Jessamine Chan's debut novel follows a story of Frida as she struggles through motherhood and a the abandonment of her husband. After leaving her toddler alone for hours, Frida is reported to the state and enrolled in a school for mothers- where she will have to endure the surveillance and harsh instructions of the state to gain custody of her daughter Harriet again.

The story is both dark and dystopian. As a mother, I struggled to read some of the scenes in the novel. I felt for everyone involved, although it was certainly hard to like Frida.

I thought Chan's treatment of race and gender within the school was really well done- challenging and definitely too close to our current reality. It was a highlight of the book.

Although the premise of the book was brilliant, the slow pacing and grimness of the story also made me struggle with this novel.

Forced to attend a remediation program after her Very Bad Day (in which she left her baby daughter alone for two hours while she got coffee and visited the office), Frida Liu is learning to be a better mother.

Frida continuously progresses one step forward, two steps back towards reunification with her daughter, revealing her whole character, irreparably flawed yet entirely persevering. Some times you'll be snidely thinking that she's gotten what's coming, but others you just want to weep for her. I think the author did a good job slowly weaving in the dystopian elements, and as I read, the plot seemed to creep deeper towards reality. I keep seeing comparisons to The Handmaid's Tale, which I haven't read since high school and don't remember, but this book makes me want to explore more from that genre. Overall a great debut novel from Chan, and I'm excited to see what's next.

Note: I received a free eBook copy of The School for Good Mothers from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

So good. That's it. So good. I think this book convinced me that I loooove dystopian novels. This book was intense and emotional. I wish I could read it again for the first time!!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Wow this book is a force. While less of a dystopian scenario than I expected, those elements are used to place an unflinching microscope on what it means to be a mother, to be a human caregiver to a small human, to be juggling pressures of culture, expectation, under unimaginable strain and exhaustion the likes that new parents are all intimately familiar with.

This book brings forth a lot of uncomfortable things. The near blinding look at relationships, of mothering, of the struggles of divorce and infidelity and navigating separation, career changes, and the constant additional pressure of race, and being scrutinized by the government. It is impressive and haunting and saturated. I'm eager to see what Chan writes next and will not soon forget this.

DNF. Unfortunately, this was a book I started multiple times but could just not get into. I appreciate having the opportunity to read this book, it was just not a good fit for me as a reader. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my gifted review copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this ARC!

The premise of the book as a female dystopia and commentary on “upper middle class” parenting was initially very intriguing and the reason I requested the ARC.

While I still think the premise had promise there were quite a few aspects that reduced my enjoyment of the book.

- The bare bones of story itself is poised to be incredibly interesting though the storytelling was also incredibly repetitive in the middle portions set in the “school.”
- There is little to do with “upper middle class” parenting commentary as the majority of the mothers are depicted as lower class with accompanying problems.
- There depiction of the surveillance social worker system feels like a negative to a very real system that, while flawed, is not the way it is because of individuals but because of deep rooted systemic issues.

Overall the writing was done well and I can envision others overlooking my personal criticisms and appreciating this book far more than I did!

The School for Good Mothers is a dystopian novel that displays the fears of the motherhood and the role government plays in it. Juggling the topics of race, class, and gender, Chan ruminates on the possibility of the consequences of one mother’s bad day.

The first 25% of the book is brutal and difficult to read. I know a few people who stopped reading because it was too hard to read. I really had to push myself through this first quarter as our protagonist makes bad decisions that lead to even worse consequences. The rest of the novel is easier to digest, but still brutal. The ending was also quite rough as us readers are once again forced to go along with our protagonists questionable choices.

Overall, I’m glad I read The School for Good Mothers but I’m also not sure how well it interacted with our reality. Our reality is that our criminal justice system is already brutal towards mothers: one bad day can certainly ruin a mother and child’s life. I know this is dystopian but I’m just not sure if we needed a converted college campus reform school for mothers to show how brutal the system is. Not an easy read, but I’m still glad I did nonetheless.

