I received a free copy from NetGalley. One of those books that reminds you that some people never outgrow the roles they tried to fill in high school.

Date made up. I feel behind on reviews.

I enjoyed reading this suspenseful story. This is a new author for me which I enjoyed and look forward to seeing what is next for her in the future. I found this story to be well written where the author used details to make the story come to life. A story that is full of action and secrets. It has twists and turns that had me turning pages fast just to see what would happen next. It is fast paced, engaging and hard to put down. I enjoyed how the characters were able to pull me into their world. They have great growth as well as great growth of the plot. This is an easy and entertaining story to read which I highly recommend doing so.

I am always hooked on a book about mom cliques and this was quite the clique. Rosie is struggling. It's tough being the odd mom out, especially at a school as prestigious as Woolf Academy. Rosie's son doesn't fit in at school, her marriage is in trouble and they live in a tiny apartment. All things that are completely opposite most of the families at the academy. When a fellow mom dies in the wealthy circle, Amala, the Queen Bee of moms invites Rosie in. She takes this as her chance to change her life, but nothing is at all as it seems.

Huge thank you to #RandomHouse and #NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book felt like it was written to go viral or be turned into a movie or mini-series like Big Little Lies but it didn't quite hit the mark. I don't enjoy books that feel like they have been written for a different medium and I have been coming across this a lot in the "thriller" category. The characters and plot seemed shallow. It read like a treatment for a script instead of a fleshed-out book. I didn't think it really delved into some obvious nuance like why the Woolf Academy even exists or why people would want to join. Something like that would hold little appeal for many, may people yet it was taken for granted that this woman would want to join and be willing to do so much.

thank you to netgalley and Hellen Monks Takhar for the advanced readers copy of Such A Good Mother. My opinions are my own and are given voluntarily

I really wanted to love this one, because I am a sucker for a good murder, lies and secrets type book, but I felt this one just didn't do it for me. It felt slow and just stagnant. and did not keep my attention. I would put it down and come back to it thinking I just wasn't in the right headspace for it, but it just couldn't keep my attention.

Such a Good Mother - Helen Monks Takhar
I thought Such a Good Mother by Helen Monks Takhar was an okay book but I didn't care for the main character, Rose. Rose wants the best for her son Charlie and apparently, the best is the Woolfe School, though Charlie doesn't care for it. Within the school, a group of mothers called "the Circle" basically run the school. Rose joins this elite group but things aren't always what they seem. There are some twists in the story that I didn't see coming but overall, it was just an okay book.

Things aren’t always what they seem and that is certainly the case with The Circle. Smart characterizations and hard to put down.
Many thanks to Random House and to NetGalley for providing a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Rose O’Connell has a rocky marriage, a son struggling to fit in at his prestigious new school, and a tiny apartment in a gentrifying neighborhood that barely fits her family. As a junior bank teller, Rose is struggling far more than the wealthy moms at Woolf Academy. Amala Kaur leads the Circle, a tight knit group of mothers at the Academy, and she decides to invite Rose when a mysterious death creates a vacancy in the group. This creates resentment as Rose's life improves, but Rose soon discovers what it truly takes to succeed inside the Circle. Can Rose escape with her life?

As with any neighborhood undergoing gentrification, prices for everyday items grow steep for residents that grew up there. With modest means and a desire for her four year old son to get an advantage in life, Rose applies to Woolf Academy. Tuition is free for those accepted, but uniforms and other basics are not. She was heavily bullied as a child, to the point she has flashbacks of it even twenty years later, and is very sensitive to the fact that she moves in very different circumstances than the other Moms; social media stalking them makes it even more clear than how they dress or where they shop. The scrutiny involved would be any socially anxious person's nightmare, but Rose pushes herself forward for Charlie's sake, ignoring Bea's warning from chapter one.

The difficult choices, strained relationships and resentment from the other women are painful to read about, as is Rose feeling less than and belittled. She thinks about her conman father a lot, and is often alone with her thoughts and doubts. All the women of the Circle have their secrets, and all of them have been weaponized. The finale is a breathtaking twist of expectations and a stunner that I didn't see coming. It's a fascinating look into the elitist world of private schools and how far people will go for the life they feel they deserve.

Such a Good Mother by Helen Monks Takhar is about Rose, a mom desperate to fit in with a clique of moms at her son's fancy private school. When one of the moms dies, Rose is invited into the ultra tight group of the "in-crowd" moms. She gets more than she bargained for!
This was a fun read. Rose's back story was interesting. This book reminds me a little of Big Little Lies. I would recommend this book for people who like domestic thrillers.
Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own;

This is a psychological suspense story. It wasn’t as twisty as I was expecting, but it was a quick read. I didn’t like any of the characters (except Charlie) and didn’t find all of their personas to be realistic. I think this detracted from the story for me a bit. This story is about power and what parents at a prestigious school will do to get more. It is also about family and what a mother will do for her family. Rose dreams of more for her family which is probably why she decided to attend an open house at the prestigious academy in their neighborhood. There is a group of parents at the school who wear special broaches and get special privilege. If you have to ask you’ll never be in, but Rose is determined to get more for her family……whatever the cost.

A decent cat and mouse/power dynamic-type psychological thriller. I felt like there could have been more development of the leader's backstory

Full review to come on Goodreads and Amazon. Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for a review copy.

Sadly, I’m adding this to my list of disappointing and formulaic thrillers. This reads like a wannabe Big Little Lies, but the pace was much slower, the characters all unlikeable, and the plot befuddling. The author’s previous work, Precious You, is much more worthwhile.

