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_tamara8464's review against another edition
1.0
When I think of the definition of boring, I will think of A Good Enough Mother. Perhaps it is not my type of book. Usually l like books that have a story. This one seems to be overly detailed without much to the story.
bookswritingandmore's review against another edition
5.0
Ruth Hartland is a psychotherapist with years of experience. But professional skill is no guard against private grief. The mother of grown twins, she is haunted by the fact that her beautiful, difficult, fragile son Tom, a boy who never "fit in," disappeared a year and a half earlier. She cannot give up hope of finding him, but feels she is living a kind of half-life, waiting for him to return.
Enter a new patient, Dan--unstable and traumatized--who looks exactly like her missing son. She is determined to help him, but soon, her own complicated feelings, about how she has failed her own boy, cloud her professional judgement. And before long, the unthinkable becomes a shattering reality....
This book was so creepy but in a good way. The story was told from Ruth's point of view. We got to read stories of her happier times with family life, her therapy clients and her life as it is now. She was a great voice to read. Her character was going through so much but still did her absolute best to hold it together.
A Good Enough Mother is a remarkable novel, and I expect it to be in my top books of the year. It is intelligent, ambitious and incredibly disturbing. It is also brilliantly written, completely human and so intense.
Utterly riveting and very very highly recommended from me.
Enter a new patient, Dan--unstable and traumatized--who looks exactly like her missing son. She is determined to help him, but soon, her own complicated feelings, about how she has failed her own boy, cloud her professional judgement. And before long, the unthinkable becomes a shattering reality....
This book was so creepy but in a good way. The story was told from Ruth's point of view. We got to read stories of her happier times with family life, her therapy clients and her life as it is now. She was a great voice to read. Her character was going through so much but still did her absolute best to hold it together.
A Good Enough Mother is a remarkable novel, and I expect it to be in my top books of the year. It is intelligent, ambitious and incredibly disturbing. It is also brilliantly written, completely human and so intense.
Utterly riveting and very very highly recommended from me.
katie_esh's review against another edition
3.0
Even though this is marketed as a thriller, I would describe it as a mysterious family drama. It is well researched and gives readers information about therapeutic practices for trauma. I was intrigued from the start, but the cliffhangers at the end of each chapter made me groan rather than leave me wanting more. I feel distracted by the many subplots and struggled to find the relevance in some of them. Overall, it was just OK!
guylou's review against another edition
4.0
QOTD: What’s one movie you watched over 20 times?
My Review:
Seventeen-year-old Tom has disappeared without a trace over a year ago and Ruth has been lost ever since. She misses her son so much and constantly think she sees him sitting at a café or standing on a train platform or walking on the opposite sidewalk. It is never him. Movie obsessed Dan is her new patient and he resembles a lot Tom. As a therapist, Ruth knows that she should pass on Dan’s case to another therapist but she can’t let go. Dan is a very disturbed young man who has just been traumatized. Ruth sees the signs of danger but is blinded by her desire to redeem herself. She is hoping to rescue him and erase the guilt of her failure with her own son. Dan in getting too close and Ruth has trapped herself in too many lies. When Dan discovers the truth, he unleashes his anger. Who will get hurt? Who will suffer?
This is such a great psychological thriller. It is a very emotional story which deals with mental diseases, the loss of a child and the inability to move on. Bev Thomas slowly paints the story and delivers a surprising punch, and completes the story with a triumph. Beautifully written, I recommend this book wholeheartedly.
Thank you Penguin Random House Canada and NetGalley for my advanced copy of this fantastic book. A Good Enough Mother by Bev Thomas will be available at your favourite bookstore on April 30, 2019.
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paigepeploe's review against another edition
Incredibly boring and hard to follow by audiobook. Too many characters and not enough thrilling aspects.
jesssalexander's review against another edition
2.0
This book is heavy handed with ominous foreshadowing and heavy foreboding. Par for the course with a thriller I suppose, but it carried the plot a bit more than necessary. I had a lot of feelings about Ruth, most of which ran along the lines of screaming WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING about her every decision. Bev Thomas is a psychologist herself and the patient-therapist dialogues were super interesting and definetly felt authentic. The protagonist, Ruth is a renowned psychotherapist dealing with trauma victims and also a mother of twins, now fully grown. She spends the entirety of her kids' childhood coddling the boy and basically forgetting her daughter exists (and her husband for that matter). By the time they reach adulthood, the daughter is self-sufficient and distant and the son runs away. (Ruth was NOT a good enough mother). The story begins when Ruth- now separated from her husband- gets a new patient who happens to bear a startling resemblance to her son who's been missing for a year and a half. Despite her training and her best judgement, Ruth makes a series of really horrible decisions that lead to more horribleness. The whole book is kind of a huge downer actually. I think Bev Thomas was too kind to Ruth in the end, maybe being a psychologist herself she wanted to be gentle. Maybe I'm spiteful but I think the ending would have been more satisfying if she'd had her license stripped rather than voluntarily stepped out of the field. Everyone was far too sympathetic! And the bit with the letter from Alaska in the end??? Is this a Disney movie or a suspense novel?
abilene's review against another edition
3.0
I liked the story itself but the book was just so slow & felt anticlimactic, even when the “twist” happened.
fizzy_reads's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
panele_zi's review against another edition
3.0
Pagrindinė veikėja Rut Hartland - psichoterapeutė, turi du vaikus (dvynius), vienas dingsta, kitai taip gerai viskas sekasi ir yra tokia pamiršta motinos, kad išvažiuoja į kitą žemyną. O kur dar iširusi santuoka ir pacientas labai panašus į jos sūnų. Dabartis susipina su praeitimi, atgyja skaudūs prisiminimai, kaltinimai, klaidos. Labai stipriu trileriu nepavadinčiau, nes intriga atsirado gal tik paskutiniuose 50psl. Bet šiaip visai patiko.
marshaskrypuch's review against another edition
5.0
Each character in this novel is shown with all their flaws and strengths in achingly real scenes and images. Ruth, as the director of a trauma therapy unit, is supposed to heal victims of horrific crimes and circumstances who are living with emotional trauma, but she has suffered herself as well, and she has no one to turn to for her own healing. Reading this novel is like watching a car crash in slow motion: you know what's coming but you just can't stop looking. Brilliantly compassionate and satisfying read. Good to the last page.