Although we’ll-written, this novel did not appeal to me. I’m probably too old to appreciate this one. I would recommend to younger readers, like my daughter and her cohort.

A timely read. Frida seems to put the feelings and opinions of the men in her life above her own, even decisions about her health and during the birth of her daughter. Has bits that seem reminiscent of The Handmaid's Tale. A thought provoking read for sure.

I really enjoyed the first chapters of The School for Good Mothers. I wasn't able to finish it before archive date but I'll buy a paper copy of this book.

Anyone ever have a bad day? 🙋🏻‍♀️

The School for Good Mothers 📖🎧
By: @jessamine.chan
Narrated by: Catherine Ho
Publishers: @simonandschuster @simonschusterca @simon.audio
Purchased from: @walmartcanada
Download: @netgalley @markhamlibrary @libby.app
Book Club: @readwithjenna

My Review
⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

It truly is sad how Frida Liu’s one “bad day” will now follow and label her for life. She loves her baby Harriet, but made the mistake of leaving her home alone for a few hours. Farida’s neighbours report her and her one mistake forces her away from Harriet into a government program, which is a school for bad mothers. At first you wonder why Farida left Harriet alone and why she is such a hot mess. Slowly the past reveals that her husband Gus cheated on her and has a younger mistress. At first I judged Farida on her mistakes but as I read, I could not help but feel sorry for her.

What seems to be emphasized are these unrealistic expectations that society has for mothers. Based on the mothers in this government school, if they do not have: a co-parent, additional support, resources or control of emotions, they are bound to be unsuccessful. With that being said the expectations at this government facility are highly inequitable, setting up many of the mothers for failure.

I do feel this novel was longer than necessary and at times I was not interested in the drama that occurred at this school for bad mothers. I would have preferred more of a realistic storyline.

#BookReview #AudiobookReview #ReadWithJenna #TheSchoolForGoodMothers #JessmineChan #CatherineHo #SimonAndSchuster #SimonAndSchusterCanada #NetGalley #MarkhamPublicLibrary #LibbyApp #WalmartCanada #Rexdale #ON #Canada 🇨🇦

Thought this was super fresh and super relevant - especially with today's "mafia" mothers. Fast paced read, it is a hard look at what standards most mothers must (and in some cases should) live up to. Very conflicted moral journey is required on part of the reader.

I feel like there was so much hype around this book. Which I don’t really understand
While I did not hate it, I did not like it. To be honest I did not like anything about it. The story. The characters. The ending. Nothing.

My biggest problem with this book was that the whole story revolves around a woman who did something really bad. REALLY bad. And dangerous. Yet I felt as though this was downplayed. Almost as though I was expected to feel sorry for her. Sorry that she was being punished for something that definitely warranted punishment. I understand that sometimes people are put in horrible situations and forced to make extremely difficult decisions. But this was not one of those situations. This was a woman with options and resources who chose to do something really stupid. If she was suffering from PPD, this is never expressed, and it’s left to the reader to assume she just didn’t care enough to do right by her child.
Having said that there were characters who were being punished for far lesser offences or even accidents and we’re treated at though these were just as bad, or even worse. I don’t know if that was because that’s how the author feels or if that was to further illustrate the insanity surrounding this “school for bad mothers”

This book made me angry about a lot of things as it delt with many hard hitting topics. But there were so many uncomfortable interactions that I got lost in all the fights being fought.

The School for Good Mothers seems to be a dystopian novel, but to me, it didn't seem that way. Frida, a Chinese-American woman, has her life turned upside down when she left her young daughter home alone and then gets reported to the government. Frida ends up being sent to a government-mandated rehabilitation school where mothers are emotionally broken down and "built" up to uphold the white middle-upper class way of raising a child.

In the beginning, I was super judgy and questioned Frida through it all, but then I had to check my bias and question WHY I was thinking Frida was a 'bad mother." Like, yes it sucks, that Frida left her kid home alone.. but, I found that the reality is that marginalized groups are treated very differently than their white counterparts and this book described it well. It also showed the reality that mothers are ALWAYS put into higher and harsher standards than fathers.

So many topics covered in this book! I loved every page.

This book was so emotional right from the start. The authors description of a person suffering with extreme anxiety is so vivid and relatable. Frida has "one bad day" and it feels like you could see yourself also reaching the end of the same thread she has and maybe doing something as close to what she ultimately does.

The ramifications of Frida's decision will change her life forever. The idea that government can take an extreme hand in the lives of children and families plays out to such extreme measures in this book and paints an emotional picture of devastation and the limits that the human spirit can be taken to.

I don't want to say too much about this story, because I think it's a wonderful read and if you're thinking about picking it up, I highly recommend you go for it. It's a great study on humanity and a heart-gripping tale to the very last sentence.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an ARC of The School for Good Mothers!!

I was really looking forward to reading this book and I was really surprised that I got approved! This is a great book. It was not quite what I was expecting, but I still loved it.

This book is about Frida. One day she goes out for coffee and leaves her daughter home alone. The neighbours hear her daughter crying and call child services. The book it about what Frida must go through in order to try to get her child back. It was really well written. One tiny complaint was that it did drag on a bit, but other than that no complaints!!

This book gives a powerful look at the ways out society views mothers and their role in the world as well as in their children's lives.

This wasn’t the book I was expecting, but it was the one I’ve wanted.

The storytelling and way we learn about who Frida is, I missed her after finishing the book. She is a complex character with many layers but is concrete in what she wants - her daughter. She struggles, as anyone would in her situation. We feel her sorrows and her joy, her fear and her love, her anger and her loneliness.

