I was on the fence on whether to buy this book for my high schoolers but after 9th grade got assigned Handmaid's Tale I figured it would be a good readalike. It's a great read full of interesting conflicts and great characters.

I wish I'd read this in a book club. There's so much to discuss and think about. It's a book I will be thinking about for a long time to come.

In a world very similar to our own, mothers are taken away from their children for years for mistakes that range from very minor to abusive. They are forced into parenting classes with creepy robot children and based on the results of their classes, they are either reunited with their much older children or separated for good.
The reason I rated this book so highly is that I read this book a few months ago and it has really stuck with me. I typically steer clear of books in this genre, but I couldn't put this one down. This is a tough book, but definitely worth a read.

Can a bad mother be redeemed? Is there only one way to parent? These questions and more are the focus of this dystopian debut novel. Frida's very bad day with her daughter Harriet lands her in a government reform program where bad mothers use robot children to improve their parenting skills. If they fail to pass the program their parental rights are terminated. This book made me feel anger, frustration, and pity all great emotions to share in a book club.

This book kept me on my toes the whole time. It was futuristic, but close enough to present to send chills up my spine!

Although the premise of this book sounded amazing, I was slightly disappointed. Of course, as a reader, you have sympathy for the main character and the struggles of motherhood. The dystopian school is extremely exaggerated and felt not very “human like”. No individual is perfect ALL the time, but here you are expected to be or else. I felt like the book was a constant repeat of itself, and although I had high hopes for this one—I ended up disappointed.

This was a great novel that propelled nicely through discussions on pertinent and timely topics. However, the internal meat of the book was quite slow-paced. The first chapter and the last chapter were great, but it was kind of a slog to get through the middle bit.

This was a well written book with a good premise. I am not a mother so it was a bit hard for me to relate to. In the end it was a DNF for me. I could not get into the book. I feel others would enjoy the book, but it was not for me.

Loved the premise for this book and immediately felt sympathy for the main character and her struggles as a mother. Though this dystopian school is exaggerated, it exemplifies the way motherhood is scrutinized and dehumanized. You are expected to be 100% perfect all the time or be seen as a terrible human being, thus you have to give up everything and let your whole life revolve around your child. There’s also some brief, interesting points the book makes with the main character’s upbringing and the way immigrant parenting styles can be viewed as cold/unfeeling VS the way parenthood “should” be — I would’ve liked to see this explored further to give a deeper layer to the story, but felt like we only touched the surface. The execution of the book ended up being quite repetitive and didn’t move the story further, so it felt like there were some missed opportunities for more plot threads, relationship developments, twists, etc.

3.5 // The School for Good Mothers is an imaginative and heartbreaking/infuriating novel that portrays the immense pressure on mothers from society. (It seems as though everyone has opinions on how you should raise your children, and the smallest of mistakes you make are blown out of proportion.) Frida Liu is not a bad mother, but the dystopian penal system she ends up in is horrendous. Chan did an excellent job of communicating dread, fear, and anguish through the setting and interactions with the instructional dolls. Ultimately, I didn’t love this book, as I thought the pacing for the first half was slow and certain aspects of Frida’s character / relationships could’ve been further explored, but I’ll certainly be watching Chan’s career going forward. A good debut.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy.

Whoaaaaaa this book. These days, so many dystopian novels can feel like they could happen in real life, and this one hits just enough close to home that it knocked me on my heels for weeks. The world that Frida, the main character, lives in is unforgiving to women, especially mothers. She's taken away from her child and faces a nearly impossible uphill battle to get her back. What ensues in Frida's journey to get her child back is heartbreaking and revealing of the ways we treat mothers in the real world.

This one was so hard to get through. I picked it up many times (even after the ARC deadline) and just couldn't do it. I'd get to about 25% and give up.

