How does one measure whether someone is a good mother or not? The CPS thinks they have a way to determine this, through a new school for mothers. Mothers are sent to this school for various reasons, some major, but mostly minor infractions. The mothers must give up their children and go to this school that will teach them all the things they are doing wrong, while never focusing on anything they can do right. The system is almost set up for the mothers to fail and never see their children again.

The School for Good Mothers is dystopian novel with a powerful message. If you are a fan or The Handmaids Tale, you will love this book.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review of this book.

This book was really good but so hard to read in so many ways. Frida has a very bad day- she leaves her toddler daughter Harriet unattended for 3 hours and ends up having very severe repercussions for this. She is sent to a sort of mother reform school where she is "taught" to be a "good mother" This book was disturbing on so many levels. It was horrifying to think about having your child taken away for a lapse in judgment. However, I did feel that Frida's transgression was more than just taking your eye off your child for a second. It was referred to as a bad day, mistake and that did bother me a lot. It was definitely more than that. However, I felt that the book was so spot on in its descriptions of sheer exhaustion and monotony in caring for young children -especially as single mother. I really really disliked her ex-husband Gust. The methods of educating women to be a good mother were horrifying. I think the author had some real insight into the plights of single mothers and the difficulties with ethnic minorities. I also remembered the isolation and self doubt you experience as a new parent without a village of friends or family to support you. The book really creeped me out at times and I had to put it down because it upset me so much. That being said it is a solid book - kept me engaged and motivated to keep going with the story. It got a bit slow and repetitive in the middle but I wanted to know how everything was going to turn out. Would give this 3.75 stars. A really good debut.

Complicated and thought provoking, The School for Good Mothers delivers as a dystopian novel; enhancing reality just enough to make the environment terrifyingly believable. The novel intensifies our current call out culture and scrutiny toward mothers and creates a world where mothers are quickly “reported” for maternal infractions and sentenced to a year at a prison-like school where they learn how to be better mothers by practicing parenting drills in real life simulations. Creepy, right?

The novel was very good, but it had the potential to be fantastic. I think it was in desperate need of some tighter editing, as the author seemed to introduce too many social commentaries on motherhood without specifically drilling down on any one of them enough to be particularly potent. For example, if the infractions of the mothers at the school had all been relatively harmless, the novel could have been a powerful commentary on the extreme criticism of mothers. Instead, some of the mothers committed legitimate, harmful crimes, thereby making that commentary weak. Had there been no father school counterpart, the commentary of how society treats fathers who perform even basic parenting duties as heroes while mothers who go above and beyond are still unworthy of praise, would have been clear and strong. If all of the women being chastised had been women of color, a strong picture of how colored women are judged more harshly by society than white women could have been painted. Instead, all of these societal pitfalls (and more) were raised but then not fully fleshed out, making any lasting reflection about our current society’s handling of motherhood muddled.

I was fully immersed in the mothers and the school and was particularly disturbed at the fact that, although the lessons sounded ridiculous and outlandish when written on paper and spoken through dialogue, I agreed with most of the evil teachers’ diatribes. I do believe that if you turn your head for even a second, something terrible could happen to your child. I also believe that as a mother you should be able to anticipate your child’s needs before they can articulate them. I believe that as a mother it is my job to teach my child about cooperation, empathy, social injustice, standing up for herself, and authority over her body. As I found myself agreeing with the overarching points of each lesson, I was confused and frightened; did I believe all of these things because they were true or had I already been indoctrinated? After all, don’t I already receive half a dozen emails in my inbox a day with click bait entitled “5 Things Great Moms Do Everyday” or “How Your Tone is Affecting Your Child’s Self Esteem” or “What Pediatricians Wish You Knew About Your Child,” and more? Don’t I click on every single one of them and learn how I’m complimenting my kids the wrong way, or feeding them the wrong things, or letting them watch too much screen time, or how if I don’t have the right books or toys my kids will turn into narcissist, intolerant, jerks who will ruin society? Do I not go to bed many nights reliving all of my maternal mistakes and promising that tomorrow I’ll do it better? Have we not already arrived to this dystopia where pressure on mothers is exponential, outside “expertise” abundant yet conflicting, women constantly trying to “out mother” the next (hello, Pinterest), extreme maternal guilt, and motherhood burnout real but not addressed? The more I read and processed, the more I realized the only thing dystopian about this novel is the actual school setting. In real life, the “school” is the constant bombardment of criticism from social media, other mothers strangers at the grocery store, and ourselves. Scary because it’s true. I’ll be processing this one for quite a while. Definitely a worthwhile read, it would make a great book club book as there is so much to unpack.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Handmaids Tale meets 1984 in this dystopian world where bad mothers go to school to learn to become good mothers. This book is well written and painted an eerily realistic picture of the pressures to be a good mother. The hypocrisy and double-standard, as well ad the criticism, the mothers endured left me feeling frustrated but also seen. It also highlighted the additional struggled mothers of color have to endure. This book left me feeling frustrated, angry, and sad all at the same time. Highly recommend for all the parents out there struggling to be “good” parents!

