#the school for good mothers

[igelmanz]

Relaxing after a long hard day of being evil

[tragicallywicked]

I'm selling these custom made funkos on my Etsy, if anyone is interested. There's like, any fandom you can think of. The shop is right here.

[just-a-simple-sapphic]

Expanding the list on what Leo would call Clarissa besides "princess":

Little Dove

Sweet Thing

Sunshine

Darling

Doll

Angel

Good Girl (😏)

Feel free to add

[flameobitch]

I'm waiting for the premiere of the series just because of them

[sjohnsonwriter-blog]

Was a book club and the first question was, "Was this story worth being told?"

Complete silence.

I raise my hands. "Is the point of a book not to be entertained?"

I might be in the wrong line of work because my stories aren't worth being told. I just like to talk and entertain people. Lol.

[arclic-stuff]

The gremlin in my head coming up with Lady Lesso and Andy fic ideas after watching SGE and rewarching The Old Guard.

[tribricies]

ICONS SOPHIE | THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL

follow me for more edits

please, like or reblog if you use/save

[thingsreadinthedark]

Yo, I’ve been reading for almost three weeks and it’s honestly the craziest, most disturbing book that I’ve read in a long time. It’s so well written.

The ways that these mothers are punished for simple, albeit sometimes terrible mistakes and all too easy to make mistakes is honestly nuts.

The school is terrifying. I don’t know what else to say tbh. It’s freaky. I find it truly fascinating tho.

[semper-legens]

166. The School for Good Mothers, by Jessamine Chan

Owned: No, library Page count: 319 My summary: Frida made a mistake. She left her child alone for two hours, and now she cannot see her child again. Not unless she completes the programme. Isolated in a college campus, left to look after a strangely lifelike robot referred to as a 'doll', she must learn to be a good mother. Or her life will fall apart even more than it already has... My rating: 5/5 My commentary:

I don't particularly know why I picked this book up. It's certainly not the kind of thing I usually read - a contemporary look at motherhood and what it means to have a child with the premise of a slightly-in-the-future training school for 'bad' mothers - but I am so glad that I read it. There's a lot going on in this book; it's a really interesting dissection of the idea of motherhood, the impossible standards placed on women and placed on mothers, the American ideal of motherhood and how that can be oppressive and hamper the agency of mothers who don't fit the mould, particularly mothers who aren't straight and white. It's a disturbing, well-written field guide to the complex notion of parenthood, and it's definitely worth checking out.

Frida is a bad mother. She left her daughter alone in the house for two hours - she's a single mother, sleep-deprived, and ran out for an errand which ended up taking longer than anticipated. For that, she is denied access to her daughter, and eventually enrolled in the school, a one-year long programme meant to reform bad parents and teach them how to properly raise their children. She's exhausted, stressed, anxious, and trying her best to be the kind of mother that the school really wants. Unfortunately, the deck is already stacked against her. I liked that Frida was both conforming and rebellious - she wants to do whatever it takes to get her daughter back, and sometimes that means submitting to the fascist power structure that seeks to run her life, and sometimes it means working against it. She's trying to make the best of a really complicated situation, balance her needs against the selflessness that's being looked for in the mothers, and keep it together as much as she can so she has a hope of seeing her daughter again. It's an admirable position, and you really can't help but root for her given all that is working against her.

Race is a huge factor in this novel. Frida is Chinese-American, while her ex is a white man. Many of the mothers she's at the school with are Black or Latina, and she notes that the white mothers are often treated better than the non-white mothers by the staff and curriculum. Black and Latina mothers are more likely to get assigned punishment duty scrubbing bathrooms, for example. Frida is the only Asian mother, and occupies a weird no-man's-land - not white enough to be with the white mothers, but seen as being 'better' by the establishment than the Black and Latina mothers, although she's not given a high enough position to be grouped with the white mothers. On days where they are meant to be teaching their kids about racialised violence, the white parents' dolls are railroaded into hurling slurs and racist abuse at the non-white dolls, which is obviously very triggering and traumatic for the mothers, but the people who run the school don't seem to care. Lines, too, are drawn between the kind of parent and upbringing the school wants the mothers to be, and the parents and upbringing the non-white might have had within their culture. Frida notes that her family is a lot more withdrawn than the family the instructors want them to model. Disparaging comments are made to Frida, making assumptions about her life and family because she is Chinese. Even where Frida's family do fit stereotypes around Chinese families, it's still not okay to look down on Frida and assume things about her just based on her ethnicity.