This book is absolutely crazy! The concept is so original and really makes you think about what it takes to be a mother. You can tell the author spent a lot of time researching and building what the school would look like and entail. Is the main character actually a bad mother? This book will make you question what she has actually done and how bad is she in comparison to the other mothers. I would recommend this book to someone who wants to think or enjoyed titles like The Push or Verity!

What defines a “good” mother and who gets to decide? In her debut novel, The School for Good Mothers, Jessamine Chan grapples with the endless ways America attempts to control its mothers and the terror and powerlessness of forced separation.

At the center of the story is Frida, a thirty-nine-year-old single mom whose one “very bad day” lands her in a twelve-month reeducation program for bad mothers. Depending on how she performs, Frida could get her daughter back. Or she could never see her again.

It all starts with an ear infection: neither Frida nor eighteen-month-old Harriet have slept in days. Frida is behind on work and needs to fetch some papers at the office. She kisses her beloved Harriet and sets her gently into the ExerSaucer, where she’ll be safe. But once at her desk, Frida loses track of time answering emails. Two hours later, on the way home, a phone call from the police: “We have your daughter.” So begins Frida’s horror story, and with it, Chan’s careful excavation of our culture’s outrageous-impossible-contradictory expectations for motherhood. Here’s where Chan’s superpowers of social observation are at their most powerful.

There is (a) an ex-husband, Gust, a sexy architect and pretty good dad who remains supportive of Frida, even after leaving her for, (b) his new, younger wife, Susanna, a gorgeous clean-living advocate and Instagrammer who is, (c) also great with Harriet and would love to be friends with Frida. All of which really pisses Frida off.

Enter a distracted social worker, supervised visitation, and a court hearing that is the stuff of nightmares. Dystopia takes off when Frida arrives at the experimental reeducation school with a cohort of mothers of various ages and races, set on a defunct college campus upstate. “In order to get Harriet back, Frida must learn to be a better mother. She must demonstrate her capacity for genuine maternal feeling and attachment, hone her maternal instincts, show she can be trusted. Next November, the state will decide if she’s made sufficient progress. If she hasn’t, her parental rights will be terminated.”

While in concept, this novel is vaguely reminiscent of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, The School separates itself with its sickening familiarity. Atwood has said the horrors of Gilead were drawn from the true history of humanity, somewhere far away from modern life in North America. The School exists in that subtle gray area that lives next door, in our schools, and in our own friend circles. Chastising Frida after her weekly ten-minute call with her daughter, a counselor advises, “Your daughter is changing … it’s a bittersweet experience for all parents. You need to accept it …. How much do you really know about her life right now?” Then, “Remember, ladies, this is a safe space.” There are no red robes and white bonnets here to signal society has gone off the rails; rather, this microculture is truly all-American.

Once institutionalized, each mother is assigned a robot doll.

There’s a camera inside each doll … the dolls will collect data. They’ll gauge the mothers’ love. The mothers’ heart rates will be monitored to judge anger. Their blinking patterns and expressions will be monitored to detect stress, fear, ingratitude, deception, boredom, ambivalence … whether her happiness mirrors her doll’s. The doll will record where the mother’s hands are placed, will detect tension in her body, her temperature and posture, how often she makes eye contact, the quality and authenticity of her emotions.

Lessons range from “motherese” to physical affection.

At the school, motherhood is a simple exercise in performance.

‘Your voice should be as light and lovely as a cloud,’ Ms. Russo says.

‘What does a cloud sound like?’ Beth asks, looking up at Ms. Russo through a curtain of glossy hair.

‘Like a mother.’

‘But that makes no sense.’

‘Mothering isn’t about sense, Beth. It’s about feeling.’ Ms. Russo pats her heart.

Much like parenthood itself, the school term is long and tedious, with failures emphasized, successes taken for granted. “Your instructors have told me that your hugs lack warmth. They said, I quote, ‘Frida’s kisses lack a fiery core of maternal love.’” A counselor sets unnatural goals. “By next week, at least five successful hug sequences. More efficient articulation of shortcomings. Fewer shortcomings …. A higher pitch. Higher daily word count. Frida needs to relax …. Data collected from the doll has suggested substantial amounts of anger and ingratitude.”

