Adult Fiction
Reviewed by Janine from the Winkler Branch
Frida Liu had one very bad day. Because of this very bad day, Frida loses custody of her 18 month old daughter Harriet and is sentenced to a year in a government run parental reform school where the motto is "I am a bad mother but I am learning to be good." Here, the mothers are required to take parenting classes using life-like dolls that function as real children in the hopes that by the end of the year they will have their children returned to them. The instructors are unforgiving and any missteps on the part of the mothers can cause the loss of their weekly phone call with their child, or time spent in talk circle. Frida's sole focus is getting Harriet back and despite her growing relationship with Emanuelle, her doll daughter, life at the school is difficult and the many distractions cause Frida to lose focus and her ultimate goal is soon in jeopardy.
I started off really struggling to get into this book. I don't think I even made it through the first chapter before I had to stop for awhile. Every mom has had days where they just want to run away from it all but reading about someone actually doing it was difficult for me. Eventually I picked it up again and once I got into it, I found the book really interesting, although there were still parts that were hard to read. There were often times that I found myself yelling at Frida in my head as she made one questionable decision after another. I also found the instructors treatment of the mothers difficult to read. They were very harsh with the mothers and often shamed them for their choices. Despite all of that, and the fact that I didn't really care for the ending, I still liked the book. While I found the concept of the school interesting, I found myself wondering how or if it would work in real life. While there may be parents out there who could benefit from a program like this, I don't think the way they went about it was the most effective. I would recommend this book, especially if you like dystopian fiction.
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