And then there's how the school defines motherhood. The perfect mother is white, middle class, and American. She is selfless, giving, and patient. She never raises her voice, and certainly would never hit a child. She never complains. Her child is the most important - indeed, only important - thing in her life. Her child takes precedence over all else. The various crimes the mothers committed to get sent here are not always proportionate; Frida had one moment of arguable neglect, versus a mother who kept her kids in a hole, versus the mother who lost her kids for checking herself into a psychiatric institution. The tests are near-impossible to pass - not only do the dolls act just like real kids, meaning they're unpredictable and offputting, but every scenario seems rigged against the mothers. Yeah, let's see you focus on your fake kid when you're being shown images of your real kid happily living their life without you. Mothers are also treated differently to fathers - the fathers don't have the quasi-therapy punishment of 'talk circle', never get their right to contact their real kids taken away, and aren't under the same level of scrutiny as the mothers. It really just highlights the extremely narrow and unrealistic expectations of what a mother 'should' be, and it's incredibly effective at executing that. A very worthwhile read, check it out if you get the chance!

Next, fish are walking out of the sea.

[ang3lik]

YOUR SPIDER AND TEDROS FICS ARE TOO GOOD 😩😩 pls say you have more on the way for them??

i do! i do! i promise!!

[dazyd]

the school for good mothers is the most upsetting book i've read in years and i also could not put it down

[dykerory]

i just started the school for good mothers and i can already tell that it's going to be a difficult read in an emotional sense. it's so upsetting already and like she hasn't even gone to the school yet.

[ackb]

2022 Reading Challenge Report

Creating this spread in my journal has become a highlight of my year. Past efforts are here: 2019, 2020, 2021. Each year I spend a little more time on my mini cover drawings and each year I'm a little happier with how they turned out.

My reading goal for the year was 100 books and I barely made it: 101. I had to really book it to reach my goal (heh, see what I did there)

Some years it's sort of hard to pick my "Best Books", but this year it was relatively easy. Eight books in particular really stood out. I could have just left it at eight, but there were two additional authors that I came across this year that I read several books by and am quite sure I will continue gobbling up their oeuvres as long as I can. (I've never in my life seen that word as a plural—can that be right?) So as a 9th pick, I just named them both: Ashley Herring Blake and Alexis Hall. I read several of Blake's books this year that would have absolutely changed my life if they'd been around when I was a kid/teen and Hall is here because literally everything he writes is fucking hilarious.

The full list with metrics are after the jump:

My top 8 and other stand outs are in bold below

Non-Fiction (23)

Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler, Ibi Zoboi

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, Kiese Laymon

(gn) The Drawing Lesson, Mark Crilley

The Art of Visual Notetaking: An Interactive Guide to Visual Communication and Sketchnoting, Emily Mills

(gn) Windows on the World, Robert Mailer Anderson, Jon Sack, Zack Anderson

All Boys Aren't Blue, George M. Johnson

Black Widow: A Sad-Funny Journey Through Grief for People Who Normally Avoid Books with Words Like "Journey" in the Title, Leslie Gray Streeter

(gn) WE HEREBY REFUSE: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration, Frank Abe, Tamiko Nimura, Matt Sasaki (Illustrator), Ross Ishikawa (Illustrator)

(gn) Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, Rebecca Hall, Hugo Martinez (Illustrator)

(gn) Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos, Lucy Knisley

(gn) Foundations of Chinese Civilization: The Yellow Emperor to the Han Dynasty, Jing Liu

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America, Beth Macy

Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement, Tarana Burke

(gn) Go to Sleep (I Miss You): Cartoons from the Fog of New Parenthood, Lucy Knisley

Notes on Grief, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

(gn) The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History, David F. Walker, Marcus Kwame Anderson (Illustrations)

BLUU Notes: An Anthology of Love, Justice, and Liberation, Takiyah Nur Amin, Mykal Slack, eds.

