Tag: scary books

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The School For Good Mothers

“𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘢 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥.” —𝙅𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙚 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙣, 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙡 𝙁𝙤𝙧 𝙂𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙈𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙨

Heavy. Haunting.

The School For Good Mothers, though dystopian fiction, really highlights the ways in which motherhood can be judged and dismissed. Mothers are expected to be perfect all the time, but the reality of motherhood can be isolating, exhausting, and overwhelming.

In this story, our MC Frida is deemed a bad mom by social services and her 2 year old daughter is removed from her care. Frida is placed in a year-long motherhood training program where her decisions and actions are monitored and scrutinized alongside a group of other bad moms. They are degraded and dehumanized, forced to relearn how to feel in talk circle, graded on their parenting styles, and ultimately denied the right to be with their own children.

The book focuses on the pressure mothers face to give up their identity to be “good moms”, and I think it is an unfair expectation that hits too close to home. A country that doesn’t support motherhood should not have the right to control it.

As a mother, this book really resonated with me and left me feeling disturbed and outraged. It’s a scary idea that the government can step in to decide what makes you a good or bad mother. This book demonstrates the danger of letting government draw that line for us.

Good literature makes you feel and think, and this book definitely did that. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐

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Skin, Roald Dahl

Image result for skin roald dahl

Roald Dahl is most beloved and best known for his best-selling children’s works: James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The Witches, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The BFG, The Twits and George’s Marvelous Medicine.

Because he is so well-known for his children’s works, I had never heard of this collection before. But it is perfect for the Halloween season, and I am really pleased with its realism. His children’s stories are, of course, a little magical, but his tales for adults are creepy in the I-Could-Actually-Imagine-This-Happening-And-Its-Super-Creepy-kind-of-way.

Skin And Other Stories is a perfect read for anyone wanting to get into the spirit of Halloween with scary stories, or anyone who wants a bit of light reading. Because it is a collection of short stories, they can be read individually (for those who like to read just a chapter before bed) or all-together in one sitting. The title hints at the element of creepy, suspenseful stories with strange twists, full of truly unexpected endings and twisted ideas that only someone with a mind of horror could conjure. I won’t give much away, but I will say you will surely be surprised by the endings!

My favorite was the first, Skin, a tale illuminating the danger of owning one-of-a-kind-artwork: everyone will want it, for themselves. Trust no one.

The collection contains Dahl’s short stories: Skin; Lamb to the Slaughter; The Sound Machine; An African Story; Galloping Foxley; The Wish; The Surgeon; Dip in the Pool; The Champion of the World; Beware of the Dog; My Lady Love, My Dove. It was first published in the May 17, 1952 issue of The New Yorker, and was later featured in the collection Skin and Other Stories, published in 2000.

If you like these stories, there are also more collections of Roald Dahl’s horror for adults. My two favorites are Madness: more collected horror shorts written by Dahl, and Fear: collected horror stories written by Dalhs favorite authors. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Roald Dahl was born on September 13, 1916, in Llandaff, South Wales. In 1953, he published the best-selling story collection Someone Like You and married actress Patricia Neal. He published the popular book James and the Giant Peach in 1961. In 1964, he released another highly successful work, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was later adapted for two films. Over his decades-long writing career, Dahl wrote 19 children’s books. He died on November 23, 1990, in Oxford, England.

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