The Perfect Mother

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.