A review by upyernoz
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

3.0

A good not great book. I liked what the author was trying to do, it was in a very accessible writing style, and I enjoyed all the Philadelphia references. (I'm semi-convinced most of the book takes place on the college campus where I lived for 15 years). But I also saw where it was going fairly early. And I didn't buy the robot children. The author presented the world outside the school as essentially the same as our world today, albeit with this ridiculously harsh children's protective services system. But if there was the technology for the robot children at the school, I'm pretty sure society off of the school grounds would be very different. The book is trying to be a dystopian Handmaid's Tale-style story, and it definitely is dystopian. But the Handmaid's Tale is a much better, and more internally consistent book.