I could not understand Rose’s obsession with sending her child to this school that clearly had a ton of red flags from the start. But fine, she is determined to send her kid there - let’s ignore that. Her getting chosen for “the Circle” makes absolutely no sense. Rose has to be the biggest idiot in the world to think that they genuinely see her bringing value to them, and from the start, all of the mothers in “the Circle” are almost caricatures of bitchy women who barely throw her a single bone. I couldn’t get invested in the story and I certainly was not rooting for Rose. Her child was written to be extremely insufferable and annoying and I found myself not rooting for him, either.

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC via Netgalley.

I enjoyed this quite a bit more than I anticipated. Great character development and, although much of it was a bit far-fetched / outlandish, I found that the whole Keeping Up With The Other Moms vibe to be relatable. My son attends an exclusive (private, in the US) school and some of the characters portrayed in this book, and their ambitions, were a reflection of people / things I've seen in such a setting here (I mean, besides the whole murder thing - at least as far as I know!). I will say there were times I felt really frustrated with the main character, Rose, and her seeming inability to walk away from a completely ridiculous and obviously unhealthy / dangerous situation - but then we wouldn't have such an interesting series of events to follow along. It did get more and more outlandish the further into the story you get, but by then you're in too deep to stop (much like the characters)! I found it to be a weirdly fun read with a unique and disturbing plot and a satisfying ending. It's not for everyone, but I'm glad I read it!

It's every mother's dream to get their kid into an elite school, I think. We all want the best for our kids and to give them every advantage available to us. But when does enough become too much? How much success can we push our kids towards?

Rose was an extremely complex character. She had a tough childhood and was raised by a shady, conman of a father. Which obviously influenced her actions in more ways than even she probably realized. But she was also a wife and mother, attempting to be the best at both positions, even if she knew she willingly and or intentionally made mistakes in her interactions with her husband and son. She definitely owned her messy past, even if she did lean heavily on it whenever she needed a justification for her actions. I wanted to like her and a lot of the time, I did. But I also found her to be a horrible person at times, too. For better or for worse, she's the kind of character that's going to stick with me for a while.

Throughout the story, I was annoyed by Rose's husband, Peter. He seemed like a nice, upstanding guy, however, he also acted perfectly happy to let Rose handle all the hard things, including how to bring in more money when his business wasn't getting any clients. This aggravated me even more once he started to balk at her attempts to put them into a better position financially.

Everyone involved in The Circle was horrible. Greedy, desperate, hiding secrets... none of them were better than anyone else and yet, they were all adult versions of the mean girl in high school. Despite this, they are the driving force behind the whole story. You're meant to hate them, I suppose, and if that was the goal, it worked. They act as the perfect collective villain, headed by the big baddie, Amala.

I was totally fooled by Amala at first. You see bits of her nasty side here and there, but the way she treats Rose in the beginning made me wonder if those were exceptions rather than her actual personality. But, no, they were the rule more than the exception. Every time I raged at this book, it was due to Amala. In the end, I could understand her motivation, but her actions are never justified, no matter what your trauma.

While there were very few likable characters in this book, Rose's sister-in-law, Jacq, and her son, Charlie, being the few diamonds in the rough, Such a Good Mother was a compelling and enraging read. In this case, of course, enraging being a good thing because it made me feel like I needed to know what happened next. Had to know that someone got what was coming to them. I'll definitely pick up another book by this author in the future. In my opinion, it takes skill for an author to write a character you know is horrible and still find yourself rooting to win.

I really wanted to like this book. What normally would be a few hours read, took way longer for me, I just could not get into it. I almost gave up about 10 times...but I made it through. The ending (last few chapters, and the authors notes were by far the best part.
Thanks to netgalley, the publisher and author for the chance to read this advanced copy.

This was Mean Girl's for grownups. Very fun read. Rose will do anything to get her son into the swanky Woolf Academy, a very prestigious private school. She is desperate to fit in with a group of the other mother's and make her son fit in too. None of this is working out very well. Until it does. Rose soon realizes she may have made a terrible mistake and what follows is a fairly suspenseful story. The thing that kept it from being a 5-star for me was that we find out way later on that Rose knows something important that was not revealed. I do not want to spoil, but if you know, then you know.

Thank you to #NetGalley, Helen Monks Takhar and Random House Publishing Group for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

I had a difficult time with Rose. At first I thought she was selfish, only thinking of herself and overprotective of her son. I almost stopped reading . Rose's school days were destructive for her. Her childhood was difficult with no mother and a con father. Rose would do anything for her child.
The Woolf Academy is the most prestigious school and Rose is determined that her son will go there, even if she doesn't fit the 'look' of the parents of the school .As a bank teller without promotion for years and a struggling husband, their finance is tough. After a Woolf member dies, mysteriously, Ruth is invited to join the Circle. and money starts rolling in. Now she is demanded to perform cons like her father and worse.

This was just okay for me, I was expecting a little more mystery and I didn’t really get that until the twist at the end but even that fell a little short. I did not care for many of the characters and I just found this motherhood circle to be toxic and overwhelming. Like I get that’s kind of the point but I needed something else going on. I think there’s some obvious conversation topics about the need to fit in and working mothers but still found it not at all relatable.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I'll admit that I had to mark this as a DNF at 55%. I was SO BORED. I expected something entirely different from this and just found myself dreading reading this.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC however.