Reviews with content warning for Forced institutionalization - The School for Good Mothers

Reviews tagging 'Forced institutionalization'

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

150 reviews

ehmannky's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

An intense dystopian view of modern motherhood, complete with the social expectations to be perfect, to never accidentally or purposefully harm a child, racist expectations, strangers thinking they know best, and the fear of losing your child for "abusive behavior." After Frida leaves her toddler alone for 2 hours, she loses custody and is forced to go to the School for Good Mothers to regain a chance to even have visiting rights again. But the school itself, an intensification of motherhood with Silicon Valley horror with every interaction quantified and measured, is set up for people to fail. It's a heartbreaking look at motherhood, with what happens when social nets fall through and when mothers are expected to be perfect, no exceptions. I really liked that all the "Bad Mothers" were lumped together--Frida and other mothers who "abandoned" their children (some just having abandoned them to walk a few blocks by themselves, left them with a 12-year-old niece to babysit, etc.) with those who have done more serious things like hitting and leaving children in a hole. The book asks us to think if any of these women (and their children) really deserve to be subject to the terror and trauma of separation and that there has to be a better way to ensure safety for children without tearing them from their parents.

I think that while the middle school sections were a bit too long (I think this book could easily be 50 or so pages shorter), this is still a fabulous book.

Spoiler

I was *sobbing* at the end when you learn that Frida and her parents don't regain any kind of custody and are just expected to be fine not seeing Harriet until she's 18

Content Warnings

ohheytaylorrae's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

tiredenglishteacher's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Heartbreaking, haunting, scathing assessment of the ways in which mothers and fathers are held to different standards. A story that will stay with me for a long time.

Content Warnings

heynonnynonnie's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is such a heartbreaking book. I like sad books and man, this was sometimes hard to keep reading. But there's so many beautiful sentences and hidden nuance here that I couldn't leave the book alone for long. I kept switching between audiobook, hardcover, and ebook, and I kept leaving notes and thoughts all over the three formats because I kept finding things that hit so strongly.

This book really took the concept of unsympathetic and white dystopians and fkn smashed it into the ground. It doesn't feel like there's distance when reading. It doesn't really feel like an abstraction or like everything is cloaked in layers of metaphor and symbolism. Felt like I was being crushed the whole time. Did I cry? Yup. Did I spend a lot of time thinking about how angry I got when people tried to question the non-white parts of my upbringing? Oh absolutely.

I love this book as a metaphor for the harm that model minority mentality creates for the individual who follows it and the people it ostracizes. At first, I wasn't a big fan of the ending, but I found there was a lot of depth and satisfaction in it when I explored the model minority metaphor more fully.

Content Warnings

savannah98's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Four stars instead of five because I feel like there should’ve been one more chapter at the end. It felt like the book ended right at the climax of the story.

CPS is already almost to this point in America, and that’s what makes this story so haunting. Aside from the reeducation camps, CPS can do any of the things shown in this book. They can rip children out of homes with little to no evidence of abuse or neglect. They can place children in foster care for differences in opinions on parenting tactics. For clutter in a home, for a parent failing a drug test for marijuana, for getting a second doctors opinion on a medical issue. You thought SIDS was scary enough as is? What if I told you that CPS can use that as an excuse to take your other children out of your custody as well, even though the cause of SIDS is still undetermined and is not in any way linked to parental failure?

This novel is not haunting because it tells of some dystopian world that could never exist where lives can be ruined and families ripped apart over any reason the government picks. It’s haunting because it is so adjacent to reality and the horror that many families are currently facing due to government overreach.

Content Warnings

jourdanicus's review against another edition

Go to review page

Enraging and depressing. I get that Frida is probably not supposed to be a likeable character, and I usually like unlikeable/unreliable narrators, but she (and the other characters tbh) didn't even seem that well-developed either. I struggled to get through the story from her perspective. I wish the commentary on social inequity had more nuance and depth, that really could have saved the book for me.

Content Warnings

friendofdorothea's review against another edition

Go to review page

hopeful slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I think the premise was a lot better than the execution. The book could have been a lot shorter and many parts dragged on. Also since the mothers in the book did do some pretty bad stuff that kind of went against the point that mothers are overly punished for how they parent. Of course it was to the extreme but I think the point of the book could have been stronger if the main character didn’t really do anything and was punished for it. I do think the book made its point but I would recommend the handmaids tale before this.

Content Warnings