Reviews
Absolutely compelling! I started reading this just after having my second child and was hooked from the first few pages. So much so that I would read it while doing the 3am feed! Drea's story is both hilarious and horrendous and as a mother it just feels so real. Can't wait for this author's next book.
Tara Grossman
Everybody needs a friend like Drea. Someone who keeps it real.
Anoushka Beazley has a true voice. Her writing is real, funny and delightfully inappropriate. She also tackles the delicate subject of mental health with such a natural style that it makes it approachable, acceptable, part of every day life... Almost attractive. This is truely remarkable and refreshing.
I can't wait for the sequel. Surely there will be a sequel? Drea's life is too interesting and entertaining not to be published!
Veronique Lafontaine
The very idea that beneath something so comfortable and familiar as suburban family life could live a dark underbelly of revenge, resentment and black comedy crime really appealed to me with this book. It comes on like something you may want to glide through on autopilot but then BANG: you’re hit with the dark and often comic behaviour of Drea, our stepmother on the loose. She does all those things you may have only thought about doing when feeling resentful in a world of compare and despair on the school run. And you love her for it.
Another great arc to the story is the growth of her character emotionally through the book and by the end you get a real feeling that through thorough investigation of her darker feelings about the world going past her window she really has become a stronger and more in-touch human being and a mother.
There are some very hilarious moments when Drea finds herself at odds with the local police force, the gaggle of Range Rover mums she deals with every day on her trips to and from school and even her string of therapists.
A great book which makes some really refreshing moves away from the bog standard chick-lit path and keeps you guessing what on earth Drea will do next.
Ben Parker
Love, The good enough mother
This book is a real emotional roller-coaster. Anoushka unique style is pure joy in the thrilling sense, you are never really comfortable and always wanting more. You think she is taking you somewhere and then she leaves you wondering where this is all going. It plays with a very familiar territory, the school run and cake sale but suddenly you are in a thriller with murder mystery… It is very funny but you know that the black humour hides painful truth.
I particularly loved the relationship I had with the main character, I like her anti-conformism, her style but along the way you get angry with her and it is only at the end that you can fully understand her.
But the good enough mother is not about characters, it is really about interactions between them and how, like in life, redemption and comfort comes from the very unlikeliest people around you.
It's a brilliant book about motherhood, love, coming of age and the pressures that life throws at all of us along the way. But the joy is in the realisation that beauty is in those little moments between a father and daughter between troubled teenagers and an even more troubled step mum, one sentence, one exchange and it was all worthwhile.
It's a very entertaining, funny book that will leave you with all sorts of questions about yourself and everybody around you.
Lucie Regent
So firstly, I love this book!!!!!! And not just because Anoushka Beazley is a cross between Tarantino, Donna Tartt, and Douglas Kennedy. Secondly, it takes you by surprise on every level. I can't say more about the story because as someone that hates trailers I don't want to rob you of the journey. Thirdly, if you have kids at school, you will completely relate to Drea and she will become your new idol. Can't wait for the next one.
Savina Sibert
It took me ages to read 'The Good Enough Mother.' Not because it wasn't utterly great, but because I am a mother of two small children. Good enough reason, I think. I often feel I don't have enough time to think let alone read. Reading is a pleasure from my past life. As a mother my life has changed so much that I cannot recall who I was neither can I see where or who I will be. I exist in the moment doing the best I can, there are ups and there are downs. I love Drea, the story's main character. She's punk rock, she's Patti Smith, she makes me want to roar cathartically. She's human, authentic, real and close to the earth. It's these characteristics I currently crave and it's what Anoushka Beazley so wonderfully encapsulates in her tale up against the 'ought's' and the 'should's.' This book is not to be taken lightly, it's fast, it's sharp, it's witty, it roars around bends and corners and it's for real.
Karen Esser