The School for Good Mothers: ‘Will resonate with fans of Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere’ ELLE

Toll!

Omg. Die Fantasie vieler ‚perfekten‘ Mütter als Buch. Ich bin schockiert, begeistert und denke, die Autorin hat visionäre Ideen. Absolut leSenswert.

39-year-old Frida, divorced and mother of toddler Harriet, has had a really bad day. She has just wanted to sneak out of her house for a few minutes to buy a coffee, leaving Harriet at home unsupervised, but then decided to drop by her workplace to get some important files. When she gets home, her daughter has been taken by social services. Neighbours of Frida’s heard Harriet crying and reported her.The state then decides that Frida will lose custody of her daughter until she is deemed fit to look after her again. She has to be re-trained and re-educated for one year at a so-called “school for good mothers”, where she is supervised 7/24 and has to obey harsh and strict rules in order to become a good mother. She is assigned a “robot daughter” to practice how to give the perfect hugs, how to soothe correctly or how to put her daughter to sleep in record time. If she doesn’t get good scores, she is punished by not being allowed to talk to Harriet, who lives with her father and his new partner, on the phone. As her training is nearing its end, it seems more and more unlikely that Frida will pass the final tests and get her daughter back …This is a very disturbing and thought-provoking novel that gives you goosebumps. Sometimes it seemed so unrealistic that I almost laughed, but then I thought: Well, this could all be possible one day, couldn’t it? The description of the school’s training was getting a bit tedious at times, and you don’t really get to know the other women at that school properly since all conversations were supervised and the women had to be very careful about what they said and how much. The story centers around Frida, who tries very hard to prove that she is a good mother. We witness her fears, her doubts, her desperation, her hope and pray that she may be reunited with her daughter. I could relate to almost all of Frida’s feelings and reactions.What I really liked about this book was that I couldn’t really anticipate the ending. In my mind there were various scenarios and ultimately, I was taken by surprise at the end.Overall, this dystopian novel is an intriguing read, which I highly recommend if you are into that kind of dystopian fiction.