The School for Good Mothers was a very interesting read. I have read books previously regarding parents having children taken for varying reasons, but to send the mothers to a school to educate them on being better intrigued me. However, the method in which Chan went about describing the school and the occurances derailed me, in a good way. I wasn't expecting robot children, and she wrote the children in a manner that they sort of creeped me out a bit. This was bordering horror and definitely a traumatic experience for these mothers.

While I did not love the book, the writing and world building was very well done. The concept was fantastic and the execution was very well done. I can see this being a very popular book with many readers. What I didn't love was how slow moving the book felt. I also am not drawn to drama between characters and there was a lot of that between the mothers. Beyond those two things there are a lot of people that I would recommend this to because they love those aspects in books. This was a solid 3.5 stars for me, but I had to round up because of how creepy the dolls were and how well Chan described everything. However, the characters did feel a bit 2D at times.

Imagine if every single thing you did as a mother was evaluated. Every blink, every heartbeat, every drip of perspiration, every word counted and analyzed to determine your value as a mother. Jessamine Chan alters the way women are evaluated as "good mothers" following events that have caused their children to be removed from their care. These "bad mothers" are sent to a school which will train and evaluated them on their mothering skills. Complete the 18 month program and the judge will take the results into consideration at your final hearing. Fail the program, leave, or be expelled and you forfeit your parental rights and find yourself on a "bad parents" registry. Much like the one they have for sex offenders and criminals.

Chan doesn't just have actual bad mothers in the program, but also mothers who do trivial things. Things that you would never suspect a parent of losing a child over, having other parents critique them, certainly, but not have social services called on them. Chan looks at motherhood from inside motherhood and explores how those without children can easily say what to do and when to a mother. Additionally, it looks at how fathers are treated differently than mothers when it comes to parenting, the expectations and exceptions.

A mothe4 who pours herself into the care and well being of her child finds herself under surveillance. What on any other surface her momentary lapse of judgement would have gone unnoticed. Or rather not a big moment at all. Here she is forced into a program and her future with her child hangs on how well she responds. It’s scary, unnerving and bleak.

Frida Liu had a very, very bad day. She had been struggling with her workload since her baby, Harriet, doesn’t seem to let her get any writing done. Plus, she has been emotionally stressed out over her ex-husband recently leaving her for his 20-something pilates instructor mistress. She cannot catch a break, and she made a devastating, unforgivable mistake. To get back on track, Frida must undergo a year of training and education at a new institution CPS and big tech have collaborated on. She must learn to be a good mother.

Holy crap this book. You’ll never want to put it down — unless you hit the occasional spots that make you want to hurl it at the wall. I do not think everyone will enjoy the ride and personally I have no freaking clue how any mom can get through this. It was an emotional rollercoaster that had me, a mere childless auntie, in alternating bouts of rage and sobbing. So many things that happen to Frida are completely unfair and unjust — but at the same time she’s a perfectly flawed character you occasionally think, “well ok you deserved that one, lady.”

I feel like this review itself is a rollercoaster and I just would advise looking into the trigger warnings, detailed synopsis and reviews, before jumping into it. Also just like clear your schedule too. Once I started it and got about 70 pages in, I had to know how it ends.

TW: endangerment of a child, child abuse, suicide, substance abuse

Read if… you binge watched Handmaid’s Tale and Orange is the New Black and loved Klara and the Sun and My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

3.5 stars rounded down.

A queasily provocative dystopia set in a parallel contemporary time looks at how far the state will go to ensure (some) mothers are the best they can be.

After getting no sleep, and no respite from baby Harriet’s crying and fussing, Frida Liu leaves the 18-month-old alone in her Exersaucer and escapes for two and a half hours. But the neighbors are watching the only non-white person on the block, the police step in, and Frida’s Very Bad day has disastrous consequences for the mother and child.

