Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

13 reviews

beebalm's review

emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I would rate the first 25% and last 10% differently than the rest of the book, with it improving as I went on. Lots of questions still unanswered, and I'll admit that my guess for how it would end was close but wrong.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Infidelity, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Abandonment, Confinement, Infidelity, Mental illness, and Suicide

Minor: Sexual harassment

alyssard's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

This book is heart wrenchingly beautiful. This book is so many ugly truths that we do not want to face. This book is brilliant. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

Moderate: Violence, Torture, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

Minor: Drug abuse and Alcoholism

brianna_moye's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts and Abandonment

Moderate: Violence, Pregnancy, Suicide, Self harm, Physical abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Body horror and Kidnapping

lastokes61's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense 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

Frida Liu is an overworked,  exhausted, divorced Mom who has a very bad day. She leaves her 18 month old daughter alone for 2 hours, and gets caught. This reckless act causes her to lose custody of Harriett.  To regain custody Frida must attend a 12 month re-education program for mothers, where the mantra is " I am a bad mother, but I am learning to be good."  The "reform school" has the mothers under constant surveillance.  Their trainers are mostly childless women and the mothers are forced to bond with robot children and care for them under every conceivable situation.  The issues of race, gender imbalance in parenting, mental health, isolation, and the state dictating "perfect" parenting styles are all at play here. This is a very Orwellian.  So much to discuss about in this book. This is an intense and capivatiing debut novel. Definitely worth a read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Racial slurs, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexism, Child abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Racism, Grief, and Mental illness

Moderate: Abandonment, Suicide attempt, Infidelity, Outing, Classism, Vomit, Self harm, Kidnapping, Sexual content, Pregnancy, Medical trauma, Body horror, Death, Miscarriage, Rape, Suicide, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, and Blood

crodgers90's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Suicidal thoughts, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Classism and Child abuse

isleoflinds's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Torture, Racism, Domestic abuse, Suicide, Sexual assault, Eating disorder, Child abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Sexism, Racial slurs, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Gaslighting, Forced institutionalization, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Outing, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual content, Abandonment, Addiction, Biphobia, Child death, Alcohol, Drug use, Grief, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Miscarriage, Suicide attempt, Bullying, Confinement, and Domestic abuse

carbs666's review

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I really wanted to love this book because I thought the premise was very interesting, but I feel like it fell a bit short of the mark. 

I felt like the book spends several chapters setting Frida up as an unreliable narrator by introducing uncertainty around her intentions on her Very Bad Day, and then just drops that in favour of having her be our portal into the fucked up environment of the school. I also felt like the book was commenting on so many things at once that it became background noise until something happened in the plot to briefly draw one thing into the spotlight. 

I will say that this book does a very good job of illustrating the violence the state perpetuates against mothers, especially women of colour and low income women, and showing how cycles of trauma get continued. The books fantastic premise clearly show how state interventions into the lives of struggling families almost always make things worse, and the brief description of the different conditions at the school for fathers really highlight the way the states is unwilling to give mothers the benefit of the doubt but will do very little (if anything) to correct the behaviour of fathers. 

I know we're not really supposed to like Frida but the whole thing with Tucker absolutely pissed me off. I'm also very conflicted about the portrayal of her final (doomed) act of desperation. 

The book really shines in these pockets of emotional intensity. There are moments scattered throughout the book where a few sentences will just absolutely rock you, the moments where the cruelty of the exercise is laid bare and where Frida becomes someone you genuinely want to root for. I also liked how the book leveraged some spooky Gothic tropes to add atmosphere, but I would have liked to see more of it! 

I did keep reading because I did want to find out what happened, so overall it's a pretty good book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Body horror and Child abuse

Minor: Suicide

eve_reads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense 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

4.5

 Overall Thoughts:
⁕ The sci-fi, dystopian bits don't really develop until about 25% into the book. It will feel like a contemporary piece at first, but give it time and things get wild.

⁕ Chan peels back all the layers of motherhood and explores how it is impacted by not only one's identities (including sexual orientation, culture, race, etc.), but also systemic sexism and white supremacy.

⁕ Moments that I thought were emotionally important to the story were completely skipped over and explained after the fact, such as Frida's final court ruling. It was frustrating to miss out on those key plot points that had been built up to throughout the story.

⁕ There are SO many characters of different ages and genders in this book. Catherine Ho's narration distinguishes each of them without detracting from the overall story

To read my full review, visit: https://evereads.online/
For regular book-related content, follow my Instagram account: @eve_reads 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Suicide, Cursing, Forced institutionalization, Misogyny, Self harm, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Lesbophobia, Racism, Sexual harassment, Alcohol, Body horror, Classism, Confinement, Abandonment, Grief, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Gore, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Sexism, and Sexual content

leah_alexandra's review

challenging dark emotional sad fast-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

5.0

This book was devastating. I flew through it. Unlike some dystopians, I only had to suspend disbelief a couple of times. So much of this felt like not a stretch at all — which made it all the more terrifying and better for it. The bad reviews genuinely baffle me. I thought this was so well written and got better as it went on. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Gaslighting, and Self harm

Minor: Abandonment, Addiction, Body shaming, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Sexual content, Infertility, Misogyny, Cursing, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy

jet's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Body horror, Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, and Child abuse

Moderate: Grief, Gore, Gaslighting, Confinement, Abandonment, Physical abuse, Excrement, Emotional abuse, Child death, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Racism and Pedophilia