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A review by bethsbookshelf
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
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
4.25
Gosh, this book broke me a little. It highlights one of my biggest fears as a mother, any mother's biggest fear: having their child taken away from them.
Frida loses custody of her daughter and has to go to a government reform programme called The School for Good Mothers (unsure if that's the official title!). She loses Harriet because she left her in a walker for 2+ hours while she got a coffee and picked up some papers from work. At the start, I didn't have a lot of sympathy for Frida because it's very obvious that what she did was SO wrong. She left Harriet with snacks; she could have choked. She could have fallen asleep in an upright position; that's not safe. She could have been injured, stolen, had a panic attack - so many things could have gone wrong.
However, as the pages went past, I grew to love Frida, to understand her, to root for her. She wasn't a bad mother. She had a bad day. Yes, there needed to be consequences, but what she went through was horrific and heartbreaking. And as the author did fantastically, it was also clear that Frida was a symbol of all good mothers that have bad days. To further prove that point, you meet other mothers who didn't do anything nearly as wrong as Frida and still lost their child. One mother was in for coddling her child; one was in for posting a tantrum on Instagram; one was in for letting her child play in their gated yard by himself.
This book is a speculative alternate reality where if you're not a perfect mother, then you're a bad mother.
In a sense, it's a commentary on our current society where we're stuck in a horrible world of "mom-shaming", mostly online. A mother posts about her child sleeping through the night, and suddenly, you have hundreds of comments about how the child is too young, how they'll become malnourished, etc. A mother posts a video of her breastfeeding in public; she's now disgusting, attention-seeking. A mother lets her son have screen time: she's lazy. A mother's partner helps with night feeds: she has him whipped. A mother goes back to work after two months: she's abandoning her child. A mother never returns to work: doesn't she have a life of her own?
There's no winning as a mother in this society. We're surrounded by judgment all the time.
As a new mum myself, this book hurt me because I could see myself in it. I'm not perfect. If I had CCTV up in my house, like Frida did for a portion of the book, what would CPS think of me? In this world, I'm sure I'd be in the school, too. I co-sleep sometimes. My son sleeps with a blanket. I let him have garlic bread a couple of times. I sometimes scroll on Instagram while he's playing with his toys. My house isn't tidy. I give him his pacifier even if it's fallen onto the ground. I let the dog lick his face. Am I a bad mother? Maybe people think I am.
But I, like Frida, have deep unconditional love for my son. It's the craziest, most chaotic, and beautiful love I've ever known. Frida loves Harriet. She tries everything she can to avoid going to the school for good mothers. Those scenes were the most heartbreaking. She was instructed to treat Harriet a certain way, even though it was clearly making Harriet uncomfortable. And the worst part for me - Harriet wanted her mum. She needed her mother. She begged for her mother. And that wasn't taken into consideration at all.
Ugh. This book will stay with me for a long time.
The only thing I didn't really love about it was it felt like there was a lot clipped and cut out. The author actually said herself in interviews that she cut a lot. I felt that. It often jumped from one scene to another, or one month to another, and it didn't run deep enough sometimes. I think the author did this stylistically and intentionally because she wanted the novel to read matter-of-factly, but there were times it didn't really work for me.
Overall, this was one of my most hyped reads of the year, and it blew me away, softly and sadly. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. It's not a massive page-turner. It's a bit slow and reflective; there are some brutal scenes; there's horror; there's love; there's desperation; there's devotion. There's a mother. A mother who isn't perfect, but isn't bad, but will do anything - anything at all - to hold her daughter, just one more time.
Frida loses custody of her daughter and has to go to a government reform programme called The School for Good Mothers (unsure if that's the official title!). She loses Harriet because she left her in a walker for 2+ hours while she got a coffee and picked up some papers from work. At the start, I didn't have a lot of sympathy for Frida because it's very obvious that what she did was SO wrong. She left Harriet with snacks; she could have choked. She could have fallen asleep in an upright position; that's not safe. She could have been injured, stolen, had a panic attack - so many things could have gone wrong.
However, as the pages went past, I grew to love Frida, to understand her, to root for her. She wasn't a bad mother. She had a bad day. Yes, there needed to be consequences, but what she went through was horrific and heartbreaking. And as the author did fantastically, it was also clear that Frida was a symbol of all good mothers that have bad days. To further prove that point, you meet other mothers who didn't do anything nearly as wrong as Frida and still lost their child. One mother was in for coddling her child; one was in for posting a tantrum on Instagram; one was in for letting her child play in their gated yard by himself.
This book is a speculative alternate reality where if you're not a perfect mother, then you're a bad mother.
In a sense, it's a commentary on our current society where we're stuck in a horrible world of "mom-shaming", mostly online. A mother posts about her child sleeping through the night, and suddenly, you have hundreds of comments about how the child is too young, how they'll become malnourished, etc. A mother posts a video of her breastfeeding in public; she's now disgusting, attention-seeking. A mother lets her son have screen time: she's lazy. A mother's partner helps with night feeds: she has him whipped. A mother goes back to work after two months: she's abandoning her child. A mother never returns to work: doesn't she have a life of her own?
There's no winning as a mother in this society. We're surrounded by judgment all the time.
As a new mum myself, this book hurt me because I could see myself in it. I'm not perfect. If I had CCTV up in my house, like Frida did for a portion of the book, what would CPS think of me? In this world, I'm sure I'd be in the school, too. I co-sleep sometimes. My son sleeps with a blanket. I let him have garlic bread a couple of times. I sometimes scroll on Instagram while he's playing with his toys. My house isn't tidy. I give him his pacifier even if it's fallen onto the ground. I let the dog lick his face. Am I a bad mother? Maybe people think I am.
But I, like Frida, have deep unconditional love for my son. It's the craziest, most chaotic, and beautiful love I've ever known. Frida loves Harriet. She tries everything she can to avoid going to the school for good mothers. Those scenes were the most heartbreaking. She was instructed to treat Harriet a certain way, even though it was clearly making Harriet uncomfortable. And the worst part for me - Harriet wanted her mum. She needed her mother. She begged for her mother. And that wasn't taken into consideration at all.
Ugh. This book will stay with me for a long time.
The only thing I didn't really love about it was it felt like there was a lot clipped and cut out. The author actually said herself in interviews that she cut a lot. I felt that. It often jumped from one scene to another, or one month to another, and it didn't run deep enough sometimes. I think the author did this stylistically and intentionally because she wanted the novel to read matter-of-factly, but there were times it didn't really work for me.
Overall, this was one of my most hyped reads of the year, and it blew me away, softly and sadly. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. It's not a massive page-turner. It's a bit slow and reflective; there are some brutal scenes; there's horror; there's love; there's desperation; there's devotion. There's a mother. A mother who isn't perfect, but isn't bad, but will do anything - anything at all - to hold her daughter, just one more time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Classism, Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, Abandonment, Racism, and Suicide