Ended up DNF-ing this title.
I was very intrigued by the concept, but found the plot to get very dull. I made to 65% of the kindle book and decided, I'm putting it down.
Luckily I had a bookstagram friend who gave my a brief synopsis of the ending.
The book was sad and a bit messed up. It really makes you see what pressure and judgement mothers face from society.
This novel made me wonder what message the author was trying to convey with this School to become a better mother. The expectations were ridiculous and the "teachers" were women who had no children of their own.

Perhaps we all need to be a little bit kinder and more understanding of each other, but also where is the line and who decides if you are an inept parent?
The book brought up a lot of questions and few answers. This was a complicated subject and I credit the author for tackling. Hate to admit she lost me along the journey.

The first quarter of The School for Good Mothers really grabbed me, It was such a unique premise and the writing built a wonderful layer of suspense. As I continued on in the next quarter, it began to feel like more of the same. Nothing new was really happening. It felt like different versions of the same disheartening days happened over and over at the school. At this point, I felt I was forcing myself to continue reading, so decided to give up on The School for Good Mothers.

As a mother, this book was extremely triggering. I found the plot fascinating and I wanted to find out how it would end, BUT I was also super disturbed at the story. Frida is a 39-year-old mother of Harriet, an 18-month-old, and one day she makes a horrible decision to leave Harriet home alone while she went to get a coffee and grab some paperwork from work. When her neighbors call the police, Frida finds herself answering to social workers and the courts in an effort to get her daughter back. Meanwhile, her daughter remains in the custody of her ex, Gust and his new girlfriend, Susana. While the three are all on great terms, Frida must watch as Gust and Susana make decisions for Harriet without Frida. Everything gets even worse when the courts decide that in order for Frida to earn back custody, she must attend a school for bad mother for one year. During this time she will be required to "relearn" how to be a good mother. She will be separated physically from Harriet, with only weekly Skype calls. At the end of the year, a judge will decide if she will regain her parental rights or if they will be permanently terminated. Frida lives every parent's nightmare as she loses access to her child and must participate in the school's education program where she is made to repeat that she is a bad mother and schooled in the ways she should be behaving all the while having her phone privileges revoked and her every move watched. The worst part is that she has no guarantee that at the end of this she will get her child back.

Chan's dystopian novel focuses on an extreme boarding school like program for women who are deemed not to be good enough mothers. The plot was very interesting, but I do feel like around the midpoint of this novel, it became a bit repetitive and slow paced. However, I wonder if this was an intentional choice on Chan's part. Our main character, Frida, is on a treadmill with this program - it seems to be set up in such a way that the mothers can never succeed. They wake up every day and try to accomplish something that seems completely out of reach and impossible. It is a great possibility that Chan wants us to viscerally feel that frustration and discomfort along with Frida. I would recommend the book and am really interested in what comes out next from Chan.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read this book. Jessamine Chan does a good job of making you care for our main character, Frida Liu, despite her presenting with what most people and this specific society would consider terrible, especially as it pertains to the American standards of living. We are going through the ups, and mostly downs alongside Frida and her style of parenting. I thought the eeriness of the books and the knowledge on social workers were done well and you can tell that Chan either has a background in that area or did extensive research of people who have had encounters with social workers. With that said, the pacing was off at times. All in all, The School for Good Mothers is a heartbreaking story about motherhood and the things we would do for the people we love the most, in this case that would be our children.

Utterly chilling, absolutely compelling, all-too-plausible... This book made me feel anxious and stressed (....in the good way) the whole time I was reading it, because I could not believe what was happening. There's absolutely no relief and it's easy enough to know (mostly) what's coming and that just makes it worse when it arrives!

One of the best debuts I've read in a long time.

Beautifully written story on the nature and pressures of motherhood and what happens when it's allowed to be judged without any restrictions. I really liked the main characters, found them very multidimensional. Some interesting twists. Strongly recommend.

I'm not even a mother and this book delivered the gut punch of the century. It made me cry — several times!

This ambitious dystopia stars Frida as an exhausted mother that is sharing custody of her toddler with her ex-husband who ran off with another woman, all while trying to juggle her depression and a demanding job. When she has one really bad day, she ends up leaving her toddler alone at home for over 2 hours. This (rightfully) leads to a custody battle that lands Frida in a 1-year Draconian "reform" school/prison program for "bad mothers learning to be good" and a harrowing journey of trying to get her daughter back.

The beginning of the book before Frida is sent to the reform school is a bit of a slog to get through, but does set up many important things to the story -- Frida is a single mom struggling with her mental health, her husband's new girlfriend is a New Age health/wellness nut, and their version of society is one with an extreme level of surveillance -- a stepping stone to the extreme program at the reform school.