(gn) Passport, Sophia Glock

Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party's Promise to the People, Kekla Magoon

(pb) Nicky & Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued, Peter Sís

Refugee High: Coming of Age in America, Elly Fishman

(pb) Afghan Dreams: Young Voices of Afghanistan, Tony O'Brien, Mike Sullivan

(pb) Wishes, Mượn Thị Văn, Victo Ngai (Illustrator)

Fiction (59)

Red at the Bone, Jacqueline Woodson

American Street, Ibi Zoboi

Husband Material, Alexis Hall

Rise to the Sun, Leah Johnson

(gn) The Last Session, vol. 1, Jasmine Walls, Dozerdraws (Illustrations)

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, Becky Chambers

(gn) The Montague Twins: The Devil's Music, Nathan Page, Drew Shannon (Illustrations)

Record of a Spaceborn Few, Becky Chambers

Something Fabulous, Alexis Hall

Honey Girl, Morgan Rogers

(gn) Fantasmas, Raina Telgemeier

Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Ngoni Adichie

The Violence, Delilah S. Dawson

(gn) Coven, Jennifer Dugan, Kit Seaton (Illustrations)

Children of God, Mary Doria Russell (re-read)

Boyfriend Material, Alexis Hall

Skye Falling, Mia McKenzie

Liar & Spy, Rebecca Stead

The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell (re-read)

A Psalm for the Wild Built, Becky Chambers

(gn) Oddball: Sarah Scribbles #4, Sarah Andersen

Girl Made of Stars, Ashley Herring Blake

Everything, Everything, Nicola Yoon

A Closed and Common Orbit, Becky Chambers

(gn) Slaughter House Five, Ryan North (adaptor), Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Albert Monteys (Illustrations)

Pretend I'm Dead, Jen Beagin

(gn) The Crossover, Kwame Alexander Dawud Anyabwile (Illustrations)

Don't Check Out This Book, Kate Klise, Sarah Klise (Illustrations)

Light From Uncommon Stars, Ryka Aoki

The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James, Ashley Herring Blake

Hang the Moon, Alexandria Bellefleur

(gn) Alice in Leatherland, Iolanda Zanfardino, Elisa Romboli (Illustrator)

Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World, Ashley Herring Blake

Delilah Green Doesn't Care, Ashley Herring Blake

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls, Anissa Gray

(gn) Across a Field of Starlight, Blue Delliquanti

Ain't Burned All the Bright, Jason Reynolds, Jason Griffin (Illustrator)

Count Your Lucky Stars, Alexandria Bellefleur

I Kissed Shara Wheeler, Casey McQuiston

(gn) The Bride Was a Boy, Chii, Beni Axia Conrad (Translator)

Payback's a Witch, Lana Harper

The School for Good Mothers, Jessamine Chan

(gn) The Sacrifice of Darkness, Roxane Gay, Tracy Lynne Oliver, Rebecca Kirby, James Fenner

Read Between the Lines, Rachel Lacey

The Ex-Girlfriend of My Ex-Girlfriend Is My Girlfriend: Advice on Queer Dating, Love, and Friendship, Maddy Court, Kelsey Wroten (Illustrations)

(gn) A Shadow in RiverClan, Erin Hunter

How to Find a Princess, Alyssa Cole

The Girl in the Well is Me, Karen Rivers

American Spy, Lauren Wilkinson

Stay With Me, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀

(gn) Be Gay, Do Comics, Matt Bors, ed.

