At the end of her tether, single mother of a demanding toddler Frida Liu makes a terrible mistake leaving her alone at home for a few hours. She loses custody of Harriet to her ex-husband and her only chance to win her daughter back is to attend the school for good mothers, a prison-like, state-run institution where she'll be challenged every minute of every day to prove she can be a good mother to her child. Put in charge of a life-like robotic toddler, she endures humilation, petty bureaocracy and downright cruelty in her endeavours to prove her fitness, along with the other mothers, whose infringements range from beating their child to allowing them to walk home alone from school!
This story works on so many levels. Themes of poverty, loneliness, racism and imposter syndrome are all explored with sensitive understatement; it has a great main character in Frida, who is empathetic, open and honest from beginning to end; and a gripping plot that has us questioning what it means to be a good mother . Because while there is no doubt Frida's action was wrong, she loves her child heart and soul.
It's also a disturbing dystopian tale that shows how insiduously the state can take control of our lives - and how society always veers to the misogynistic. Because it's almost always the mother's fault! In some ways it reminded me of The Handmaid's Tale in its portrayal of sadism against women, not just by men but other judgmental women.
A definite five-star read that will have the reader examining their own views on motherhood, and questioning whether or not they themselves might sometimes be a bit too quick to judge.

This book is a future dystopian novel (albeit set in almost the immediate present and not requiring much of a leap of imagination or significant extrapolation from current societal practices) about the rights of parents (particularly mothers) to raise their own children versus the rights of society to teach and effectively impose minimum and agreed standards of parenting for the protection of the children and of their role in society in future.

The close third party protagonist is Frida Liu – an American daughter of two Chinese immigrant parents, thirty nine years old, mother of a young toddler Harriet, she lives in Philadelphia and works at Wharton Business School producing a faculty search digest for the business community. Shortly after Harriet’s birth her husband Gust left her for a younger nutritionist and Pilates teacher (and fan of all things new agey) Susanna.

The book opens with the police calling Frida to say that they have Harriet – after a frazzled and sleep-exhausted Frida leaves her alone for around two hours while she picks up some papers from work. Harriet is given to Gust and Susanna (who remain broadly supportive of Frida) for temporary custody. After detailed and intrusive investigations and surveillance by the social services and police, at a court hearing Frida is given the option (if she ever wants to have custody of Harriet again) to take part in a pioneering residential rehabilitation 1 year course at a newly opened instruction and training facility for bad mothers.

The majority of the book takes place in the camp which is closer to a correctional facility, with mothers (there is a separate and less draconian facility for fathers) given almost no contact with their children and forced to comply with the camp’s rules if they want any chance of post course contact. The main futuristic element of the book is that each mother (the mothers are grouped by the age and sex of their children) given an advanced animatronic doll on which to practice their good-mothering skills, alongside counselling and assessments on their previous inadequacies as a mother.

The parental infractions the mothers have committed are broadly in the areas of neglect, abandonment and mild physical or verbal abuse. One interesting element of the novel is that as a reader we see the facility and situation through Frida’s eyes while I suspect most readers are likely to judge Frida’s actions with Harriet as unacceptable even if they were a one-off lapse. Asked about this the author has said

"I wanted to write about a woman who is complicated and flawed. Frida is a Chinese-American mom, her husband has left her, she’s angry and selfish. The question about whether Frida should be more sympathetic was raised. I mean, I could have had her leave her kid in the back seat for 30 seconds, a total accident that was much more benign. But that’s too easy; I wanted the story to exist in a more morally ambiguous place. I wanted her to wrestle with guilt for really making a bad mistake"

The author is a short story writer and this is her debut novel. She mentions a key inspiration being Diane Cook and in particular a short story in Cook’s collection “Man V. Nature”. Diane Cook was of course Booker shortlisted for her own dystopian debut novel “The New Wilderness” – in my view a poor novel and one which showed her inability to succesfully translate her short story skills (“Man V. Nature” was excellent) to the longer format.

