REVIEW: The School For Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

Title: The School For Good Mothers

Author: Jessamine Chan

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Published Date: January 4, 2022

Genre: Science Fiction, Contemporary

Rating:  ★★⍣☆☆

REVIEW

I normally would not have picked up this style of science fiction book, however, I have been trying to read a wider variety in the genre. I have read a lot of space opera's and dystopian literature, but not very many contemporary science fiction. Sadly, reading this I understand why I don't gravitate towards them. 

SYNOPSIS

"Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. What’s worse is she can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with their angelic daughter Harriet does Frida finally feel she’s attained the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she’s just enough.

Until Frida has a horrible day.

The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida — ones who check their phones while their kids are on the playground; who let their children walk home alone; in other words, mothers who only have one lapse of judgement. Now, a host of government officials will determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion. Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that she can live up to the standards set for mothers — that she can learn to be good."

MY THOUGHTS

My main issue with this book is an issue I have with a lot of contemporary literature. I understand that experimenting with style and sentence structure/story structure is metaphorical, overly descriptive, and more artistically styled than genre fiction. This book almost felt like it wasn't a science fiction book at all. Instead, it was heavy contemporary where robots just happen to exist. What annoyed me the most was the structure of how the characters talk. Half of the thoughts would be said out loud, then the second half would read like they were simply thoughts. Here is an example:

"I'm not going to leave my daughter to die in a hot car," Frida says. "I'd never do that." and why is the school allowed to torture them? With videos of their own kids? 

"Torture is not a word to use lightly," the counselor says. 

This happens on just about every page where characters are discussing anything. It made me really confused as to what were just thoughts and what was actually being said out loud because characters would respond half the time. 

However, I did really enjoy the social commentary. This is one of my favorite things about reading sci-fi. When the author is able to hone in and make an important point, or bring up a real-life issue, it makes me think about life and my potential faults. One thing I thought was very poignant was that the main character, Frida, was the only Asian American mother in the "school". Every mother was being taught to raise their daughters in exactly the same way without regard to culture. Sure, they were taught that there may be differences, but that the emotionless and cold way that immigrants bring up their children is "un-American" and "wrong". This really made me think. Although I am childfree, I can sympathize with these mothers situations. I think this school that was supposedly created for the parents and children's benefits, did a horrible job of enforcing stereotypes rather than actually teaching any parenting skills. 

There wasn't really much else to this book thought. It was very drawn out and repetitive, and although this book takes place over a year, the characters just remained stagnant because the pacing was so slow. I did enjoy the touch of sci-fi, but do wish that the book leaned more heavily into the dystopian nature rather than taking the emotional route. I wanted to learn more about the program rather than just reading the characters experience with it. I also wish there was more social commentary on the CPS, because when I picked up this book, I was expecting some super dark dystopia with more information on how it was created or something. There just didn't seem to be a lot of depth in this book. 

Overall, I think the fact that this book leaned more contemporary rather than dystopian/sci-fi worked against it. But seeing as this is a debut, I think the author has proven that she has good ideas. Many enjoyed that it was soft in the sci-fi area and I think because of that, it can reach a larger audience.