I sympathized with Frida throughout the story because I could see that she was an "every woman" of sorts: Just a normal person trying their best that happened to make a terrible mistake. I've seen other reviews mentioning that they couldn't root for her because of what she did, but I think it goes deeper than that. Contrary to what the program in the book expects of the mothers at the reform school, it's not possible to be a perfect mother and no woman is. Everyone makes mistakes to varying degrees, and to be a perfect mother as the dystopian state in the book (and to an extent, our society today) expects would mean having to be an automated mothering machine, dehumanizing mothers completely. This process is thoughtfully covered in the book through the program's rigorous lessons on the 10000 different types of hugs, how to teach empathy, how to physically fight attackers, and how to meet a child's every need perfectly as soon as they need it.

I don't want to give too much away about this book -- but I will remember it for a really long time. It illustrates the depths of a mother's love so vividly, it's like I could feel it myself. It also offers plenty to consider about modern attitudes of middle class motherhood, the double standards when it comes to how we view good mothers and good fathers, the role of the state in how we raise our families, and how hard it is for women in general to meet societal expectations.

If you're a fan of female-centric dystopia with light sci-fi elements, this one is definitely for you and I do plan on reading it again at some point in my life.

Frida Liu had a very bad day. Recently divorced after her husband’s affair, Frida is struggling with raising her one year old daughter. Like everyone else, she makes a mistake. This mistake lands her in front of a family court judge who sentences her to a year at a Big Brother-esque institution, where she will learn how to be a “good mother”. She must survive the year at this school for even a chance of being reunited with her daughter.

I absolutely loved this book. Frida is such an amazing character and Chan wrote her beautifully. I felt and understood everything that Frida was going through, even as someone without children. The novel touches on some excellent themes, such as racial equity and how society (and often other women) harshly judge mothers and hold them to a much higher standard than fathers. The novel asks “What is a good mother anyway? And who the hell gets to decide that?” I really loved how Chan examined different cultural parenting styles and validated them equally. I highly recommend this one!

This book left me with my mouth wide open. I can't. Left me so mad at this made-up world. I wanted to throw this book a few times then I realized it was my kindle and it wouldn't survive the throw.

The school was too extreme. It was set up for failure. It was a prison, not a school. Of course, the fathers had it way easier than the mothers. Not surprising in the least

I had to give it 5 stars. It kept me turning the pages. I wanted more and was sad every time I had to put it down. I needed to know what would happen next to Frida, to the rest of the mothers.

I feel like this could ve explored more. A sequel would be great. Maybe the robots rebelling. Emmanuel leading the rebellion. Just an idea lol.

A satire about the cult of motherhood"

A description from the author but I would describe The School For Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan more of a horror story about the cult of motherhood.

I needed time to process this debut novel by the very impressive writer. I both listened and read this story which helped me in understanding its not always sympathetic protagonist.

Frida Liu is a Chinese American at a point of mental crisis in her life. An only child from hard working immigrant parents she married and had her only daughter, Harriet, in her late 30s. Her white all American husband Gust has left her for the social media savvy much younger wealthy all American Susanna. Frida is ashamed that on her days with Harriet she is overwhelmed from lack of sleep, no help, job pressures and obvious postpartum depression. She makes a decision when she is having a "horrible day" that costs her to lose her parental rights.

To over compensate for failures in child protective services the government has instituted a year long live in school (prison) to correct the wrong behaviors of not "perfect" mothers. Taking a sci fi turn from West World the mothers are put in very surreal situations and evaluated by "Aunt Lydia" counselors (reference Handmaid's Tale) to get their kids back.

Narrator Catherine Ho was perfection as an overwrought scared confused Frida. She also helped me understand better some of Frida's later bad decisions just by the inflections of her voice.

Spending a year at this school with Frida made me very angry. I think mostly because as ridiculous as the process seemed I could see it happening for real. That is what makes it a horror story for me. Frida was judged without details, prosecuted without growth and condemned without compassion.

I received a free copy of this book/audiobook from the publishers via #netgalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

I absolutely loved this book!

Frida is a mother who has one very bad day - one lapse in judgment - which leads to her daughter being taken by CPS. Because of this, she gets sent to a new program where bad mothers are taught how to be good.
I think this book is going to be hugely popular. In a time when everyone has an opinion about how one should mother their children but no one wants to actually give mothers the resources needed to succeed, this plot hits very close to home.

Lovers of The Handmaids Tale and The Lost Daughter will enjoy this story of what it means to be a good mother.
I will recommend this to many!

This is a haunting, evocative tale on societal expectations of motherhood, sacrifice, and love. Frida is a relatable, imperfect protagonist, and the injustices she suffers will make you ache for her.