(gn) Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms, Crystal Frasier, Val Wise (Illustrator)

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers

This Winter, Alice Oseman

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, Abbi Waxman

(gn) Stone Fruit, Lee Lai

Heartstopper, vol. 4, Alice Oseman

(gn) Squad, Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Lisa Sterle (Illustrator)

(gn) Shadow Life, Hiromi Goto, Ann Xu (Illustrations)

Read with the kids and/or for Homeschool planning (19)

Front Desk, Kelly Yang

The Midwife's Apprentice, Karen Cushman

(pb) Blue: A History of the Color as Deep as the Sea and as Wide as the Sky, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, Daniel Minter (Illustrator)

The Wednesday Wars, Gary D. Schmidt

(gn) Twelfth Grade Night, Molly Horton Booth, Stephanie Kate Strohm, Jamie Green (Illustrator)

(gn) The History of Western Art in Comics Part One: From Prehistory to the Renaissance, Marion Augustin, Bruno Heitz (Illustrations)

(gn) Magical History Tour #4: The Crusades, Fabrice Erre, Sylvain Savoia (Illustrator)

A Year Down Yonder, Richard Peck (re-read)

A Long Way from Chicago, Richard Peck (re-read)

The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman (re-read)

The Night Diary, Veera Hiranandani

The Subtle Knife, Philip Pullman (re-read)

(pb) Prisoners of Geography, Children's Ed.: Our World Explained in 12 Simple Maps, Tim Marshall

The Great Brain at the Academy, John D. Fitzgerald

(pb) The 1619 Project: Born on the Water, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Renée Watson, Nikkolas Smith (Illustrator)

(pb) Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, Carole Boston Weatherford, Floyd Cooper (Illustrator)

The Whale Rider, Witi Ihimaera

(pb) Mr. Watson's Chickens, Jarrett Dapier, Andrea Tsurumi (Illustrator)

The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman (re-read)

(gn) = graphic novel or graphic novel format (pb) = picture book

I read 101 books this year

Authors of color: 40 Black authors: 28 Cis-women, trans & nonbinary authors: 73 Graphic novels: 34 Queer characters: 47 (34 main characters) Audiobooks: 22 Picture books: 8

Read 25 Books by Black Women Authors: Only read 23

I think next year I won't do the Black Women Authors challenge. I hope I will still read as many or at least a significant number of books by Black women, and I think it's a really great idea. I'm going to resist doing it this year, though, because I noticed a crummy impulse in myself as I was keeping track of the books, like I was "getting credit" for reading books in this category and that feels kinda gross. We'll see how I do without striving for a cookie.

I would like to read more picture books in 2023, and maybe be a little choosier about the graphic novels I read. I really love graphic novels, but I read some clunkers this year. I was also pretty light on nonfiction and I'd like to read a little more this year. In any case, I know it will be another great year of reading! See you next year!

[weclassybouquetfun]

WB/Discovery has announced that there will be no forthcoming DC Fandome - the online, day long fan event that kicked off in 2020 to showcase DC Comics' slate and celebrate DC's history. But if you are sorely in need of another fan event that is not as much fun, then tomorrow is for you. Netflix holds their global fan event TUDUM that highlights their upcoming slate.

10am to 10:30am Enola Holmes 2

Heart of Stone Bridgerton Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (A limited prequel series about the rise of  Charlotte).

Shadow and Bone The Crown Emily in Paris

The Old Guard 2

Wednesday

Manifest 3 Body Problem Slumberland

10:30am - 11:30am

10:30am - 11:30am Never Have I Ever The Umbrella Academy (It has been announced that S4 will be its last).

Your Place or Mine Guillermo de Toro's Pinocchio (Featuring the voicework of Thomas Mann as the titular character; Tilda Swinton, Cate Blanchett, Ewan McGregor, Christoph Waltz and Finn Wolfhard, among others).

