The Perfect Mother
Ratings17
Average rating3.4
15
Ratings17
Average rating3.4
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE SUMMER—SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING SCANDAL’S KERRY WASHINGTON An addictive psychological thriller about a group of women whose lives become unexpectedly connected when one of their newborns goes missing. A night out. A few hours of fun. That’s all it was meant to be. They call themselves the May Mothers—a group of new moms whose babies were born in the same month. Twice a week, they get together in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park for some much-needed adult time. When the women go out for drinks at the hip neighborhood bar, they are looking for a fun break from their daily routine. But on this hot Fourth of July night, something goes terrifyingly wrong: one of the babies is taken from his crib. Winnie, a single mom, was reluctant to leave six-week-old Midas with a babysitter, but her fellow May Mothers insisted everything would be fine. Now he is missing. What follows is a heart-pounding race to find Midas, during which secrets are exposed, marriages are tested, and friendships are destroyed. Thirteen days. An unexpected twist. The Perfect Mother is a "true page turner." —B.A. Paris, author of Behind Closed Doors
Reviews with the most likes.
It took me a few chapters to settle into this book. At first it was kind of aloof to me - everything in third person, bouncing between different people's perspectives, and providing a bunch of women's names I was having a hard time remembering. But once the ladies go out to the bar, the story picks up. The author did a great job of painting the scene; the fact that there were multiple perspectives and back stories helped to build the mystery and confusion about the turn of events. In fact, after the third chapter I glanced back at the highlights of chapters one and two, and that helped cement the starts of the story-line.
There were times when the reading would get laborious for me because there's 4 different women that are featured, and each woman usually has either her own chapter or chunks of a chapter that are from her viewpoint. This means that several chapters were left on semi cliff-hanger moments with new revelations about respective characters. The problem with that for me was that not every character had the same level of interesting things going on. So some of the chapters felt kind of boring while I was trying to get back to where another character left off.
The book definitely has a twist. However, now that I'm finished with the book, I don't really know how I feel about it. The author brushes over the main characters' back stories - so I kind of felt connected to them, but then also not really. The epilogue felt like it kind of happened in shadow. You have an idea of where things stand, but it felt like it finished it the middle of a thought.
3/5 Stars
The May Mothers. That's what they call themselves. A group of women who joined together through an online forum, all with due dates in the month of May. They meet weekly at the same park, under the same tree to talk about their babies, their pregnancy, and motherhood. Channeling their pre-baby social lives, some of the women agree to meet at a local bar for a Mom's Night Out. But this MNO takes a turn for the worse when one of the mother's babies goes missing from his crib. Cue the media. Bashing the mothers for “abandoning” their babies at home and stirring up any tidbits of information they can get their hands on to paint the women in a negative light. Mothers Francie, Nell and Collette take matters into their own hands to help solve the mystery of what happened to baby Midas.
One thing I would say that I appreciated most about this book is the way in which the reader really got to know the main characters' personalities and backgrounds. I truly felt as though I had a solid grasp on what the characters are like and how Molloy wanted to portray them. I caught myself sighing, saying “really, Nell would do that!,” almost as if I knew them myself. I will say that I was mislead a few times (although I've found that I'm not the best detective when it comes down to who-done-its), and that the ending was not my favorite. 1) The Mastermind behind the abduction came out of left field and I was genuinely surprised because this person was barely mentioned throughout the book. Also, there's excerpts - almost like thought bubbles - where the narrative switches to first person and the narrator is unknown...until the very end of the book. And 2) the Epilogue almost reminded me of the last scene in Mean Girls - when Cady is looking at the new Plastics and breathing a sigh of relief. Almost as though she paved the way and these newbies don't know what's in store for them.
I heard a lot of mixed reviews on this book. Some loved it while others had wishy-washy opinions on it. Was this my favorite book? No, not really. But was it my least favorite book? Also no, not really. I would rate this a solid 3/5.