Chan is I think more successful here although I did feel that the time in the camp was perhaps a little too long – there are occasional excursions into humour but these are a little too infrequent. I think one of the aims here was to convey quite how far Frida becomes from her original life and how her doll (who she calls Emmanuelle) and the machinations of the camp increasingly become her life – but I did find my interest flagging and felt that the time in the camp needed perhaps more of a progression as opposed to what seemed to be a cycle through the training in and simulation of different aspects of “optimal” parenting, not all of which needed to be described in anything like the level of detail that they were.Overall though this is a thought provoking novel including in its examination of how racial and cultural intersectionality impacts on the idea of societal attribution of correct parenting.

The school is a fantastic concept, allowing Chan to explore the pressures of parenthood and the impossible standards mothers are expected to meet. The story is overlong but well-structured, with emotional peaks and troughs in all the right places, and Frida is a believable protagonist, desperate and flawed and trying her absolute best. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Very very good.

Dystopian, and a little flavour of The Handmaid's Tale - this is a story that will get you where it hurts and touch you deeply.

All parents know that parenthood isn't easy - but should minor infractions be punished severely? Frida finds herself incarcerated for a year after an afternoon of stress - a year in which she only sees her toddler daughter by video call a few times, and is placed in a community of other parents, with whom she'd normally have nothing in common.

Being taught to parent means mothering a robot doll - one that shows emotion and craves attention. These dolls were for me the most fascinating characters in the story, and really added to the disturbing atmosphere.

An excellent and perturbing read.

Ooooo loved it, loved everything about it, the characters, the plot, all of it…what a corker of a book, I can’t wait for more from the author!!!

Wow! This isn't a book you enjoy exactly, but it is a real page turner. It is deeply unsettling and I can see why it has been compared to The Handmaid's Tale - it is scary because it seems so possible. Absolutely heart-wrenching, I was a mess by the end!

A terrifying dystopian tale where parents are held to an impossibly high standard, any perceived failure such as letting your child play alone, looking at your mobile or more serious lacks of judgement sees the child being taken away. If the parent attands a programme for a year a Judge may decide they are rehabilitated enough to look after their child again, if not they lose all parental rights with no appeal.

Frida has a terrible day which results in her ex husband and his girlfriend being given custody of their daughter. She takes the option to attend the program in the hope it'll lead her back to her daughter. she gives up her home, her job and her liberty in order to prove she can be a good mother.
The program is barbaric and so frustrating, the women are pitted against each other and the teaching of what makes a good mother is not something I agreed with at all. Some of the mothers did terrible things where I'm sure social services would be involved but you never feel the interests of the child are at the heart of this brutal system. Families are ripped apart with little recourse.

In order to improve her mothering skills Friday is given a synthetic child that looks like her, sharing the mixed Asian heritage of her real life child. The synthetic children are incredibly creepy as they seem very life like expressing pain and being able to learn. The mothers develop bonds with these child substitutes but anything they do or say can be used against them.

This was a really brutal and heartbreaking novel, very well written and evocative.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK for the ARC.
I really wanted to like this book but I really struggled.
The start was strong, which made me carry on reading and there was a scene at the end that gave me chills and lots of emotions, but the middle part was boring. I found it very repetitive, very unrealistic. I know it's a dystopian novel but the contest seemed very real, but the school and the "how to be a good mother" concept were just so far fetched.
In some passages I felt like I was missing something as it was jumping from one scene to another without clear conclusion.
And the ending... oh gosh, I was worried it was going to be a horrible ending after the boredom of the middle part and I was right (at least, it was horrible for my taste).
I think the premised of the book were good, but it didn't deliver for me, I'm sorry.
I did like the "Klara and the Sun" vibes, though.

Wow, This was a punch in the future kind of book. So many layers, incredibly nuanced and complex . But the crux of it, the perfect mother doesn't exist. We are all fallible and make mistakes that impact our children. Pressure, loneliness and exhaustion can lead to bad decisions, but, that doesn't take away the love, heart that a mother has for her child.

Heartbreakingly, this is a story that could be true. The balance of men and women is never real or true, socially, financially and mortally, mothers carry it all.

This is a book I won't forget.

