Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - The School for Good Mothers

Highly recommend checking out the trigger warnings first and only read if you can truly handle them. This book is soooo good. The story had me raging, and bawling, frustrated by injustice and hopeful… It is devastating. There were times when I didn’t know if I could finish the story, because it almost hits too hard. Especially in the global political climate, who’s to say this is too far of a stretch for North America sometime in the nearish future. It will surely make you question your own parenting.

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clk2019's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

4.5

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laurenlee2158's review

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dark emotional sad slow-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

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savannah98's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Four stars instead of five because I feel like there should’ve been one more chapter at the end. It felt like the book ended right at the climax of the story.

CPS is already almost to this point in America, and that’s what makes this story so haunting. Aside from the reeducation camps, CPS can do any of the things shown in this book. They can rip children out of homes with little to no evidence of abuse or neglect. They can place children in foster care for differences in opinions on parenting tactics. For clutter in a home, for a parent failing a drug test for marijuana, for getting a second doctors opinion on a medical issue. You thought SIDS was scary enough as is? What if I told you that CPS can use that as an excuse to take your other children out of your custody as well, even though the cause of SIDS is still undetermined and is not in any way linked to parental failure?

This novel is not haunting because it tells of some dystopian world that could never exist where lives can be ruined and families ripped apart over any reason the government picks. It’s haunting because it is so adjacent to reality and the horror that many families are currently facing due to government overreach.

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easta98's review

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dark emotional hopeful relaxing sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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savvylit's review

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dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

4.5

The School for Good Mothers is an excellent piece of dystopian fiction set in the very near future. Frida lives in a world in which Child Protective Services has become powerfully invasive. Immediately after her mistake, officials install cameras in her home. Later, Frida is sentenced to the titular School for Good Mothers. At the prison-like school, she is forced to constantly repeat the phrase "I am a bad mother, but I am learning to be good." In roleplaying exercises, Frida is punished for subjective actions like hugging or tone of voice.

If the above summary of this work doesn't already suggest it, this is a very dark novel. Jessamine Chan crafts an all-too-believable police state that dictates "proper" motherhood. And, as in real life, mothers of color are treated much more harshly by the system. Though I am not a mother myself, it's not hard to see that the extremes of this novel are an extension of the very real pressures that our society imposes upon mothers.

Overall, The School for Good Mothers was an incredibly captivating novel that made me think a lot about motherhood, societal norms, and judgement (both legal and cultural). At first, I thought that the School portions of this story dragged. Upon reflection, though, I think that may have been the point - readers start to yearn for graduation day right alongside Frida. (When will she finally be deemed good?) Additionally, I also initially thought that this book was too rooted in the gender binary; there is not a single mention of non-cis motherhood. However, I think that rooting this story in the male/female, mother/father gender binary is part of what made this book even more terrifying. All of the State's rules for motherhood were extremely patriarchal. Obsessing over puritanical ideas of femininity and motherhood is just one more way that the State controls and oppresses its parents.

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daniellenelson's review

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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happyhippielinds's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious 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? Yes

5.0

This was one of the most beautifully devastating books I have ever read.

Sure, there were a lot of turbo-horny Freaka moments and I've questioned my sanity several times while reading this, but it was hard not to root for Frida. I achieved levels of empathy I never thought possible - but I quickly found myself hoping Frida would earn back the right to the one thing that gave her life meaning.

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