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Publishing for an advanced copy!

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan is a terrifyingly vivid and exquisite story that pulls you in from the very beginning. This sharp, anxiety-provoking book is superb. What a novel.

It's difficult for me to write down my thoughts on this book. It's well written, the story is both frightening and fascinating. a creepy tale of what could happen to women in our society. It will be fabulous read for a book group and would lead to a great discussion. But the lead character, Frida, does something really bad in the beginning of the book. She leaves her toddler who's sick and crying alone for hours...not 10 minutes, not to run to the corner quickly. She gets in her car, drives to work, and stays there for hours. After a neighbor calls the police, she's sent to an experimental home for bad mothers, where women are sent to be taught to be good. There's a lot of important social commentary, a lot of what happens to the women in the home is horrible. The story will give your all the feels. Frida clearly has mental illness and many of the characters could have done more to help her, but her original choice is so bad. Still, it's worth a read or just wait for the Netflix series.

This story is an absolute gut-wrencher. I haven’t felt this amount of low-level dread while reading in quite some time! It’s hard to review this book without giving anything away… let’s just say, the parallels to Handmaid’s Tale are certainly alive and well. Very disturbing at points, yes, but also gripping. This novel is a slow-burn and does suffer from pacing issues towards the middle, but a solid story overall and a very impressive debut!

Of course, this story really will break your heart into a million pieces. While it's advertised as a dystopian novel, I felt like it lacked descriptive elements of the world Frida lived in. We only hear and see her side of things which got to be repetitive throughout the novel. It was a slow-paced story-line that became really dark and twisted. Was it entertaining? I would say it was captivating and gripping! Did I really get immersed into the struggle of social injustice? Not really....While I wouldn't read this again, I think it's a great book club novel and a story that will be on my mind for quite some time.

Jessamine Chan’s novel paints a vivid picture of the “sometimes thrilling sometimes maddening” experience that is motherhood. Frida makes a life-changing mistake and her right to be a mother is questioned and challenged by authorities. You relate to Frida, feel anger toward her, and contemplate your own choices and failures made as a parent. This story is heart wrenching, emotional, disturbing and unsettling. It blends realism with dystopia; I found myself questioning how far must one go to prove they are a good mother? I read this in one sitting and it’s a story I won’t soon forget.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for this ARC.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book.
The writing captured me in the first chapter. What a novel! I'd consider this an 'unputdownable' story (one that I want to share and chat about with other people)! I wouldn't say that I agreed with some of the perspectives in this story; however, I think the idea of mom judgement is a real thing we need to better address as a society (and most importantly, as other women judging other women). That said, I do believe there are universal truths when it comes to proper mothering that can't be overlooked (which I do think were discussed when mentioning child neglect/abuse). I can't wait until this is released to the public so I can digest it with friends!

Frida Liu is a mom who is struggling; her husband fell in love with a younger woman while she was pregnant and has left her, she feels like a constant disappointment to her Chinese immigrant parents, and motherhood is hard.
She makes a terrible decision one day that lands her in trouble with CPS. In the world Chan's created, CPS has evolved into an institution that attempts to "reform" bad parents in the most dystopian way possible -- and Frida needs to pass a series of tests in order to retain custody of her daughter, Harriet.
This book will frustrate you and make you question your own unconscious judgments about what it means to be a good mother. I can't wait to talk about it!

I had a really hard time reviewing this - did I like it? Did I hate it? I still don’t know! This book makes you uncomfortable from the first page and doesn’t let up. While I don’t have kids, I am responsible for 21 five-year-olds for the majority of the year (hey, teachers!) so this was a really hard book for me. Often, I had to put it down and come back to it. It really brought out my judgey side and parts were absolutely soul crushing. The ending is probably going to haunt me for a while.

Frida just had one very bad day. While working from home with her toddler, Frida intends leave Harriet alone for just an hour while she runs to work to grab a file. However, one hour becomes two and the neighbors report Frida after hearing Harriet cry for a significant amount of time. Now the court has enrolled her in a new big-brother-like school where Frida can learn to be a good mother. Succeeding at the school means being reunited with her daughter while failure means having her parental rights taken away from her.

Let’s start with the good things! The idea for this story is so original and such a good idea. I’m not a mother myself, but I know a lot of people struggle with feeling like they are a good enough mother. So the idea of an agency that puts you in a school to learn how to be a “good” mother is terrifying to think about. Especially when you are put in a situation where you feel like you're being set up to fail.

Now time for the bad news. This story had a lot of ups and downs for me. Some sections were so engrossing that I was flying through it, while others felt like a chore to get through. The beginning was definitely slow for me, it felt like I was just waiting for the main character to get to school for the story to start. The pace picked up once all of the mothers got to school but it started to slow down again for me. Nothing super interesting or surprising was happening at the school which made the rest of the story felt very monotone to me. Overall, I thought this was a story with a great concept but fell a little short with the execution.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this eARC in exchange for my honest review!

