Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme that was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners but is now currently being hosted by Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog. This meme is quite easy to follow – just randomly pick a book from your to-be-read list and give the reasons why you want to read it. It is that simple.

This week’s book:

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

Blurb from Goodreads

In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.

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.

This propulsive, witty page-turner explores the perils of “perfect” upper-middle-class parenting, the violence enacted upon women by the state and each other, and the boundless love a mother has for her daughter.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy first day of the week everyone! I hope you enjoyed the weekend like I did. I spent it catching up with old friends, some of whom I haven’t met in five years! I spent two days catching up about life and about our hometown over food and cups of coffee. On another note, I hope you are all surrounded with love and by people who love and cherish you. I pray that you are all doing well, in body, mind, and spirit, despite the tumult that has enveloped us these past few years. Things are certainly looking up and I hope that the upward trajectory will continue in the coming months. Despite the dark and uncertain times, hope still spring eternal. We can only hope and pray that we are getting to the end of this proverbial tunnel. Small rays of light but it provides hope nonetheless. It is my fervent prayer that the pandemic will end soon.

I know, we often feel sluggish coming on the first day of the week but Mondays are springboards for the rest of the week. Mondays have become synonymous with Goodreads Monday updates. Blogging-wise, Mondays give me the chance to share books that are part of my reading list. I am making steady progress on all my backlogs, thankfully; I still have quite a lot though. But hey, I will take it one step at a time. For the past Goodreads Monday updates, I have been featuring 2022 books that I have recently added to my reading list. For this week’s update, I am featuring Jessamine Chan’s The School for Good Mothers.

It was while researching for books to add to my 2022 Books I Look Forward To List that I first came across Jessamine Chan and The School for Good Mothers. It was a strong candidate for the list but in the end, I had to cut it off because there were several great candidates and it was a challenge picking which ones stand out. This, however, did not stop me from adding the book to my growing reading list. Interestingly, or perhaps not, the book is Chan’s debut novel. Her short stories have been featured in several publications and this is her first venture into full-length prose. What piqued my interest further was the book’s premise: a dystopian world where a mother has to fight for the right to keep her daughter. Somehow, the first image that came to mind was Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

Recently released, I am crossing my fingers that I will get to obtain a copy of the book without much trouble. How about you fellow reader? What 2022 books are you looking forward to? I hope you could share it in the comment box. For now, happy Monday, and as always, happy reading!

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