Welcome to Litsy!

3⭐️ While the concept is interesting, I didn‘t really get into the book. It was too creepy for my liking. #2024 #contemporary #dystopian #fiction #bookclub #thriller

Left me gutted

I liked this book because it did have amazing dialogue on how we treat and judge mothers in society. How mothers are supposed to always be 'on' and never have feelings, just being robots essentially. This book will make you feel all the feelings as a mother, but I did get a little bored in the middle. I felt like it just kept going and going. I think this would have been a better novella. Also, that ending... 3.5/5

This was a tough read. I honestly almost wanted to DNF it a couple of times.

The story centers around Frida, the huge mistake she made as a mother and the extreme consequence of those actions.

I had to keep reminding myself that this was fiction, it felt that close to reality. It made me question a lot about the pressures mothers deal with (internal and external).

Read this!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book is terrifying…

This book would've been better off as a short story or a novella. It was an interesting concept, but it dragged and felt super repetitive. Instead of packing an Atwood level punch as promised in the blurbs, it just felt bleak and miserable.

And the reading marathon continues...🤓

Claustrophobic and enraging, and overall pretty well done. But man, is it bleak. A soft pick.

Look. It‘s not my fault that there is a bookstore near the medical center. One deserves a treat for getting one‘s physical.

Was really close to the mall after lunch, so I ended up doing a little shopping. Definitely had to stop at Barnes and Noble! #bookhaul

This book was very thought provoking. You can‘t fit love and mothering into a mold to make some one ‘good.‘ Also an interesting narrative on how women and men are treated so differently in the expectations of parenting.

Holy crap this book is effing terrifying.
This is dystopian fiction but very plausible 👀

#LiteraryLadiesBookClub

A tough one - Freda leaves her toddler alone for a few hours and ends up in a dystopian 1 year programme to retrain her and others into good motherhood. Some of this was really captivating and there is clearly a social commentary that I enjoyed BUT didn‘t feel the world was well built, how did they get there? Why was no one interested in where these women were? Does mean I hit my #jubilentjuly goal of daily reading !

Great story but rage inducing!

A women who leaves her daughter alone is given a one year sentence at a school that teaches mothers to be "good." Although Frida's time at the school felt a bit dragged out, it also allowed to see how ridiculous the whole concept is. My heart broke for Frida.

6/2023

This didn‘t work for me. I found the writing completely flat and it just didn‘t hold my interest at all. For the story it was trying to tell it completely lacked any emotion or depth. I‘ve read many great dystopians and this one just didn‘t stand up to any of them

This blew me away, but I wouldn‘t say that‘s a positive thing. Parallels to current society, what it means to be a “good mother,” the glaring differences between how the mothers and fathers were treated - all very unsettling, and a reminder that women are so often still considered “less than.” Sometimes downright scary to read, but I‘d still recommend it!

Apt for Mothers Day! ?
Frida loses custody of her Toddler after leaving her home alone and is sent to "school" to be taught how to be a "good mother".

It was an emotional and uncomfortable dystopian read. A mix of a modern-day Handmaid's Tale and Orange is the New Black. I think it would be a good book club choice as there's lots of themes to discuss. It also has you question if you are a "good mother". A rough read.

I don‘t deal very well with books about perfect mothers or, in this case, about mothers teached to be perfect. Or what is supposed to be perfect. I guess I could have known but I needed a book to tick-off the #ReproductiveRights prompt of #Booked2023 (and yes I know it‘s a bit far fetched). Also the dystopian part of the book felt so lazily done. Nothing is dystopian in the book except for that stupid school.

(Pic: Vermeer exhibition 🥰)

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2. Probably barely a pick for me. I liked a lot about this speculative fiction featuring a mother who made a poor decision while her daughter was in her care. I felt it dragged a bit about halfway through and I became less engaged. Overall a super interesting premise that was well developed. I wanted to love it, not just like it. I‘ll be interested in what she writes next.

Mothers who have committed transgressions are sent to a government run school where they will learn to be “good” and their every move will be watched. I love books with a dystopian/alternate reality vibe. This was gripping, I couldn‘t look away, it gave me all the rage and I sped through it, but it was also just so unremittingly sad I just can‘t get past that, the lack of any redeeming hope. I‘m not quite sure yet what to take away from it.

Seeing out the weekend with a glass of Gamay Noir and a title that's been on my #TBR for far too long! #CurrentlyReading

This title was included on the #TimesMagazineTop100ReadsOf2022 and I reluctantly picked it up, to be honest. This story was so very good and terrifying at the same time. And yanks on your emotions while it's busy tying you up in knots. Totally understand now why it was not only a celebrity book pick but also included on the tagged book list.

For the past few months I‘ve been taking screenshots of all the reviews that‘ve intrigued me. They‘re all saved on my phone for whenever I need a little reading inspiration, but now I‘m thinking I might make it into a little reading challenge during one of @Andrew65 ‘s upcoming 9 day readathons. 💖

Tagging everyone who‘s reviews I‘ve saved so far! ☺️

Off to a slow start this year. I should have finished Bono‘s book Surrender but the loan on the audiobook expired with under an hour to go and of course there‘s a lengthy holds line from the library 😩 I‘m 25% of the way through The Stand and I have 3 other books in progress. I‘m kinda all over the place right now but it‘ll come together, eventually!

