Reviews tagging 'Torture'

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

31 reviews

aargot1's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Suicidal thoughts, Child abuse, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Suicide, Medical content, Mental illness, Grief, Outing, Misogyny, Lesbophobia, Infertility, Forced institutionalization, Emotional abuse, Abandonment, Suicide attempt, Miscarriage, Torture, Confinement, Bullying, and Self harm

faduma's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Misogyny, Sexism, Torture, Police brutality, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Confinement, and Forced institutionalization

ladykatka's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.0

I am not sure how to feel about this book. It is heart wrenching and I would not recommend it to new mothers or mother's to be as it would be very hard to read as it is a harsh look at the unrealistic expectations that we have for mother's in our society and no matter whY you do or how hard you try you will never be good enough.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Cursing, Forced institutionalization, Suicide, Torture, Child abuse, Biphobia, Child death, Racism, Homophobia, and Suicide attempt

sarahd0825's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

I really wanted to like this book and thought the idea behind it was great, but the execution was not. :/ I did like exploring the topic of what it would look like if the aunts from the handmaid's tale met modern-day CPS. However, I never developed any opinions on any of the characters and found them all a bit 2-dimensional... Frida was supposed to have a morally gray character arc, but I never really saw her character change throughout the story. Perhaps this was intentional but was just not my cup of tea.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Violence, Suicide attempt, Child abuse, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Lesbophobia, Alcoholism, Abandonment, Homophobia, Toxic friendship, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Torture, Self harm, Racism, Forced institutionalization, Death, Classism, and Alcohol

eliselo's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Suicide, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Self harm, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Torture, and Forced institutionalization

savzilla's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Death, Drug abuse, Grief, Kidnapping, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Torture, Abandonment, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, and Fire/Fire injury

gracesullentrup's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Mental illness, Self harm, Child abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Lesbophobia, Abandonment, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Torture, Miscarriage, Rape, and Racism

garlinds's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Based in a not-so-far-away future, Frida, a sleep-deprived single mother with post-partum depression and a poor support system, has a "bad day" and leaves her toddler home alone in an exersaucer for 2 hours. After a concerned neighbor calls and a welfare check happens, the child is taken into custody and Frida is determined unfit to be a mother and sent to a new government program called "The School for Good Mothers" so that she can learn the skills needed to be a worthy parent.

This book was hard to digest, it made me uncomfortable and I'll be gathering my thoughts for a while. The whole time I was reading all I could think about was the long-lasting emotional and physical trauma that each character was going through at the hands of the "system" and those in power. As someone who works with teens who have varying levels of CPS involvement in their home lives, it was heartbreaking to think of the impact this program would have on Harriet's future, as well as her mom's

Most prominently this book critiques the unrealistically perfect standards that we put on mothers. But it also examines both race and class disparities and the stressors that come along with them. At the end of the day, many of the mothers in the "school" would have benefitted from a stronger support system from the get-go rather than a fascist system that waits for them to make a mistake and uproots their whole entire lives.

At the end of the day, this was a great debut that could have used a little bit more development to make it more of a page-turner. The pacing of the book was slower and more repetitive than I thought it needed to be, I would have loved for it to have explored some of the relationships between the characters a bit deeper. That being said, this is an amazing book for discussions and I look forward to hearing other people's thoughts.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for sending me an ARC of The School for Good Mothers in exchange for an honest review.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Infidelity, Medical content, Mental illness, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Violence

Moderate: Abandonment, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual harassment, Torture, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Infidelity

Minor: Child death, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Infertility, Pedophilia, and Sexual content

theskyboi's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Thank you to Book Club Favorites at Simon & Schuster for the free book for review!

At the novel's outset, Frida Liu has had a lapse in judgment on a hectic day, and she has decided to leave her daughter, Harriet, at home alone. From this point forward, Frida is forced to prove her worth as a mother, as a woman, and as an American citizen at the eponymous School for Good Mothers.

In this stunning debut, Jessamine Chan interweaves the fabrics of literary and speculative fiction by telling a tale that some may call paranoid while others may feel is more aptly deemed prescient. Amid the tools of modern-day surveillance, these so-called bad mothers are given the chance to regain the lost custody of their children upon completing an experimental curriculum within the fenced-in confines of a dystopian learning center. Faced with the disappointment of watching her ex-husband and his new girlfriend raising her daughter, Frida is more determined than ever to put her whole heart into learning how to become the ideal caregiver.

Without spoiling too much, I'll say that the ways in which Chan dives into the genre of speculative fiction through The School for Good Mothers took me by surprise. Equal parts commentary on race, class, mental health, prejudice, and misogyny, this story is thoughtful in the way it draws and redraws lines between good parenting and unfair sentencing within the American justice system. Even given the dense and emotional themes, Chan still finds a way to capture a reader's imagination with a near-future feel to the mechanisms at play in Frida's life. By far, this was the perfect way to start my first read of 2022, and I can't recommend it enough!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Body horror, Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Sexism, Pregnancy, and Misogyny

Moderate: Child death, Suicide, Torture, Mental illness, Infidelity, and Child abuse

Minor: Classism, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, and Gaslighting

thechancollection'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

5.0

 This book won't be for everyone. I can see that. But, I liked it!

I liked Chan's writing style: deceivingly complex. Her story, while appearing to come off as simply told, was anything but simple. The subject matter is deep and though the story is pretty straightforward, there is so much more beneath the surface.

I really fell into this book. I was there. I could feel the intensity of the school & the emotions of the mothers. I wanted to punch & shake a lot of characters. I wanted to hold others.

This book is so, so different from anything I've ever read before. Ever.

An absolutely bananas, heart-string pulling, mouth dropping, grrrr kind of read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Racism, Xenophobia, Miscarriage, Torture, and Kidnapping