I loved this book so much! For the last four days I’ve been completely consumed by this book, spending all my free time reading it, and all my work time telling my co-workers and customers about the robot babies (YES! Robot babies!).

The School of Good Mothers is a wholly original, dark satire about a dystopian surveillance-state in which bad parents (but let’s be real, it’s mostly mothers) are forced to spend a year in reform school to win back their parental rights. Is it really a spoiler to tell you the school for mothers is far mor arduous and abusive that the school for fathers? A tragic, and at times absurdly funny commentary on the impossible standards our society hold mothers to.

Imagine if your right to your child depended on proving that you could be a Pinterest-perfect parent.

In “The School for Good Mothers,” Jessamine Chan takes us into a near-future where child neglect is take very seriously, Single mother Frida Liu has a very bad day with her infant daughter. Her one error (an objectively terrible error, mind you) sends her into a system of assessment and reeducation designed to determine if she can continue to be a mother.

The testimonies of real people cease to matter - Frida is measured by machines and computers. Her feelings are analyzed via AI. Her actions are recorded and graded. She suffers horrific abuse at the hands of her teachers and therapists.

This story is fiction but the obstacle course of being a “good mother” is coldly familiar to any parent. Could any of us pass the test Frida must endure?

And is it even reasonable to expect anyone to do so?

A truly bizarre and at times stressful journey that I loved every minute of. It was terrifying, and I have spent the last few days circling around everything that happened.

Although this book took me sometime to get into, I ended up enjoying the story as a whole. It was a fresh take on the Science Fiction genre, and the commentary regarding our societies' CPS department was poignant and timely.

The main character, Frida, struggles with political powers to win custody of her child back after a horrible, very bad day. As Frida tries to fight and persevere, readers learn just how truly broken the CPS and court systems are. Yes we have strides to make to protect our children, but the missteps happening are truly illuminated through this story.

I was hopeful for more dynamic characters, but felt the ending fell a bit flat and predictable. It was an engaging read but I was ultimately left wanting more.

This ever so slightly dystopian novel is set in a near future world very much like ours. Main character Frida has one “very bad day” where she leaves her 18 month old daughter home alone for a few hours. Even in today’s world this could definitely land you on the radar of social services if you got caught, but in Frida’s world, not only does she end up losing custody but sent to the residential “school for good mothers” of the title in an experimental program designed to train those accused of abuse or neglect - or even much small infractions - with onerous rules, arbitrary standards and difficult tests.

This book is very atmospheric and definitely has vibes of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Joanne Ramos’ The Farm, and even just a touch of Klara and the Sun with the AI robot children the mothers have to practice on. It definitely was not an easy book to read from an emotional standpoint - the kind of book that makes you feel anxious while reading it; in fact at times I almost felt I’ll from being physically anxious. Even if you (rightly) condemn Frida’s actions at the beginning of the book, seeing what she goes through is chilling and heartbreaking, and all the more so because it feels so plausible and real.

This would make a great book club book because there is so much to discuss. Indeed, it is January’s pick for Read With Jenna (from the Today Show). It definitely is not the book for everyone, but it deeply affected me emotionally and I think will stay with me for a long, long time. 4.5 stars.

4!! I really enjoyed this book, a reflection on how society views mothers and motherhood, I think everyone should read this. While I am not a mother myself, it is very obvious how women are viewed in today's society. The struggle of being a caretaker and a provider for the family is the crux of this novel. It takes a look at what makes a good mother "good" and how that effects their children in the long run. Overall I would really recommend this to everyone truly.

I would first to thank NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the E ARC of the debut novel by Jessamine Chan, The School of Good Mothers. I feel like an outlier with my rating of 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'s, but the story fascinated me and gave me a glance into what might occur concerning parenting expectations in the very near future. The protagonist, Frida is a single, overwhelmed mom starting Day 4 of sleepless nights trying to soothe her toddler daughter Harriet. Frida needs a brief peaceful outing, just to get a coffee, but neglects to bring Harriet along. A terrible mis-judgement, yes, but does the horrifying, traumatic, heart-breaking and brutal punishment that Frida needs to endure fit the crime? It is hard not to give away spoilers, but I highly recommend this book move to the top of your To-Be-Read pile. This is a story of power and the abuse of that power by CPS, social workers, judges and the instructors (prison guards) and the injustice that comes after. The novel captures you until the end with excellent writing and good character development. The setting of the school is also a main character in the novel. Cameras everywhere, barbed wire fencing, sub- humane accommodations and intense and sometimes horrorfying "lessons" will stay in your mind long after you close the last page. #NetGalley