Reviews

Just seemed like a mom getting her worst nightmare out there… maybe should have been kept to her journal? A good book if you like being stressed and sad maybe

elabella's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

patriciabwalker's review against another edition

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1.0

I could not get into this book. I did not enjoy the writing style and the ending left me wondering what had happened.

katmindae's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Oh man I wanted to like this book so much. I wouldn't advise anyone to not read it, it's a very thought-provoking premise, and I do still want to talk to someone about it. Long review because I had high hopes even as I was reading and I kept being disappointed. I would do this with a book club but here I am instead.

The premise:
The premise itself - Women getting punished for being bad mothers. Mothers' identity disappearing when they have children. Mothers expected to be perfect even when their life is falling apart. Mothers being held accountable more than fathers - That's all great. I was so ready to love it.

I immediately started making connections to other stories like Handmaid's Tale. But the problem is... with "America's Future" dystopia like Handmaids Tale and Hunger Games, we start the story in the new society. This makes the dystopia and crazy things that happen way more easy to believe - I'm able to suspend my belief about Gilead killing people and allowing their maternal slavery? because HT happens some undetermined time in the future (or past). We get little glimpses about how the change started, but it's not OUR America, so it's easier to believe, and get chills about SOME of the parallels that are drawn. When exaggerations are made, it doesn't feel like a callout to real life, but what COULD happen with the logical end point of what's happening now. Same thing with other societies like in The Giver - The author can make critique about the current state of affairs without placing it in present day.

That's where SFGM lost me... I just couldn't believe it. I was really intrigued up until Frida arrived at the school, and then slowly found myself hmmming about a lot of the dialogue and treatment. I found it relatively believable that CPS would try to use things like facial recognition and other technology to change their treatment programs because of bureaucratic backlog and in a misguided goal to keep kids safe. I found the social worker to be a bit too apathetic and cruel from the beginning - The book made me genuinely angry at many points, but I felt like the 'evil' was a bit too exaggerated to be believable as a 'this could happen tomorrow' kind of descent into madness.

I think the use of AI and the dolls was interesting but lost me a couple times. The blue goop was a part that I think could have been omitted. I felt so much tension and buildup from the dolls and their uncanny valley

but then there was never really any payoff. I would have really enjoyed a moment where the dolls rebelled or did something creepy... I kept expecting Emannuelle to pull an Annabelle or suddenly speak in paragraphs.

I also think the premise would have been more powerful if it were JUST mothers getting forcibly re-educated - because then it made no sense to me that Gust wouldn't get punished. I felt like there was some more explaining to do about the system.

I don't understand how Susanna didn't get punished for her new-age diets, even when the pediatrician apparently told them to stop doing no-carbs.

Finally, because apparently Frida's cohort was the first iteration of this program, I had a hard time really believing that it started overnight and that the instructors would be totally okay with it.

At some point there's a test that all the mothers and fathers fail. If this were a beta program then you'd think even an evil government would be like oh I guess that was a bad test let's do a different one...

The story:
I really enjoyed the beginning of the book because I felt myself slowly understand Frida's state of mind and how she could possibly leave her daughter alone. People should be more empathetic to mothers going through post-partum, and mothers should get more support. As we slowly learned about her circumstances, I felt myself go ooooh I was judgy. and that was a great slow wake-up.

The school scenes reminded me a lot of the communities in Orange is the New Black. The mix of ages and backgrounds and the idea that 'one little mistake' landed these women in a bad place - some of them, you understand their bad actions, and some of them are just scary people. I did like all of the other women in the school and I would have enjoyed more about their relationships and dynamics without the cattiness. Even in OITNB there's always context for why the women hate each other. I thought the cliques/groups that formed, and the way the women 'gossiped' about each other, self-segregated, and got jealous about each others' progress, was weirdly reductionist and even a bit sexist. I do understand that women wouldn't necessarily bond together and everything wouldn't be rainbows and sunshine, but hmmm eyes on the prize ladies... you have a common enemy...

Around 50~75% of the book, I started getting pretty bored. The classes with the dolls were quite repetitive. It just gave me more chances to roll my eyes at some of the things the counsellor and instructors were saying - Just completely pure evil. The book could have been 50-100 pages shorter and been more poignant I think.

The ending/conclusions...

I do think it would have been unrealistic for Frida to get to keep Harriet after all that. But... If the school part had been shorter, I think it would have been more interesting to see her get Harriet and maybe lose her again. It made no sense why she couldn't still have visitation with Harriet. It made no sense that Frida's parents couldn't see her. If the government is becoming evil DURING THE BOOK, we need way more explanation about how this is suddenly happening. What's the justification? What's the justification for the damage it's doing to Harriet?

I did like the ending. I think it could have only ended with Frida doing what she did or killing herself. And because I already felt the book was too long, I enjoyed that it was left open-ended and we can figure out what happened next.

The writing style:
I felt locked in and tense the whole time, even when I got bored or was rolling my eyes when I couldn't suspend disbelief. But there were times where I think things were oversimplified or overexplained. Something like. "All of the mothers got punished. But none of the fathers did." would have been more powerful if the reader had to draw their own connections. I felt like we cheated around some dialogue... and sometimes flashbacks or fast forwards were hard to follow. At a couple of the crucial decision points in the book in front of the judge, we see the conclusion first and THEN we hear the reasons why or what happened. Especially at the end of the book I feel like that let out a lot of extra energy and tension.

In all I think the book could have been greatly improved with some more editing and I have hope in the author for creating some thing better. I think I'm writing such a long review because I'm frustrated at the potential. I could definitely see this premise working super well in an adaptation, and I hope the author gets the chance to be a part of something like that.

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