Eola Road Branch
Santori Library
West Branch
Bookmobile
Pickup Locker
Recommendations Borrowing Information Children TeensMenu
This group reads diverse contemporary and classic fiction and meets once a month for thought-provoking conversation. In September, we're reading The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan.
Join us for West Branch's monthly book discussion group! Register for in-person or virtual. Copies of the selected books are reserved and available for pickup for all attendees.
Contact discussion facilitator Dani Linn at dtlinn@aurorapubliclibrary.org with questions, concerns, or suggestions.
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough.
Until Frida has a very bad day...
The state has its eye on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones, letting their children get injured on the playground; who let their children walk home alone. Because of one moment of poor judgement, a host of government officials will now 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 a bad mother can be redeemed. That she can learn to be good.
An “intense” (Oprah Daily), “captivating” (Today) page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect” upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love, The School for Good Mothers introduces, in Frida, an everywoman for the ages. Using dark wit to explore the pains and joys of the deepest ties that bind us, Chan has written a modern literary classic.
In this New York Times bestseller and Today show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance, in this “surreal” (People), “remarkable” (Vogue), and “infuriatingly timely” (The New York Times Book Review) debut novel.
AGE GROUP: | Adults - ages 19+ |
EVENT TYPE: | Reading and Literacy | General Interest |
TAGS: | Book Club |
This branch is connected to Washington Middle School and known for its creative displays and programs for adults. Complete with three study rooms and two conference rooms.