Special Announcement by Noah Centineo Berlin (The LA CASA DE PAPEL (MONEY HEIST) spinoff with Pedro Alonso reprising his character).

Entergalactic (The animated series from Scott "Kid Cudi" Mescudi featuring the voicework of Jessica Williams, Laura Harrier, Timothee Chalamet and Vanessa Hudgens) The Redeem Team The Mother (Thriller starring Jennifer Lopez, Gael Garcia Bernal, Joseph Fiennes, Omari Hardwick and Paul Raci).

The Watcher The Witcher: Blood Origin

11:00am - 11:30am Extraction 2 Vikings: Valhalla 1899 They Cloned Tyrone The Witcher Lupin

Squid Game Money Heist: Korea - Joint Economic Area Games Spotlight Dead to Me Heartstopper Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Outer Banks

11:30am - 11:55am The School for Good and Evil

Stranger Things Triada Carga Máxima Matrimillas El Elegido Belascoarán Ardiente Paciencia

Squid Game Love is Blind: Brazil La Firma (Music competition searching for the next LatAm superstar).

11:55am Alice in Borderland

The Kingdom El Amor Después del Amor You

Élite Beyond the Universe The Marked Heart

A través del mar

[hopelessmaladaptivedreamer]

Absolutely Stunning

[badbookopinions]

The School for Good Mothers - Jessamine Chan

A: This book is normally described as the Handmaid's Tale for women's souls instead of bodies. I liked this book even better than the Handmaid's Tale; I read it in one day, feeling genuine anxiety about it, and immediately recommended it to a few people.

Frida Liu is struggling - her career is at a dead end, her husband has left her for a younger woman, and although she adores her daughter Harriet she hasn't recovered from post-partum depression. After a lapse in judgement and a CPS call, she's brought to the attention of a new government program; an instutution that will measure her mothering ability to see if she deserves to get her daughter back. (adapted from the cover summary)

I found this book through my public library, so I walked in with no expectations, and it blew me out of the water. I think it's a valuable read even if you aren't a mother or planning to become one - I'm certainly not, and I still had an anxiety stomachache all throughout reading, hoping Frida would succeed.

The ridiculously high expectations placed on mothers was so chilling to read, but what also scared me was the amount of surveillance. In the beginning, to see if Frida is truly sorry, they place cameras all over her house to observe her, and decide that by her body language she is too selfish to be allowed Harriet back unless she goes to this program.

I also think Chan does a fantastic job dealing with race - many of Frida's insecurities come from the fact that her Wasian kid is now being raised by her white father and his new white wife, who is trying to supplant her. Her Asian parents are scrutinized and blamed for not raising her in an American way, and Chan never lets you forget it's even harder for Black and brown mothers.

I think people might have different opinions on this, but this book did something I'd never seen before - it would build up to a climax, skip over the result, and come back in during the fallout. It made you feel just as powerless as Frida did.

Plot: excellent. I was thinking a lot about the Handmaid's Tale as I read it, which took me a while to get into, and I think this book has better forward motion - you need to find out if she gets Harriet back, and even during sideplots, Frida's own urgency propels you along, as well.

Characters: Frida is complex, angry and selfish and longing for love. I was also surprised by the depth of my hatred for her ex-husband and his new wife, and my fondness for Emanuelle. I don't want to speak too much about Emanuelle - her reveal was one of the best moments of the book, and I don't want to spoil it - but oh man. Genuinely horrifying. I found the romance weak, but I think I was supposed to.

Setting: horrifying! The constant surveillance, the brainwashing, the hopelessness of realizing just how the system is stacked against Frida. Very 1984, very Handmaid's Tale. Of course, it's a lot easier to write something derived from the Handmaid's Tale than it is to write the Handmaid's Tale, so I'm not throwing a stone at a wasp's nest and saying that Chan is better than Atwood. (I did enjoy this more though.)

Prose: effective.

Diversity report: a Chinese main character, well-written women, and queer characters, although I'd have been interested to see a non-cis parent, which we didn't.