Book Description:
Gatlin – a leafy, affluent town: Chelsea tractors and ladies who lunch. However all is not as it seems. Drea, a most unnatural mother, struggles to find private school fees for her step-daughter Ava after her boyfriend leaves her for another woman. Watching the yummy mummies she becomes inspired, hatching a daring and criminal plan…unleashing all hell in the quiet town of Gatlin. Can Drea survive the fallout and the wrath of the PTA? A satirical and hilarious black comedy about love, motherhood and the human condition.
My Thoughts:
The Good Enough Mother probably isn’t my typical choice of genre but every now and then I love to throw caution to the wind and try something different and I’m so glad that this is one of those times that I did.
Drea is an absolute breath of fresh air. What a brilliant character she is. There are no airs and graces about her, what you see is what you get. She has a ‘couldn’t give a s**t’ type of attitude about her and I love her whole approach to life. She will never win the mother of the year award being step mum to her boyfriends daughter Ava, but that doesn’t really matter as there is literally nothing this woman wouldn’t do to make sure Ava has the best start in life.
I think any parent will empathise to a certain extent with Drea, the dreaded school runs and trying to do your bit for the school but never quite feeling like you fit in with the other mums, though to be honest not that to a certain extent you would want to. Drea is very much her own person whilst a lot of the other mums are the stereo typical followers and have no individuality about themselves at all.
After Alex leaves Drea with his daughter to fend for themselves, things spiral out of control for Drea in what ends up being a very dark time for her, but a comedy of errors for the reader. Drea just seems to fall from one disaster to another and ends up having a normally small quiet town all up in arms and scared for their lives.
The Good Enough Mother really is a novel worth reading. It really has something in there for everyone. Reading of how messed up someone else’s life is, is always something that tends to make ours look better and make us feel better about ourselves. Highly recommended.
My thanks to the author for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Goodreads rating 4/5 stars.
The Good Enough Mother is available to purchase from Amazon.
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