The Perfect Mother By Aimee Molloy

The perfect Mother Aimee Molloy review
Reading Challenge 2018 this is the book I picked because of its cover


I've complained about the mummy thriller before, especially about Karen Cleveland's Need to know. I can't help it. I think it's absurd to write thrillers with CIA operatives who are just regular mothers whose only worry is their children's welfare. Look at Gina Haspel; you think that she has no other things to focus on? No, Homeland set the tone; when you make your fictional badass a mother—if you want to make something compelling—her loved ones will suffer. Now the Perfect Mother is the ultimate mommy thriller, and I liked it. Why? Because it is upfront. These are no superhuman women in exceptional circumstances who let motherhood ruin their rationale. This is a book about normal mothers, realistically depicted, just ordinary people put into a stressful situation.
It works like a charm.
The Perfect Mother tells the story of a  mummy group that meets once a week in Brooklyn and is shaken at its core when Midas, the baby of one of them, the beautiful Winnie,  disappears.
Every chapter starts with a well-meaning newsletter send out by the group, trying to make the new moms feel better about themselves. Advice to arm them with the tools to handle the imposition that others put on them.
It's a lot. The Perfect Mother addresses the expectation people have of mothers. All of it, the lack of maternity leave, the pressure to get back to work, the doubt of coworkers, the demands of their partners, it's mind-boggling how much pressure society puts on new mothers in the US.
Now if I would judge the Good Mother solely on his thriller qualities, it would score lower, the twist and turns, even if hard to predict, are not earth-shattering.



It makes up for it by making the characters, and their Brooklyn neighborhood comes alive.
You have Francie who worries about her daughter development and distracts herself by becoming obsessed with the disappearance of her friend's baby. You have Nell, a bit British funhouse, who likes to drink, joke and convinces the group to go out one night to a Brooklyn bar, even offering up her sitter to Winnie, insisting that she go out with them. You have Colette, a writer, married to a famous novelist, who has to work as a ghostwriter for the mayor. Putting her in the perfect position to investigate.
At first, there's a lot of sympathy for Winnie, but the press and the town soon turn on her and her friends when it learns that they were out drinking, the night the baby was kidnapped. The horror. Jeez.
The constant intrusive press starts to dig, and one by one the women's secrets come out. You are not wrong if it sounds Big Little Lies-like and I am sure the success of that book and show inspired Kerry Washington to pick up this to be her next big project after Scandal.
Like in Big Little Lies the story is told by different POV, even from part of the mysterious person that took Midas.
There's not much more to say; the characters were likable, recognizable, the setting realistic, the problem of society's pressure I'm sure very real. The perfect mother is a pleasant read, without being a nail-biter.