Correct mothering is, of course, a ridiculous concept, and yet our society insists on judging mothers, for we are such easy targets, with our persistence in devotion, tendency toward self-reflection, and willingness to course correct. Just when you are getting the hang of things, your beloved six-year-old wakes up seven or eight or nine, and you begin again. The job requires an endless well of passion and generosity and commitment. Labels like “good” and “bad” are paltry next to the scope of the task.

And Chan’s keen social insights aren’t limited to motherhood. She’s concerned also with the ruthless realities of race and gender in America, as we see in Frida’s interior thoughts at her trial. “[T]he judge probably won’t see Frida as a person of color. She isn’t Black or brown. She’s not Vietnamese or Cambodian. She’s not poor. Most of the judges are white, and white judges tend to give white mothers the benefit of the doubt, and Frida is pale enough.”

Did I mention there’s a school for dads next door? Surprise: the expectations for good dads are different.

Chan gets so much right in this story, but as a single mom, I want to point out what she gets most right: when you are a parent without the sanctuary of traditional marriage and family, you know you are vulnerable. Once the law is involved in a family, anything could happen. A mother who has had to rebuild her life never relaxes. The School is fine with this. “A mother is the buffer between her child and the cruel world. Absorb it, the instructors say. Take it. Take it.”

My own mom used to tell me her greatest fear after she and my dad divorced was that he would remarry, and we children would go waltzing off with him and his new wife and forget all about her. This made no sense for many reasons: I was an adult when they divorced; she’s my —mom—we had a whole history. Not to mention, my dad never remarried, and he rarely waltzes. But cultural programming tells us women are supposed to be coupled, and it’s their fault if things fail, and if indeed they fail, maybe they don’t deserve to be loved. It was my mother’s own imagination that terrorized her.

Chan gets this. In The School for Good Mothers, she takes the messy pile of internalized misogyny mothers live under and externalizes it, turning it against a newly single mom who has everything going for her—she’s smart, educated, and she has a good job and a supportive family. If something like this could happen to Frida, what does that mean for the rest of us?

Phew, I wish I read more of the triggers for this book. I struggle between enjoying the prose of the book, knowing it’s fictional dystopia, and finishing it (mainly bc of my own littles). The MC is imprisoned to a 1-year reform program for “bad” mothers. As a mom, being constantly judged & standards that individuals place on you as a mom. Either way, it’s a good book for book club, there’s a lot that can be discussed.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC.

This is by far one of my favorite books of the year. I felt the whole realm of emotion while reading this book.

I think that the main character in this book was so well crafted. I don't agree with what she did at the beginning of the book but as a mom of three small children, the stress that she was under was so relatable.
Chan did an amazing job of making this book really speak to the true nature of a mother and the struggles that we all have and I think that is why I connected to this book so much. Not to mention the representation of different kinds of mothers was so well done.
I think that the school itself was such an eerie setting and it felt like something that could really happen in the future.
If you are looking for a dystopian future book this is one I would highly recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley, Simon & Schuster, and JEssamine Chan for an ARC of The School for Good Mothers in exchange for an honest review. First off, what an interesting premise for a book! I have never read anything like this and it was definitely unique and thought provoking. I got frustrated throughout the book as I cheered on Freida because I felt like she was held to an unrealistic standard. I didnt realize how invested I was in the story until Immanuel went to the closet and I was feeling so many emotions. This is a breath of fresh air in terms of literary fiction. 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 for GR.

Wow, what can I say about The School for Good Mothers? I was waiting for this book to come out. This is such a weird, interesting look at society, the relationship between mothers and children, and government power all wrapped in up a gross social horror bow.

