From the moment I picked up The Good Enough Mother by Anoushka Beazley I instantly knew that I was on to a winner. Despite it not being the sort of book that I would usually choose to read as it was unquestionably a black comedy, I found that I enjoyed the book far more than I thought I would and am so glad that I gave it a chance!
In The Good Enough Mother we are introduced to Drea who becomes a mother to 14 year old Ava, who she has looked after for the last ten years, after her partner leaves her. On her own and now unable to afford the fees for the private school which Ava attends, Drea sets about finding a way to raise them in a rather unlawful way which most certainly gets the local community talking. Just what will the consequences of her actions be?
At its heart, this is a story about the mother-daughter relationship and whilst Drea’s approach to motherhood and some of the scenarios that present itself throughout the book may seem somewhat unconventional, there can be no doubt about the fact that she loves Ava very much. As the realisation dawned on them that they now only had eachother, it was a pleasure to see their relationship go from strength to strength - it was clear that Drea would do anything to look after Ava and vice versa with Ava being remarkably sensible for her age. They were a pair who you couldn’t help but hope that things would turn out well for.
Whilst Anoushka’s style of writing throughout The Good Enough Mother won’t be to everyone tastes particularly with the frequent swearing which I didn’t always appreciate, there were many elements of it that were great. I loved the way in which she had written something that had real depth to it but which at the same time wasn’t all doom and gloom, to the point that I spent the majority of my time reading this book with a smile on my face. I also really appreciated the way that she’d made an effort to really set the scene for the reader, describing the town in which it was set in such a way that made it very easy to picture.
Overall this is an absolute gem of a book that I am so glad to have discovered. My only hope is that it doesn’t become a hidden gem and that, like me, readers give it a chance because it most definitely deserves one and Anoushka deserves every success. For a debut novel I was very impressed and I hope to read more by the author in the future.