This is a haunting book that I think will stay with me for a long time and one I'll recommend to many. I found it more chilling than The Handmaid's Tale in that it felt more realistic especially in our current era where women's rights are being winnowed away. This sheds a light on so much that's wrong in our society - from misogyny to racism. And I did not see the ending coming! An amazing debut novel.

A dystopian future in which the surveillance state separates parents from their children at the slightest perceived infraction. Mothers are judged more harshly than fathers, people of color more than White people, etc. An intriguing premise and very well-written!

4⭐️/5⭐️

3 out of 5

An intriguing read.

Read for reading challenges,

4/5

This story really intrigued me. It provoked a lot of deep thoughts and was delightfully dark throughout.

I loved this book. Frida is a struggling single mother who has a very bad day and the state send her away for a year to teach her how to be a good mother. It‘s like The Handmaid‘s Tale meets One flew over the cuckoos nest. It is so immersive and scary and I still can‘t stop thinking about it. Loved it so much, I read it on my kindle but had to buy the hardback. (God bless Waterstones hardback sale).😉

This was a terrific book club discussion, but not really a terrific book! I both liked and disliked the story as well as the protagonist. Lots of emotions. It‘s a mix of The Handmaid‘s Tale and Orange is the New Black. I went through looking for #Pop23 readers. If you‘d prefer not to be tagged, let me know! #Pop23 ~ A book that‘s on a celebrity book-club list #ReaderHarder23 ~ social horror

My last book of 2022, reaching 45 for the year. The most I have read in years. Stepping away from my phone and spending more time reading has reminded me why it is my favourite thing to do. This book is an insightful view on a direction you can quite easily see modern society going. Whilst it is easy to judge the main character, the skill of the author encourages you to look at all sides. A little woolly in the middle but it finished strong. 3/5

Lots of feelings about this one. A near future dystopia where CPS is in overdrive and sends mothers to a reeducation camp where they must learn to be good mothers to robot dolls before their children can be returned to them. Felt a bit long in the middle and sometimes a touch too over the top, but made me think and brought me to tears close to the end.

A moment of distraction and newly-separated mother Frida is adjudged unfit to be a mother without undergoing a program designed to turn bad mothers into good. Creepy and all-too-believable dystopia which raises some important questions, not least about the role of the state in parenting.

Somehow I ended up in WH Smith and then these somehow got bought. Weird.

I didn‘t really want to read this one but it‘s on the long list of the #TOB23 and my library had it. Is another definition of dystopian “super creepy”. Because this book is that. A mother makes a mistake one day, one very bad day, and has to go to a school for a year to learn how to be a ‘good mother‘, knowing that she may lose her child if she‘s not perfect at the school. While the book could have been shorter, it packs some powerful messages.

I appreciate that everyone getting their tires changed over to winter tires agreed to mute the volume so we could all read our books. #Vermonters

#tob

Frida leaves her daughter home alone for a couple of hours and gets sent to school to learn how to parent again.

I‘m giving this a soft pick as it was certainly a page-turner, although there was a lot I didn‘t like. It‘s billed as dystopia, which it is, and there was a lot that felt like it could really happen. However there was no set-up as to how this point had been reached, and everything else in the world, other than the school ⬇️

Oof, I just can‘t with all the mom-judgements and piling-on, even if it is done with satire in mind. I bumped this back onto my radar with all the end of year hype and the fact it made the #toblonglist but I felt like I was being buried in bad news and inescapable horridness while reading this. TOD 20%

My attention span issue is getting me into a little bit of trouble… I wasn‘t able to finish Night of the Living Deed before I had to send it on… but I bought it so I can finish it anyway! I *am* enjoying it! And I‘m hoping to finish Wine & Roquefort before I have to send *that* one in… just a couple days!

But I‘m also happily reading the School (horrifying!), and I have the other 2 that I‘m waiting to get back to once my holds come up!

😳😳😳

15-21 Sep 22 (audiobook)
Another from the Obama list.
Frieda has a ‘bad day‘ and finds herself at the school for good mothers - a correctional facility for mothers, guilty of some minor and a few fairly major infractions.
This raises interesting questions: when should the state interfere in parenting issues, do we believe in redemption, how do you balance child protection and parental rights, are there double standards for fathers and mothers?

Not one of my favorites.

This was a strange book. A bit slow, confusing and disturbing but compelling and thought provoking too. Quite unlike anything I‘ve ever read.

SUPER SALE ALERT! @TrishB @Caroline2 @Oryx @RaeLovesToRead @Leniverse @CGainor3 @youneverarrived @jenniferw88 @rockpools

The novel begins with Frida leaving her 18 month old unattended for 2.5 hours. Do I approve? Absolutely not. Unfit parent or delirious decision? The rest of the novel explores “bad parents”, their reeducation in a dystopian school, and surveillance. Taking uncomfortable or believable reactions and skewing them just a little bit more, made this novel engrossing.