I could not have predicted that ending and it left me quite speechless.

The voice, the world building, the deep and intense way that we enter Frida’s world, her reality, her memories, her thoughts are all done carefully purposefully.

Culture and racial identities were woven in seamlessly and the author made the entire character’s identity and race as important as any other detail about their physical appearance. The author makes no assumptions about her reader’s racial identity and this was -outstandingly- refreshing.

I absolutely loved this book and can’t wait to read it again.

Wow! This book was terrifying, in that it seemed perfectly plausible in the world we live in. A single parent has a "very bad day" and as a result has her child taken away and has to attend a year of parental training at a prison like facility. The trainers are sadistic and childless, and there is no rational way to regain her child. The soul crushing despair and frustration she feels is so perfectly described.

Unfortunately the timing of my eARC approval for this title occurred on the same day that it was archived. However, I look forward to purchasing this book upon it's publication date and updating a full review and rating at that time. Based on other reader's thoughts on this book, and how it has made an interesting impact on those readers who are parents, I'm looking forward to putting myself up against this intriguing read!

I have pretty mixed feelings about this January @readwithjenna pick but overall it was a win for me.

Part dystopian, part domestic psychological thriller, this debut novel is every mother’s worst nightmare come true.

Frida is having a bad day and decides to leave her young daughter home alone for a few hours only to get caught and forced to go to an institution that will teach her how to be a “good mother” again.

What I liked:
- how relatable Frida’s struggles trying to be a “perfect” mother were
- the strong mental health rep (Frida is forced to stop taking her depression meds during her pregnancy for the health of the baby and then after because she’s nursing

What I didn’t love:
- how long the story was. I felt like it dragged a lot in the middle and could have been told with a lot fewer words (the end is very edge of your seat though which made up for it a bit so if you’re struggling like I did it’s worth it to keep going)
- the creepy robot/AI dolls the “good mothers” have to take care of. They were just weird AF!

Recommended for fans of books like The push by Ashley Audrain.

Much thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for my advance review copy.

I have not finished this one, but the first several chapters were intriguing. It might make an interesting title to go alongside the Handmaid's Tale.

For a book that made me feel nauseous while reading it, especially the last 20%, this is an exceptional book.

Frida is a single mom with a toddler and makes a simple mistake. One that some parents have made, or that some have at least thought about doing. But in this fictional world where Child Protective Services seems to have a mandate and power that has increased by 1000% - Frida finds herself in a situation where she may lose custody of her child and has to make quite a big commitment to try and get her back.

If you like Handmaid's Tale and dystopian fiction, this is right up your alley. This story is beautifully told, scary, and surreal that some form of this happens in real life. I loved Frida's character and how real, messy, authentic and complicated she was. There are tons of supporting characters and while I felt that you didn't really get to know them well enough, you don't need to. This is Frida's story. It was a great mix of both character and plot focused.

This is an amazing debut and I hope that Chan sees so much success from this book!

“When Frida was pregnant, her mother said that having a daughter would be like having her owl real doll.”

I don’t know. The writing was good. The concept was good. I think the biggest issue I had with this book is the fact that we get right into it on page one, and from that moment until the end, we’re never given time to breathe.

Very rarely do we get to witness “quieter” moments that would allow us to feel closer to the main character. Of course, the point of the story is that it’s a major disruptive thing that happened, and Frida’s focus is solely on getting her daughter back. But, still, once she got to the school, I feel like we could’ve seen more casual conversations with the other mothers, for example. Subplots that would render the big important scenes more impactful. Instead, it read like every new chapter was simply introducing a new aspect of the school—we were reading about the education, the classes, the grades, rather than learning more about the people, the victims.

(Mild spoiler alert:) The last chapter was incredible, and does exactly the opposite. It packs an emotional punch that was, in my opinion, missing from the rest of the book.

Still, if you’re looking for a serious, not-so-improbable dystopian read, you should give The School for Good Mothers a try. Don’t let this review dissuade you from reading the book—it might just be me!

I really thought this was going to be literary fiction, but it read a lot more like a thriller writing-wise. It wasn't bad, but I spent most of the book anxious and angry at what Frida was going through with no real resolution. It just felt kind of unbalanced and way too long and some of the characters were too cliche (the social worker) but I also appreciated Frida's perspective as an Asian woman and the racism that played in the judgment of her as a mother. It was also hard to have sympathy for her since her "lapse in judgment" really did seem pretty bad and less understandable than even some of the mistakes/accidents you read about in the news.

A heartbreaking novel with a strong social commentary on society's expectations of mothers. As hard as it was to read, I really enjoyed this novel and I looked forward to seeing what would happen next to Frida, even if it meant putting the book down a few times for mental breaks.
The amazing things about novels like this and The Handmaid's Tale is that the audacity and exaggeration of this dystopian world provides a social commentary about women in today's society. Mothers, more than fathers, are expected to be "perfect" even though perfect does not exist. The classes at the school Frida is required to attend after her bad day with Harriet sound ridiculous but, if you reflect on how we view parenting in society, almost everything parents do is judged by others - whether it is good or bad. There is this idea that there is no room for mistakes, that parents can't be tired, that the love for your children should be stronger than any other emotions.
I am not a mother, but I think reading this novel gives me more empathy for mothers and parents alike. I also really appreciated that Jessamine Chan wrote about a woman of colour and talked about how Frida's Asian identity affected how she was treated by the people around her in her town, in the school, and in the justice system. Frida also thought about Harriet's identity has a half-Asian child and questioned how she would grow up to see herself as an Asian woman if her mother isn't there. And the ending! Though devastating, I liked how it ended as a stand alone novel.