I really wanted to enjoy this book but I really struggled with it. Whilst I think the concept itself is intriguing and sounded fascinating I found it to be very drawn out, so much so that I was lost interest.

I have seen two different covers for this book and though I do like both of them my preferred one is the UK version, I think it will definitely be eye catching on a book store shelf. As soon as I read the blurb, I knew I really had to read this book. It immediately made me think of Rebecaa Bowyer & Christina Dalcher books, it has that speculative, futuristic vibe.

The main character is Frida, who is of Chinese descent, and was originally happily married to Gust. They have a beautiful daughter that they have named Harriet. Harriet is half white, big brown eyes, curly dark brown hair with bangs. Sadly, for Frida, Gust finds another woman, called Susanna, who has lush, flowing red hair, white skin and huge blue eyes. Despite Frida still loving Gust and them having a child together he still goes off to live with Susanna, meaning they have to share their time with Harriet. They each have her 3.5 days per week. Frida has managed to arrange to work from home the days she has Harriet and for the majority of time this works out fine. Until she has her “bad day” her “very bad day”. Frida has left some important paperwork at the office, and she really can’t afford to get further behind she desperately needs to hold onto this job. Harriet is also playing up more than usual and Frida is finding everything difficult to cope with. She really yearns for some quiet, a coffee without a background of crying baby. Frida makes an awful split-second decision, she places Harriet into some sort of toddler seat, called and “exercsaucer,” leaves some biscuit-like snacks for her to eat and dashes out of the door.

Sometime later Frida receives a phone call, it’s an officer telling her that they have Harriet and she needs to report to the Station at Eleventh and Wharton as soon as possible. Apparently, a concerned neighbour reported a crying baby. Gust and Susanna are contacted to pick, 18 month old Harriet up, and Frida has to stay to be interrogated and questioned as to why she left her baby alone at home, and had she done it before, the questions go on and on, unnerving an already nerve frazzled Frida until she feels like she doesn’t know who she is or why she acted the way she did anymore. It is decided that both Frida and Harriet will have to undergo a psychological evaluation, Harriet will also receive therapy. Then there will be 3 supervised visits within the next 60 days. The state will collect data from all of these measures. CPS is rolling out a new program. Social worker will make her recommendations & a judge will decide what custody plan will be in Harriet’s best interest. Frida hires a lawyer, Renee, who advises her that the system is currently changing. Renee advises Frida to co-operate and to stop calling what happened a “mistake” and accept what it is being called by the CPS an “incident” and do whatever she is told. Frida is woken early the next morning by two CPS men setting up cameras in every room in her house. Everything she does will be monitored, phone calls, emails, etc. When she was interviewed the day before comments were made and reports have been made about the state of her house, so she had stayed up late manically cleaning everything, in the hope it would go in her favour. Renee tries her best to prepare Frida for the worst-case scenario, and she turns out to be right. Despite both Gust and Susanna speaking up on Frida’s behalf she is “sentenced” and given the option of taking part in a new initiative. Frida signs up to go to “The School For Good Mothers” programme, as for her there is no other option, there is no life where she doesn’t have Harriet in her life.

Those “guilty” mothers have to turn up at a specified time, with no luggage and then they are taken to the school. The women are separated into groups and have to introduce themselves and state their offence. Frida has to stand before these women and say her name and tell the other women that she is charged with neglect and abandonment. The other women take their turns, Linda is around the same age as Frida and has 6 children to 6 different fathers and is also charged with neglect and abandonment. Lucretia who becomes close to Frida, is there because her daughter broke her arm when she fell off a slide, and an ER Doctor reported her. Meryl is a white, and only a teenager herself was also reported by an ER Doctor for her daughter having bruises on her arm, Meryl also had drugs on her. All the women want their children back but like Frida are clueless as to what they will have to do during the year they spend at the school. There are several different units, each with their own requirements that the women have to meet to be in with a chance of regaining custody of their children.

