I've been out of the blogging game for a while. I got pregnant then I had a baby then that baby turned into a toddler and that's how almost three years go by without posting significantly on your book blog. Not only was I not able to blog, I was also in a deeeeeep reading slump. Aside from the couple dozen pregnancy/baby books I read at the beginning of my hiatus, I was doing very little recreational reading. I reread the Temeraire series about half a dozen times but other than that, I was just Not. Reading. It was a bummer. However, something just clicked (or maybe even unclicked?) a couple months ago. I picked up a book one of my mom friends lent me, Such a Young Age by Kiley Reid (fantastic book, btw!), loved it, and thought, "Hey, this was a book about a toddler and a mom and caretaking.... I have a toddler and I'm a mom and a caretaker... there's probably more books about ~new mom life~ out there that I'd probably enjoy reading!"

And sure enough, there was!

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not only reading "mom" books, but there have been a few, and it might be helping get out of that reading slump. 

One of the mom books I've read recently is The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan. What a ride! Easily one of the creepiest, most upsetting books I've read in a while. The story centers on a woman who had a "very bad day" in which she makes a grave parenting mistake--one not so horrifying that you lose all sympathy for but one that a self-proclaimed "good mother" would never make. Or at least, admit to ever making. After this bad day, our protagonist is sent to an experimental government-run boot camp/rehab facility that uses some in-the-near-future tech to grade everything from how many sentences you say to your baby to every muscle twitch in any facial expression you might be making at your kid.

It is incredibly bizarre, upsetting, kinda hilarious, and pulls at your heartstrings. I am not being hyperbolic when I say I was weeping by the end of the book.