This book was so good. So sneaky good. I picked it up on a whim after hearing a few rave reviews about it. I thought, “I’ll give this a few pages to see if I like it.” 50 pages later I was hooked.

Frieda is a single mom in a time kind of like now, a little in the future. After a string of sleepless nights, she leaves her one-year-old at home for a few hours while she goes and gets a coffee and picks up some things from work. Frieda gets reported to child services and becomes part of the inaugural class at the school for good mothers.

The school was so twisted and dark in subtle ways that it made you think that this could actually happen. The book was creepy and the plot was propulsive.

But why I think it was so sneaky good is because while on one level you could read it like a well-written suspense novel, the entire book is also a treatise on motherhood: the role of mothers, the way society views mothers, and the unrealistic expectations that are placed on mothers.

I found myself judging the other moms along with Frieda when she first showed up at the school, and then, over time, gaining some empathy as I learned more about their stories. Nothing is as simple as it seems and these mothers contain multitudes.

The writing itself contributed to the vibe of the book with the mothers repeating creepy phrases and apologizing in clipped, succinct sentences that chilled me to the bone.

This is the kind of book I’ll be thinking about for months and looking to discuss with anyone who reads it. And aren’t those the best kind of books?

Frida is a bad mother, but she is working on becoming a better one. She must repeat this phrase while living in the reform school for parents accused of abuse, neglect, and abandonment. The state has stepped in to restrict her rights and her access to her child after Frida has a "bad day" with her daughter Harriet. Will she be able to follow the program and get custody back after a year in parent rehab? Only if she can prove that she loves and cares appropriately for an extremely advanced AI doll child who records her every interaction and evaluates her levels of caring and bonding. Though the premise is fascinating and worthy of examination, the author spends too much time reporting the action as if it were an expose rather than a novel.

Heart wrenching, chilling and gutting, The School for Good Mothers tells the story of dystopian world in which mothers are put under a microscope by the government and sent to a reform school with little to no contact with their children for minor infractions like a child getting hurt at the park.

This was thought provoking, intense and disturbing! Frida’s character and struggles to become a better mother are so easy to empathize. It’s definitely tense and absolutely provocative!

The School For Good Mothers is set in a possible near future where parents can be arrested for major and minor parental errors and sentenced to spend time in a school to teach them how to be better parents. Frida’s( the main character of the book) offense is leaving her toddler daughter alone while she runs errands.
At the school, the mothers are assigned robotic dolls eerily similar to their real children and are taught a specific type of parenting that they judged on. They are told that if they pass, there is a chance that they may get their children back.
I was often angry at the society in the book that decided that the observations of others on what a good parent would do in certain situations. The pace is excellent, tension builds throughout the book. I would definitely reread it.

This book is a gut-punch. Does any woman feel like they are a good-enough mother? Or good enough at anything? It's speculative fiction, but the metrics on which the protagonist is judged are very real. We're expected to be completely devoted to our children, constantly putting their needs first, and condemned when we don't. While reading this book, I had to constantly remind myself that it was fiction. Much more haunting and realistic than "Handmaid's Tale." I expect a prestige series soon.

I can't stop thinking about this haunting, brilliant, devastating book. Jessamine Chan seamlessly winds us into a reality that seems very close to or own, where mothers deemed unfit must go to a year-long training program to learn the "correct" way of parenting. I don't read a lot of horror fiction, but this surely must qualify—a thriller that feels uncomfortably close to the surface, like The Handmaid's Tale for 2022. I can't wait for Chan's next book.

This book is hard for me to review because it made me think, there were some great, important messages, but it was not a fun read. I didn't ever feel the need to DNF but it was just so depressing I wanted it to be over. It took a little too long to get to the school and then it was clear from the beginning that everyone was rooting against the mothers, the system was set up for them to fail, which is a great mirror for real-life with the insane pressure and standards that we hold mothers to as a society. And then later when the dads from the other school are introduce we see the double standards in what we expect from mothers versus fathers. Also, most of the people there had truly messed up - it wasn't a situation where they were there for something stupid or a misunderstanding or false accusation. The protagonist left her 1 year old alone in a situation where it absolutely did not have to happen. CPS was rightly called. Do I think it's ridiculous that she justified it to herself over and over throughout the book that she was just having "one very bad day?" Yes. It was not an ok thing to do, she had options, she should have known better, and it shouldn't have happened. BUT, was it also ridiculous the extent to which she was punished for her one mistake? And how we judge an entire person based on the worst thing they've done? Also yes.

My experience with most dystopian books generally leads me to expect some kind of revolt or some ray of hope to keep you rooting for the characters. Frida wasn't super likeable (nor were most of the other characters) and the situation was pretty clearly hopeless the whole time. It's hard to want to read a book about mostly unlikeable characters trapped in an awful situation with little to no hope of overcoming it to the detriment of everyone involved. I guess this book wasn't meant to be enjoyable, it was meant to shine a light on some truly problematic social issues, but I think books can and often do both. This book was just straight up not a good time. 3 stars for the message and it was well-written but I needed someone or something to root for.

[3 Stars]

I'm a bit undecided about this one.

On one hand, I think the conversations around parenting, race, culture, and government surveillance were quite interesting. But these conversations tended towards being half-baked and the plot repetitive. I also don't feel like Frida's character experienced any sort of change or development over the course of the book, other than her becoming more beaten down. More page time should have been given towards addressing these topics, which would have helped offset how tedious the plot gets once Frida goes to the school. I figure that the book becomes so cyclical in order to make you feel how Frida does....but it just gets so boring to read about.