I don’t think any of the women could have imagined they would be given realistic dolls to care for, to re-learn to be “good mothers.” It is quite evil really as the dolls are made to look really similar to the children they have been wrenched away from, both in skin colour and in ethnicity. Theres one black, one white, one Latina doll. Then there are two mixed race dolls, one half black/half white and one Eurasian doll. The women are told to name their children, Frida names her “new” child Emmanuelle. All the dolls have a camera inside them and they collect data, they gauge the mothers love, the mothers heart rates, to judge emotions. The dolls all have a blue knob on their backs, it is an opening to the area of their body that contains a strange blue liquid, that has to be changed and taken care of. None of the women find it especially easy to do this to their “child”. It’s almost a kind of mind game that is being played on the women. The dolls are almost human like and even they hate this part of their existence. Frida, in fact all the women are somewhat wary of the dolls to begin with, but as it is expected of them, they begin to bond with them. They have no option really as the tasks they are given to learn and the tests they have to take. It is quite a prison like existence for the women who are constantly under surveillance and under pressure to succeed and have to wear the drab uniform. The constant “carrot” that is dangled just out of reach for the women is a decision or ruling that they are now good enough mothers to have their children back. Even the weekly calls to speak to their children and those currently caring for them is used against them. How they spoke on the call, how they reacted to news they were told is all information that is collected and stored to help determine their capability to have access to their own children when they leave the home. The women have mixed thoughts and emotions about the phone calls. At least its some sort of contact with their children, but during these calls the fact those children are growing up without them is all too clear to see. Frida struggles on a number of occasions, when its clear to see that Gust’s new partner Susanna is taking on the full role of mother, when Harriet refers to her as Mummy-Sue-Sue. Then there are the physical changes Frida sees in Harriet, her eating habits are changed and she is rapidly changing from the little chubby Chinese baby Frida left alone on her “bad day”. Then on one call it’s clearly visible that Susanna has taken Harriet for a haircut. I think Frida sees that Harriets Chinese heritage is being pushed aside and her daughter is becoming more and more westernised.

I could seriously go on forever about this book, so much happens, there are so many layers, different characters and point of view to take into account. Every time you think the women are doing well the pink clad teachers throw something else into the mix. Just when you think Frida is firmly on the right track to getting access to Harriet despite having her phone call privileges removed, the addition of training the “bad fathers” begins. Of course, some of the women have been flirting and doing more with the male guards already, but now they have the fathers with their dolls. The women have heard rumours that “The School For Bad Fathers” has much better conditions than the mothers school. The different sides are intermingled for certain tasks. It seems like Frida and Emmanuelle are constantly placed with Tucker and his doll Jeremy, so much so a relationship seems inevitable. Frida is warned not to get too attached, the women in pink coats stating why would a reformed good mother want anything to do with a father who let their son fall out of a tree. The couple decide to be as careful as possible, neither wants to jeopardise their chances of regaining access to their children. Thinking they have not been seen, they exchange details, planning to meet up on the “outside”

I think at certain points in the books like the mothers I forgot that the dolls were not real children. There were some pretty tear jerker scenes within the book between the women and their dolls. Other sad sections of the book were the women and their reactions to news from home or being told that they were failing the tasks. The women in pink lab coats had very little sympathy for the women and used any and every advantage they could get to pressure the women more. Two examples were how they managed to easily use peer pressure and competitiveness to pit the women against each other. Some women couldn’t take it anymore and either left the programme, in doing so accepting they would never see their child again. Or even more tragically committed suicide when the opportunity presented itself to them.

I’ll be totally honest, at first, I didn't like the ending at all, but then when you I really thought about Frida, the type of person she was, how much she missed Harriet during her year at the school, I came to the conclusion that the ending was perfect and thinking about the character actually done in a realistic way. I would definitely check out any other books by this author. Maybe, there could be a, “The School For Good Fathers” book, or even novella, where we could read more about the fathers, learn what their true characters were, and if the women in the mother school were right about the men having it much easier than them.

My immediate thoughts upon finishing the book were Wow! What an amazing, thought provoking read, set in a believable futuristic system for "bad parents".

Summing up, this book really is speculative, futuristic at its best! I really, truly enjoyed reading the book. It really had me counting down to my “reading me time.”

