children. They don’t have talk circles in which they are required to analyze and confess their selfishness and bad parenting. The mothers are clearly being trained to be stay-at-home moms because, in the view of their instructors, devoting their entire lives to raising their children is the only purpose they should desire. The goal of ideal parenting, it seems to Frida, is to give no thought to your own needs while always displaying the kind of serenity one might feel after a lobotomy.

In its heavy-handed way, the novel illustrates important points. Children are too often made to suffer in the interest of protecting them. Limiting a parent’s time with a child does not promote healthy relationships between parents and children. Observing parents and children in artificial settings offers little insight into the parent-child dynamic. Constantly drumming into a parent’s head that they are a bad parent will likely turn them into a bad parent. Assuming that all parents should interact with children in exactly the same way, regardless of culture or personality, reflects arrogance rather than reality. Social workers often do what is best for the social worker rather than the family. Social workers can be vindictive and retaliatory when parents question their pronouncements about proper parenting. Parents are often made to jump through a seemingly endless series of hopes before they can regain custody of a child who has been removed from the home, and it often seems that the parents have been set up to fail.

The legal system gives enormous power to social workers. Many judges are too deferential to child protective services workers, but the Supreme Court has recognized that parents have a constitutionally protected interest in parenting their children. It is fairly easy to remove kids from a home, but it isn’t easy to terminate parental rights. The kind of nonsense that Frida endures in the program would not be tolerated by any judge, and certainly not by any appellate court. There is a place in literature for cautionary tales, but The School for Good Mothers isn’t 1984 or The Handmaid’s Tale. Reducing a problem to absurdities isn’t an effective way to sound an alarm. If spotlighting a flawed system was Chan’s intent, a novel that took an honest look at how the current system traumatizes children and parents would have been more effective.

I admired Chan’s writing style. Some passages are quite poignant. Frida’s sense of loss when she’s deprived of time with her daughter is palpable. Other passages, including women who spend most of their waking hours trying to figure out how to have sex with each other, with guards, or with visiting male parents, are just silly. The blue dolls are bizarre. The novel alternates between being a light-hearted “band camp” story and a serious tale of abused parents. The lack of a consistent tone makes it difficult to take The School for Good Mothers seriously, while the ending undermines much of the preceding story and makes the reader question whether Frida really is putting her own interests ahead of Harriet’s. Despite its merits, the book is too muddled to earn an unqualified recommendation.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Interesting premise sending women to school to become “good” mothers. The novel didn’t quite pull me in the way I had hoped and I struggled to finish.

The School for Good Mothers is a book that drew me in even when I wanted to put it down. Chain’s writing is direct and empathetic and inquisitive, in a way that makes the reader seek answers to questions, even when it’s clear it will be uncomfortable or even horrific. Frida, a busy working mom, has a stressful day and makes a mistake—she leaves her baby alone and neighbors watch it happen. As court proceedings and visitations happen, and judgements pour down from her ex and his new lover, Frida finds herself stuck in this place of also dissociation—that inquisitive tone I felt throughout the novel. After being sentenced to a futuristic finishing school for reforming mothers, Frida must prove her mothering skills under the watchful eye of the directors and a creepy robotic doll that measures each of their interactions. The second half of the book tries to balance a lot of commentary on the conditions, exposition of the dystopian near-future of this reform school and Frida’s almost aching disconnection. It’s a book that is worth a read for fans of Atwood and others in this hybrid genre, but it lost it me towards the end.

Still reeling from this one. Deeply dystopic but also extremely contemporary and on the nose. A disturbing take on society's take on motherhood, and what happens when big government gets a little bit too involved with our personal lives. Chan captures the multi-facetedness of women's - particularly women who are mothers - lives, the standards they must meet, the image they must present, and the everyday difficulties of doing the best you can while trying to raise a human. Frieda is a captivating and sympathetic character, it's hard not to feel for her and her plight. I found myself wanting to share portions of the book with anyone around me as I read it, thinking how ABSURD it absolutely was, but also, not so far off base from our current reality. Smart, compelling, and wildly cynical, I'll be recommending The School for Good Mothers to women and more importantly, men, in my life for a long time to come.

The School For Good Mothers
By: Jessamine Chan
Pub. date: January 4, 2022
Review date: January 10, 2022

Many thanks to Simon & Schuster, Jessamine Chan & NetGalley, for allowing me early access to this arc.. I’m leaving my review voluntarily.

Wowwwww… Jessamine Chan has pulled from me more emotions than I knew existed! It’s Rare a book gives me So Many feels but this one here is Something Else altogether.. Also, I was born, raised & actually Still reside in South Philly & the story just happens to take place right here in my hometown. This is a semi-dystopian take on a real-life scenario, one more common than most would believe. I’m giving The School For Good Mothers 5 stars & will encourage Everyone who enjoys a good dystopian, (mostly) fictional story with many true to life themes. I Can’t Wait to see what Jessamine Chan thinks of for her next novel!
#TheSchoolForGoodMothers #NetGalley
#JessamineChan #SimonAndSchuster

Poor pacing. A novel like this is something I feel can benefit from being a novella. A shorter story that packs a punch.

It takes a lot for me to actually cry when reading a book. I have to be perfectly in tune with the characters and really able to feel the despair or sorrow being described. Jessamine Chan was able to pull out all sorts of emotions from me while reading this book: frustration, longing, anxiety. This is the mark of a truly talented writer in my mind.

The main character, Frida, makes the inarguable mistake of leaving her toddler home alone while she runs an errand. She's reported to CPS and is required to defend her parenting abilities. In this futuristic story, Frida is mandated to spend one year in a school for mothers who have also proven to be less than perfect mothers. She's tasked with impossible tests, day in and out, all in the name of receiving custody when she is released.

I am not a mother but I was so able to clearly fit into Frida's shoes because her desperation to be better and her commitment to her family is universal. This book reads like a horror novel at times (no gore, just shock at what the mothers are made to endure), a dystopian novel, and a cautionary tale of what could happen if we as a culture become consumed by the idea that there is a model for what a perfect parent (and person) should be.

This book will stay with me for a long time, and even after the tears, I'll be eagerly anticipating Chan's future work.

When exhausted single mother Frida Liu leaves her eighteen-month-old daughter, Harriet, alone for two hours her life is forever changed. Child Protective Services take her child and give her to the custody of her ex-husband Gust and his new wife Susanna. Frida must prove herself a worthy mother through observation. Her home is set up with cameras and she gets supervised visits with her daughter Harriet. When these visits go poorly she then must go to family court to retain custody. When that also goes poorly she is allowed to redeem herself by going to an education camp, a school for good mothers.

She is then placed in a sort of prison with other mothers who have also abandoned or harmed their children. Each mother's education includes an assigned robotic child for practice. She must go through a series of classes and tests to determine if she is a worthy mother. If she fails, she will lose custody forever.

Jessamine Chan combines several science fiction elements that might be familiar to readers. However, it seemed to be a hodgepodge of elements that don't seem to combine that smoothly. Mothers are in prison missing their children. These elements are familiar to anyone who has read or watched Orange Is the New Black. Many also make the comparison to Handmaid's Tale. This doesn't seem to sync up since it isn't a prison. Mothers can leave at any time, and some do, it just means giving up custody of their children. Later scenes of mothers escaping don't seem to add up. They don't need to escape since both leaving or escaping both means losing custody? The story flow is very wooden as well. It sets a dystopia, but what happens to mothers in our current society far exceeds what occurs in this narrative.