Immediately, Harriet is sent to live with her father, Frida’s ex-husband, Gust, and his girlfriend Susanna, while Frida is put under surveillance at home and during her very limited visits with her daughter. The scenes of the antagonistic social worker shoving her camera phone into Frida’s attempts to soothe her distraught child make very tough reading, and even as Frida hopes she has done enough to win back joint custody, it becomes clear to the reader that the system is set against her.

The only option Frida has is to go to an experimental year-long residential school for mothering. She is the only Asian mother, all the others are brown, black, or less than ideal white. Those who run the school have a very set idea about what makes a good mother, an American mother from the 1950’s: “the kitchen is the center, and the mother the heart, of the home.” The only hope of ever being able to see their children again is for the mothers to get with the program. The start point is the mothers’ mantra “I’m a bad mother, but I am learning to be good.”

There is a brother school for bad fathers but, as in life, the fathers’ lot is much easier. The punishments for failure are way less harsh, the program is more relaxed, and there seems a much stronger likelihood that they will pass and be reunited with their children.

Clearly the author is talking about the judgment and punishment of mothers, particularly those who are not white and middle class. Frida’s cultural ideas about family and motherhood are very different to the school’s, but she must accept their methods or risk expulsion and a lifetime on the dreaded Registry. She must constantly speak in motherese “the delightful high-pitched patter that goes on all day between mother and child”, be selfless to the point of absurdity, and compete with the other recalcitrant mothers to win privileges. Susanna, on the other hand, is allowed to put Harriet on a crank diet which the pediatrician eventually tells her to stop after the child has lost weight, and goes unpunished. The counselor tells Frida that she possesses the intelligence to be a parent but "maybe not the temperament," quashing Frida's protests that she is a parent, to Harriet.

It is not a good idea to leave an infant alone for several hours (or any of the other reasons the mothers are sent to the school), but it seems irresponsible to put the child and mother through the separation and trauma of the investigation and the year apart. When I think back to some of my less stellar parenting moments, it made me slightly clammy to think about where I might have ended up in Ms Chan’s world. To be clear, I never left my children on their own or physically punished them, but I was really crap at the open-ended imaginative play the school encourages and I had moments of intense anger with both my kids.

My only slight grumble is that the book did drag on a bit - I’m not sure why the mothers had to be at the school for a year, we would have got the idea if their term was much shorter. Nonetheless there’s lots of good meaty, thought-provoking stuff for a person or book club to muse on.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for a digital review copy.

This book unfortunately didn’t work for me. I enjoyed the Handmaid’s Tale and this was compared to that, but I honestly found it more downright disturbing than I did speculative fiction. I’m very passionate about the foster care system and several social issues that the book touches on, but I just don’t know— I couldn’t enjoy it. It felt painful and repetitive and disturbing

4 Stars

This book was incredibly interesting even to a childless woman....Frida is 39 years old and while trying to get some work done while her daughter is home, she has a moment, which leads to her "bad day". She leaves her 18 month old home by herself while she runs to grab a coffee, which turns into her running to the office to grab a file that she needed. While she was gone, her neighbors called the police and reported her. Her daughter is given into the custody of her ex husband and his new girlfriend. Frida is sentenced to a one year School for Good Mothers.

It's a wild concept to think about. No spoilers here. I will say that I definitely empathized with the mothers while they were stuck in that school. The punishments were excessive given their crimes. It also appeared that the School for Good Fathers was not as harsh as it was for the Mothers. Well written and well done on the story line.

A special thank you to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster, and Jessmine Chan for providing me with an ARC.

The School for Good Mothers was one of the most intense stories I've read about autonomy, social judgement, and the value of motherhood since The Handmaid's Tale. Yes, I know that every near-future feminst dystopian novel makes that comparison, but all I can say is that this one hit me in the gut in a way I can't remember feeling since I read The Handmaid's Tale.