The name of the book is the name of an institution for the mothers who are inadequate in taking care of their children. Frida leaves her child for 2.5 hours for some kind work , totally neglecting her child and causing problem and hence she lands in the institution where she and other such parents are de to learn and understand how to be good parents and recieve sever punishments.
Reading this book, messed with my emotions a lot. I felt really and and negative while reading it.

I struggled with this book. I found the main character so annoying and so unlikeable that I couldnt find any empathy for her at all. Maybe I wasn't the right target audience for this book but it just didnt tick any boxes for me. I found myself skimmimg the book to see if it got any better, but it didn't.. If you love to hate characters then this is the perfect read. Thank you to the publisher for the ARC

The 'School for Good Mothers' is somewhat misnamed - the institution of the title is in fact a school for bad mothers - or at least, those the state has deemed to be 'bad'. That can be for ridiculously minor things, the sort of thing that every parent, even the best possible ones, will have happen at some point. Small accidents that happened in a moment of inattention, or allowing a child to play in the garden unsupervised.

The central character's misdemeanour is rather more serious - but still not deserving of the punishment it receives. Frida, an exhausted working single mother, leaves her eighteen-month-old daughter home alone for 2.5 hours in order to collect some papers from her workplace. Certainly something that should not have happened - but from an otherwise at least adequate parent, who had never left her child before, the reaction seems absurd. Frida's child is taken from her, and she is sentenced to an entire year at the sinister school, where she and other 'bad mothers' will be educated to be better parents with the assistance of creepy AI dolls.

The whole concept is deeply, deeply disturbing. The treatment of the mothers in no less than torture. Prisoners who have committed the most serious crimes are better cared for. They are denied contact with their children, stripped of all their possessions - even their clothes - and unable to leave. Failing the course will lead to their child being taken permanently from them and being added to a 'register' which will notify the entire neighbourhood that an unfit mother has arrived in their midst every time they move. And the course is insanely difficult, setting standards that no human could hope to meet.

Not only is the idea deeply cruel to the mothers, but also to the children they are separated from, and even to the artificial intelligence dolls which despite being able to feel real pain and experience real emotions, are then subjected to emotional and physical abuse at the insistence of the course trainers. Whether that is 'OK' or not given that the dolls are not living humans is ethically debatable but certainly I felt it was wrong.

So it's powerfully written and compelling and does a very good job of making the point that no parent is perfect and expecting them to be so is silly. Of course excesses of behaviour - abuse - should be prevented, wherever possible by supporting the parents and keeping families together. But most of the characters depicted are not 'abusive' or 'bad' parents in the way the average person would consider.

The detail of the concept though I found less convincing. The practical considerations alone don't ring true - firstly, it goes against all accepted good practice in social work, not least by being incredibly cruel to the poor children affected. Secondly it must have been insanely expensive, particularly as it seemed the mothers were being set up to fail - so it was going to be ineffective at its stated aim of rehabilitating parents. Thirdly the treatment of the intelligent dolls was inconsistent - they were supposed to be cherished and treated as normal children, but were simultaneously treated by the establishment as equipment only. Fourthly, it made no sense to teach the mothers how to care for a child of the age their child was when they were taken away - since their own child would be a year older by the time they returned.

It would have been useful to understand more about the author's intentions in the book. Is it intended as a satire of the over-idealisation of motherhood and the unrealistic expectations society places on mothers? It doesn't read as such, but that might be an interpretation. Or are we supposed to believe this is being presented as a plausible near future scenario? I also disliked the way that social workers were made out to be villains, characterised as uncaring monsters who only wanted to take children away from parents. This may be a popular trope, but it is not an accurate one and does a great disservice to professionals who do their best for families.

Ultimately this is a compelling story which will make you angry, and certainly I was keen to read to the end. Frida did frustrate me at times, but nowhere near as much as the system she was stuck within. But it would have had more of an impact on me if I'd found it believable. I can easily believe a system set up by humans could be that cruel, that totalitarian, and that unreasonable. But I couldn't see what benefit the system would deliver for those running it, and so for me the concept didn't work out.

