I read this book as an audiobook, which is very rare for me as I just am not usually a fan of them. Either the reader is way too slow or their voice is annoying etc. but I really enjoyed the audio book.
-Plot
I really enjoyed the overall story that was told here. Mia Warren and her daughter Pearl move into Shaker Heights (aka Suburbia Hell) and rent a home from Elena Richardson. Elena is poised as the stereotypical “perfect” suburban mother with four kids and a loving husband. An adoption case and its morals put these two women on opposite sides and we see through this book how opposite these two characters are. With Elena seen as the normal “good” mother and Mia as the free thinking and “alternative” mother.
-Characters
Just as a disclaimer I have never seen the show so I’m not a hundred percent sure how the characters are portrayed in there but I have heard that they made Mia some sort of crazy out of control bitch which I think takes away the humanity and realness of her character. I wanted to like Mia, I really did, but I just couldn’t. She is incredibly selfish and narcissistic, dragging her poor daughter around so she could pursue her art career. Most of the book I just felt bad for Pearl as she never really got a childhood. She had to grow up from an early age and get a job to support her mom, she was never able to really have friends. The secret that is revealed about Mia later in the book, which is a huge spoiler so I won’t reveal it here, makes me despise her. I found Elena more palatable but honestly she wasn’t much better. She acts like she is in control of her children when she really has no idea what they are doing. She made friends with people just to use them for her own personal gain, which is just disgusting. For instance, there was a scene where she calls an old friend from college who runs the local medical clinic and guilt trips her until she reveals the name of a patient, which is ILLEGAL MA’AM! The other characters I found to be fine, they were interesting enough but were clearly there to support and be used as pawns for the main characters.
-Final Thoughts/TLDR
This was a fast read for me with all the drama though I can’t say it was an enjoyable one. The author drew these lines of right and wrong and seemed to have this theme that biological mothers have complete ownership of their child and that adoptive mothers are always second best. Which is just…ew.
-Rating
3/5