The plot of this story is incredibly dystopian, like an updated 1984. In the novel, a mother (Frida) leaves her young daughter at home temporarily and is whisked away to a facility for a year to learn how to become a better mother.

I found the pacing of this book almost excruciating. There were slow moments I thought would never end, then suddenly a whole month had passed. I couldn’t get a grasp on the timeline, and that was one of the worst parts of the entire book. At many points, everything felt very underwhelming - I was just waiting for something to happen.

Other parts of the story were absolutely horrifying in a subtle, creepy way. There were never jump scares or in-your-face blood, guts, and gore, but the story was haunting and thought-provoking. I think it will stick with me for a long time.

There was a lot of ethnic representation throughout the book, which I really liked. The representation didn’t feel forced or stereotypical, as it does in a lot of fictional works. There were conversations about race and how it impacted the mothers’s stays at the facility, how they ended up there, future plans, etc, but otherwise, it felt like most of the characters could’ve been any race. So that was handled really eloquently.

The plot felt like an intensive social experiment, and while I’ve read up on several real experiments that have taken place throughout history, I’ve noticed those are typically conducted on male subjects. I could definitely see this adapted into a mini series (I’m looking at you, Reese Witherspoon), and it would be an updated take on previous films with similar male-focused counterparts.

TL;DR: Part The Handmaid’s Tale, part Orange is The New Black, part Black Mirror, The School for Good Mothers is a skillful, necessary, and deeply uncomfortable read that offers incisive commentary on gender; race; state and social surveillance; and the toxic culture of intensive mothering. My rating 5 of 5 stars.

"Loneliness is a form of narcissism. A mother who is in harmony with her child, who understands her place in her child's life and her role in society, is never lonely. Through caring for her child, all her needs are fulfilled."

Is The School for Good Mothers an excellent, important book that I think everyone should read? Yes. Did I *enjoy* reading it? I’m honestly not sure. It was hard and challenging and uncomfortable. But art and ideas of consequence often are.

After reading this book some months back, I immediately rushed to read other readers’ reviews. I needed to see how others were receiving this complicated book. And I was gravely disappointed by many reviews condemning Frida for her big mistake. I felt like we hadn’t even read the same book or been introduced to the same woman, whom I found deeply, deeply relatable and sympathetic—in all her flaws and failings. Those comments demonstrated to me—even more than this book alone—just how toxic and ingrained our cultural ideas about all-sacrificing motherhood are. Due in part to the excesses of American individualism, Frida alone pays dearly for a mistake that she made within a situation, culture, and systems that set her up for failure.

Rant aside, there is also much to appreciate from a literary standpoint. Early on, this book reads as general fiction. It’s only later on that dystopian elements enter into the narrative—namely, the extreme surveillance apparatus directed at mothers labeled deviant and the creepy reform school where the delinquent moms are isolated from society and forced to care for doll replicas of their children. But honestly, it all feels very, very real. Anyone paying attention is aware of grave injustices and inequities in our current system of justice. As well as the ways in which governments, corporations, and individuals use technology to police one another’s actions. By just barely exaggerating reality, Chan has crafted a “dystopia” more terrifying than any I’ve read before.

Chan also makes readers *feel* Frida’s emotions. Her anger, her resentment, her jealousy, her regret, especially those directed at her ex-husband and his younger mistress-turned-wife-turned-step-mother-to-Frida’s-daughter. I imagine this book is also very relatable to mothers who’ve experienced the unrealistic, and often-times gaslight-y standards they are held to (e.g. “breast is best”). The books gets a bit slow in the telling of Frida’s day to day life at the school, but that also gives the narrative a lot of it’s power since the reader is able to feel the expanse of time Frida is enduring separated from her daughter, Harriet, and isolated from society at large.

Many thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was very mediocre for me. I was very intrigued by the premise, but it got bogged down with the minutiae of daily life at the school. Also, while I know the author was trying to make a point about how ridiculous the things that happen in the novel are, there wasn't enough exploration of this.