I found this quite a challenge to read. At first it comes across as a realist depiction of a single mother trying to juggle work and childcare while coping with the emotional upset of an ex husband now living with a younger woman who he had been having an affair with. Frida makes one big error of judgement one day when she leaves her baby alone in the house. The authorities are alerted, the baby is taken off her and the rest ofvthe novel deals with her re education at the titular 'school for good mothers'
I found the book relentlessly depressing and the outcome fairly predictable. It was all very negative in a Handmaid's Tale kind of way. As the narrative progressed I found it harder to suspend my disbelief and became very frustrated.

Despite my reservations I would still recommend this book for its interesting and thought provoking treatment of the ethics of state intervention in parenting

A slice of dystopia which really had me hooked! I found the novel unsettling st times but added to the enjoyment of the book would recommend!

This just didn't work for me at all. While I know that the State already does some pretty scary things when it decides that someone isn't a good enough parent, it was so clear that the program really wasn't going to improve anyone's parenting skills which made the whole thing pointless.

I get that there was an underlying message, but I don't think I was really the target audience for it. Having really looked forward to this, ultimately I was disappointed.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC without obligation.

This is a dystopian new world story.
Not my usual read however, it was pretty understandable even for me!

So here’s a Mother with a young child left to bring her child up alone. Her husband went off with a younger woman. He still takes time for his child and her but, Frida is trying to work, look after her child, come to grips with dealing with her family and her Chinese inheritance with they’re ways and rituals of “doing things”, and still being accepted on both sides of her life.

We learn of Frida even more, her thoughts, her depression, her insecurities.

One day, when Frida is overwhelmed, overtired she finds herself leaving her child in the home alone and walking out for a breather. However, it was for two hours and not a breather outside the front door.

She was reported.

The bit that took some stars away for me were:

1- she was having a bad day
2- her remorse was redeeming herself by excusing her actions although acknowledging it’s something she shouldn’t have done.

I’m never a person to judge (and yes! I know it’s fiction) but it’s said to be a “mistake”.
A mistake is when you mess up, when you’re judgement is off. I fully understand that. So my opinion would be that Frida DID have serious things going on to just walk out leaving her child, wouldn’t you?

Maybe I’m analysing this just a little too much……
But in this dystopian new world where she’s sentenced to be with other Mothers who have neglected or abused their children….The School Of Good Mothers (which is harsh and uses deprivation and the loss of they’re children as threats and aims for perfection!) there is no doubt, no doubt at all she didn’t love her child.

Her daughter is now staying with her ex and the woman. Even worse scenario for Frida.

It was the word “mistake” I couldn’t swallow. It’s not a mistake she could rectify and neither is it a mothers usual reaction. So I’d day Frida needed help, not retribution.

But it’s dystopian right?

It’s very well written and I loved the writing a lot.
I just couldn’t buy into this story.

It’s said to be the new Handmaids Tale. Now whether that’s directly from the author or the idea of the Publishers, please do not be swayed by that at all.

It’s an impressive read, it’s a worrying concerning read if it were ever true yet, definitely not anywhere near The Maidens Tale.

Read it in its own right.

Just before I wrote my review I went to look at others thoughts.
They are very varied, so, I think this book is open to interpretation and what you get out of it.

So give it a go, I’d hate to put anyone off.

It’s a debut. And I’d definitely look out for another from her as I like her writing just not the concept

A good book makes you feel and it definitely did that. The feeling was unsettling and uncomfortable as the scenario of punishing and separating parents from their children. Various minor and major infractions and the regime that they are forced to endure makes for uncomfortable reading. Glad I stuck with the book but not the ending I was hoping for

From the start I found this really hard to get into. It took a good few chapters before I actually knew what the hell was going on. It was very slow paced and didn't really have any feeling written in it. Then the ending just seemed to have been dropped out of thin air. Chapters seemed to end just as it was starting to get meaty. Most of the time it just left me hanging and wanting more and not in a good way. Unfortunately I was really looking forward to this novel as the premise sounded interesting but this really failed to deliver.