The School for Good Mothers (Chan)
(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)
This was a book club selection and was a little difficult to get a copy of. There was a long wait at two libraries from the ebook, the print edition and the audio (which I really didn't want because I figured it'd be abridged). I also didn't realize that it was published in 2022, so of course it was difficult to get a copy of. Additionally, it was a selection for a celebrity book club. (I was told it was one of the Bush daughters, but I didn't verify this.)
As a writer, I see that a lot of magazines publish "literary fiction", which I'm at a loss to explain just what that is. This book is listed as literary fiction. So now I know. It's boring and depressing, even when it has elements of science fiction. Those elements aren't emphasized. They're just there to be assumed to be real, and go from there. Any questions or ideas that my sci-fi-oriented mind mind veer off into didn't pan out. That's fine, though, because it wasn't the point of the book.
The book is basically a downward spiral for the main character and a study on government overreach and bureaucracy. Frida is a new mother who is also newly divorced. She has a "bad day" and leaves her daughter alone at home for a couple of hours. (It should've been a quick trip for a file.) Social services get involved and the child is taken away from her. She isn't allowed to see Harriet any more.
Harriet remains in the custody of her father and his new girlfriend/wife. Throughout all of this, those two are supportive and don't think Friday should be denied access to Harriet, but they don't have any say in the matter.
Frida is given the option of going to the titular School for Good Mothers, which is a school for bad mothers, as they are constantly reminded. She will attend for a full year of schooling and counseling, at the end of which, if she passes, she will be entitled to see Harriet again. She goes. It's an old college campus in Pennsylvania. There is a Mens school across the lake that they will interact with at times.
The sci-fi element comes in when each mother is given a child similar to her own child (or similar to one of her children for some of the mothers). These children are lifelike robots that run on blue goo. The mothers have to teach them new words, learn to love and protect them, and have their children love them back. Frida names hers Emmanuelle.
The dolls record everything, and the school has cameras everywhere. (There are some blind spots.)
The entire curriculum makes it seem like they are being set up to fail. Everything gets recorded in their files. Frida constantly loses phone privileges because of rule changes, her counselor's opinions, and (in my opinion) the author's inability to write more video calls with Harriet. (I could be wrong on that one, but it made it easier.)
Frida pushes herself, denies herself, does everything so she can get Harriet back. And in the end, she fails. I saw this coming, so I kept waiting for the twist. Maybe her lawyer would finally do something worthwhile.
Nope.
It does end with a promise for the future that the whole thing will unravel when questions start getting asked, but it wasn't a satisfying conclusion.
One of the book club has already said she'd like to read a book about the Dad's school. I'd prefer to see a book where some of the dolls become self-aware and they lead the rest of the dolls into a rebellion of sorts.
Next month's book will be a Neil Gaiman book. I suggested three books and that was the one picked. I picked two books that I've been wanting to read but I had a problem with book three -- either they were 400 - 600 pages long or they were popular enough that I assumed the others had read them already. The Graveyard Book was listed as popular on Good Reads, so I picked that one. It won by one vote over the Murderbot series.
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