The main character, Frida is "not an alcoholic, not an addict, that she has no criminal record. She’s gainfully employed and a peaceful, committed co-parent. She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in literature from Brown and Columbia, a 401(k) account, a college savings fund for [her daughter] Harriet." After a major lapse in judgement, Frida loses custody of her daughter and is sentenced to a year in a new type of rehabilitation program offering instruction and training to become a better mother. At the end of the year, "she must demonstrate her capacity for genuine maternal feeling and attachment, hone her maternal instincts, show she can be trusted." If she does not meet these standards, gets expelled, or quits, her parental rights will be terminated and her name will be added to the Negligent Parent Registry. At the school, the mothers are forced to perform various tasks that range from heartwrenching to downright disturbing--and the "tools" they use to perform these tasks are straight up the shit out of horror movies.

I found each of the characters very well written and even among the wildly different attitudes and reactions within the institution, I felt compassion for almost every student mother. This novel peels back the layers of judgement against mothers. What makes a "good mother" and what makes a "bad mother"? What is the hierarchy within each group? Must a woman who is a mother always act as a mother first and foremost? Who has harsher standards for mothers, society or mothers themselves? This novel had me clenching my jaw and on the verge of tears almost the entire time. Debut author Jessamine Chan deftly draws a picture of a near future where government overreach and the dark complexities of motherhood collide. I definitely recommend this book, especially to mothers, and I will be snapping up Chan's next release the moment it becomes available.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing the ARC of "The School for Good Mothers."

I really had high hopes for this book; I was attracted to the POC main character and it's input on what it's like to be a mother. The author brings up many good points; however, the way that it was executed seemed to have fallen short for me. It took me forever to read this book. Because of the heavy topic, not only was it dragging but also emotionally exhausting to read.

I feel like maybe I chose the wrong book to read at the wrong time, but I'm not sure if I would try to pick this book up again. Overall, I thought that even though the author brought up some intriguing topics, it ended up leaving me confused on what to focus on.

A young mother, Frida Liu, leaves her toddler alone for over two hours and is reported to CPS. In this new near future dystopian reality, mothers who have been reported by other people of child neglect, abuse, etc. have to attend a "school" for a year that "teaches" them how to be good mothers. During this year long school, they are unable to see their children and rarely are they able to talk to them on the phone or video chats. It's a new program developed by the state government and other states are taking notes and looking to set up these same type of "schools". Frida is a divorced, stressed out, overworked, insecure mother who loves her child but made a very bad mistake but this "school" doesn't truly help with rehabilitation or provide the proper counseling. Instead, these mothers are given fake children the same age as their own and through technology these children are programmed to mimic the needs and wants of real children. For example they can be programmed to cry for hours on end and the mothers have to try to get them to stop even as the people in charge are telling them what bad mothers they are instead of working with them and providing guidance and support. This is a disturbing book and incredibly sad and it reminds me of the helplessness of the handmaids in The Handmaid's Tale. There is also a "school" for fathers and what makes me furious is the double standard between the mothers and the fathers. The fathers have it much easier and have more freedoms in their school than the mothers do at their school and that is so totally wrong. This book is not an easy read but an important one. It would make for some great discussions in your book club . A cautionary tale about government interference.
Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book.

I found there was some beautiful writing here and it is certainly very timely. However, it felt very one-note to me. The character didn't seem to go through any changes whatsoever during the course of the story. Nothing happened that I didn't expect and there didn't seem to be much depth given to the main character either. That said, it's a scathing commentary on the way parents, in particular mothers, aren't supported even a bit by society and they're left to make often impossible choices and then are punished for doing so. An important story that I wished had been plumbed a bit more.

I couldn't put this down, it's disturbing and sad but I was riveted & truly couldn't stop reading. I will be thinking about this book for a long, long time. Did I love it? Maybe. I'm still processing but wow, there's a lot to unpack here. So well done but especially brutal to read if you're a parent.

Haunting. I couldn’t get through this book fast enough and it will stay with me a long time. The depiction of the expectations put on mothers in our society was fantastic.