Furthermore, many reviewers expressed dislike over how ridiculous the school was, citing it as a fault of the book. But personally, I think that that was very intentional. It's through the outlandishness of the school that we see a lot of the points Chan is making about the pressures put on parents and the various social issues she brings up. In that sense I think this component was well done, I just wish it had been more focused.

All in all, I wouldn't really dissuade anyone from reading this. I'd just recommend that you give more weight to the themes than the plot, and maybe grab the audiobook to help speed things up.

The School For Good Mothers is a look at a dystopian near-future that seems disturbingly possible. The main character, Frida Liu, is divorced, living in Philadelphia with a baby/toddler named Harriet. Her ex-husband has a new partner, and they have split custody. One day Frida has a very, very bad day and winds up leaving Harriet home alone, unattended for a few hours. Someone reports Frida to Child Protective Services and that’s when the story really gets going.

There is a new experimental program for “bad mothers” (and “bad fathers”) that is being piloted in Philadelphia and Frida winds up being sent to a “school” for a whole year of retraining on how to be a good mother. The indoctrination received at this school is horrifying and they keep changing the rules, so that Frida and others lose their phone privileges over and over, meaning that they lose all contact with their daughters or sons for quite some time. This school also has dolls that use AI (artificial intelligence) that they assign to each mother, to stand in for the child that the state has taken away from them. Very creepy. Some of the lessons were very odd (they had to practice different types of hugs for different occasions, as one weird example). Apparently, mothers must have nothing else of importance in their lives, they should only be focused on their children - or they will be labeled bad mothers. (Not so different in terms of how some parts of society exert pressure on mothers right now to be perfect, to breastfeed, to make their own baby food, and so on.) Unfortunately, the book got rather repetitive, detailing every lesson (one nuttier than the next), and the story bogged down.

The author made some good observations about being Chinese-American and the differences in how Frida was brought up versus other “bad” mothers.

While I received the eARC from NetGalley, I wound up switching between reading the e-galley and listening to the published audiobook by Simon & Schuster Audio. The narrator, Catherine Ho, did an excellent job with the many voices.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read an advance readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Frida is overwhelmed like most mothers of young children. Her husband has taken up a mistress, and she's forced to split custody of their young daughter, Harriet. One day, Frida makes a bad decision and is subsequently found guilty of neglecting Harriet. Gust, the husband and his soon-to-be new wife, take over full-time custody as Frida finds herself in a pilot program of intensive year long inpatient child rearing classes. Most of the instructors don't have children of their own and make the program almost impossible to complete satisfactorily.

This book is for every woman that has found herself making parenting mistakes. It's terrifying to think that a government could create a faulty program that could dissolve a loving parent's parental rights. It makes you ponder about what a fitting punishment is for an act of neglect or child endangerment and whether there is a way to support the mothers without destroying the relationship that they have with their kids.

I disliked the main character so much it made it hard for me to side with her. She seemed selfish and self-centered and nothing like a good mother would be. I have 4 kids so I have experience. It was a well written and interesting dystopian book.

I just did not enjoy this book and I had to keep putting it down. Therefore, it took me forever to get through it. I think the child robots were just too much for me.

A thought-provoking book about the societal expectations placed on mothers. If you enjoyed The Handmaids Tale this book will be right up your alley.

This book felt like a mix between Orange is the New Black and Handmaid's Tale. Hard to tell whether I actually enjoyed it or it was like a car crash on the side of the road -- that it was so alarming, I couldn't look away. This book is not for everyone, so definitely encourage others to look at the trigger warnings prior to reading.

I have had a few friends read this book and I know it's really good and highly praised but I don't know I could read it now. It sounds like a mix of Handmaid's Tale and everything wrong with society now. As a single parent and a friend to other mothers who have struggled with social services and "survival," I just can't read this type of story. I thought it would be a little more uplifting.

this was thought provoking and intense. Really loved this one and it would make an incredible book club pick. I read this weeks ago and I’m still thinking about it and that’s how you know you’ve read a gem. Highly recommend!

Frida has a bad day, and leaves her infant at home alone. Her neighbor turns her in and she ends up sent to a rehabilitation school for bad mothers. This is dystopia but doesn't feel very far off, and I actually found it hard to read, but in your usual dystopian way.
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A truly creepy, dystopian novel.

Wow, This was a really disturbing book. I don't want to give too much away but the title does give some clue as to what the novel is about. I found this to be a very unsettling read in the best of ways. It was very thought-provoking and I'd highly recommend it for book club.

I couldn’t finish reading this book. I’m sorry. It just affected me too much and I felt so sad. I’m sure this is a nice book, it just wasn’t right for me.

A big thank you to the author Jessamine Chan, the publisher Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for providing me and ARC in exchange for my candid review.

This is a scary, but compelling read. It is about a single mother, sharing custody after her husband starts an affair while she is pregnant and leaves her right after her child is born. She is over-whelmed has a sick child, a looming work deadline and no sleep and she makes a big mistake. She leaves her 18 month old toddler alone for two and a half hours. CPS is called and she loses custody. And the only way to get her back is to go into a new program for a year: the school for Good Mothers.

It is a hypothetical story about what Could happen. It is the story of who decided what is a good mother.....what is the best way to raise a child....what is the ONLY way to raise a child. They teach them exactly how long to hug their children.....what is too short and what is too long.

This is a story about what could happen if society continues along certain paths that it is going on. It is the story about how women as parents are judged differently than are men. And how the foster system can punish parents and especially women.

I could not put this book down. It is a compelling, scary read.