I like a dystopian novel just as much as the next person, but this one lacked something...or maybe it just upset me so much, I couldn't personally appreciate it?

Frida's challenges as a mother and the horrific experience she had losing her daughter and then being sent to the school for good mothers is realistic in the sense that she experiences the same challenges, doubts, and emotional/physical exhaustion most mothers experience. Yet, the drastic legal consequences she faces from a exaggerated (yet, still rooted in reality) child welfare entity--paired with the horrific way she's treated by her ex-husband--seem over-the-top without the usual "fight the man" thread running through them that most dystopian stories have. Frida's last-ditch "fight" seemed too convenient and not organic to the consistently weak and submissive woman we see throughout the book. Was she suffering from postpartum issues? Was she this submissive in her marriage before having kids? No of this is ever really answered.

I also felt that the plot plodded along at parts. Frida's "treatment" in the facility got repetitive. The constant allusions to the women getting treated much worse than the men just made me angrier and angrier. I kept hoping someone, anyone, would fight back.

The highlight of this book is the commentary on motherhood and marriage that many women face. Chan adds new depth to the discussion with allusions to the racism Asian women and mothers also experience. I loved this inclusion in the book, but was disappointed with the way it was explored. By making the situations and the treatment of Frida so exaggerated, it lessened the impact of the discussion of these true-to-real-life issues.

For a very sensitive person like myself, this just wasn't the book for me. I really wish Frida had a bit more fight in her and that the situations she faced weren't so horrifying. Oh and Gust REALLY needed to get a comeuppance in some way, shape, or form.

If you enjoy really bleak dystopian stories, this is a book for you. It just wasn't the book for me.

Thanks to @NetGalley for a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Her husband has left her for a younger woman, she hates her mindless job, so Frida has “a very bad day” and is punished for leaving her toddler home alone for a few hours. She’s sent to an institution where she’s to be taught how to properly nurture and care for her daughter.

THOUGHTS:
This book started with so much potential. How many moms have wondered what would happen if they just walked away for a little bit? Unfortunately for Frida, the answer is big brother government gets involved & ships her out to a parenting training facility. What takes place there and the concepts taught are miserable. While I was certainly creeped out by what (I assume was supposed to be) intentionally thought provoking concepts, I was also bored. The repetitive nature of the story and lack of connection to any characters made this a miss

DNF at 12%

Frida is truly an immature, insufferable character who I hope is never allowed to care for a child again. I can't root for her. She has zero redeeming qualities. I cannot read about any more of her crass, raunchy poor choices. If there was the minutest glimmer of redeemability about her, I could go on and hope she turns her life around. Give me something to work with.

thank you to the publishers for the egalley

the first chapter was super strong and I really thought I was going to love this story... but after that it just got strange and super uncomfortable to read.

One very bad day. To be a mother is to always fear that you could do something wrong, not protect your child like you should. Frida had one very bad day, overwhelmed & preoccupied. The School for Good Mothers terrified me. But in a way that felt the possibility of such an overbearing government, a harshness & judgmental view of mothers & their role in society. The women of the school all had their own stories & I loved learning about all of them, seeing sisterhoods form. I laughed & I cried (but not in that cliche way) & I pleaded for these women, for all women. What an amazingly stressful story, like Jessamine Chan said it would be, but also thought-provoking, passionate & humorous. Unlike anything I have read!

This book was infuriating, but in a good way? Although I'm not a mother myself, I felt so much righteous anger on behalf of Frida and the other mothers sent to the school. The way they were treated is so unfair and heartbreaking, and the despair they felt really came through. A few aspects seemed a bit far-fetched, but overall I found it very engaging.

The School For Good Mothers follows Frida, mother to Harriet, as she goes through an arduous battle with the court system after leaving her unattended for several hours. Frida never intended to leave her house for more than a few minutes. After going to grab a cup of coffee, a file from her work, and answering several emails, she loses track of time and only realizes she's been gone for more than two hours when the police call her and tell her that they have her daughter at the station.
Frida's once-perfect life with her husband is now shattered. He's decided to leave her for a new, younger woman with whom he moves in all too quickly. It's not only her child that is driving her to the edge of madness. After acknowledging her part in the ordeal, the courts' decision is simple: attend a school where she'll learn to finally be a good parent OR lose her parental rights until Harriet turns 18.
Frida decides to go to the school where she is put through the wringer to prove she can be an excellent mother. What follows is a bizarre dive into a world of simulacra and simulation with the highest stakes of them all; either pass all the tests administered to the mothers or lose their rights forever.

This book had a huge Handmaid's tales vibes to me. It felt dystopian, futuristic, and at the same time something that could be happening this very instant. I enjoyed the vast array of characters once Frida arrived at the school for good mothers and the friendships she made along with her year stay in that setting.
Some of the scenarios felt tough to connect with, and though they were learning new skillsets with each test, it bordered on repetition. Reading about a struggling mother, who doesn't have it all together, and questions why she is "selfish" for needing to still be the person she was, was delightful to read. It felt more authentic to have a new perspective from a mother's point of view that isn't all pleasant.