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    The Perfect Mother: A Novel
    The Perfect Mother: A Novel
    The Perfect Mother: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Perfect Mother: A Novel

    Written by Aimee Molloy

    Narrated by Cristin Milioti

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 

    An addictive psychological thriller about a group of women whose lives become unexpectedly connected when one of their newborns goes missing.

    A night out. A few hours of fun. That’s all it was meant to be.

    They call themselves the May Mothers—a group of new moms whose babies were born in the same month. Twice a week, they get together in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park for some much-needed adult time.

    When the women go out for drinks at the hip neighborhood bar, they are looking for a fun break from their daily routine. But on this hot Fourth of July night, something goes terrifyingly wrong: one of the babies is taken from his crib. Winnie, a single mom, was reluctant to leave six-week-old Midas with a babysitter, but her fellow May Mothers insisted everything would be fine. Now he is missing. What follows is a heart-pounding race to find Midas, during which secrets are exposed, marriages are tested, and friendships are destroyed.

    Thirteen days. An unexpected twist. The Perfect Mother is a ""true page turner."" —B.A. Paris, author of Behind Closed Doors

    Editor's Note

    Cutting commentary…

    A group of new mothers decides to let loose for a night that ends in tragedy when one of their newborns goes missing. A cutting commentary on the sensationalist media hype cycle and the expectations of motherhood.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateMay 1, 2018
    ISBN9780062847980
    Author

    Aimee Molloy

    Aimee Molloy’s debut novel, The Perfect Mother, was a New York Times bestseller, and has been translated into more than twenty languages. She lives in Western Massachusetts with her family.

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    Reviews for The Perfect Mother

    4/5

    716 ratings54 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 1/5
      The first 23 chapters were incredible mundane and boring. I only finished it because I can't didn't to not finish books. It feels like chapter after chapter of morning happening
    • 5/5
      This was a very intriguing listen...the many voices are masterfully done and the storyline is gripping. I highly recommend!
    • 5/5
      It was a roller coaster of a book. I got a little lost with characters and when I was going to give up on the book a twist brought me back and I was booked!
    • 4/5
      Im always late to reading these overly hyped books. This one thankfully was worth the hype at least to me (there are some mixed reviews).

      It follows a group of new Brooklyn mothers who all gave birth in the month of May. When the new mums plan a night out for the Fourth of July, one of their babies go missing. During the course of the story you realize that some of the mums have some dark secrets.

      I was honestly hooked from the beginning. I thought the story was excellently paced. Although I figured out what was going on early on (as a lawyer I think I look at every character too closely lol), the unreliable narrator was well done.

      I understand the critique that there were too many characters to keep up with but it didn’t bother me much.
    • 4/5
      Kept me interested but was a little hard to follow.
    • 3/5
      The narration is well done. I listened to the entire book just out of curiosity. It’s not boring, but the plot is stretched out for too long. Not very interesting.
    • 2/5
      The ending was predictable, and I felt it fell short of the exciting twist I was expecting.

      Loved the narrator on the audiobook.
    • 5/5
      This was a great read! So unexpected and not my typical style. Loved it!
    • 3/5
      3.5. Good story telling. Characters just seemed a little unbelievable in places.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed the character development on each of the women, the mystery felt more like a subplot, adding to the surprise when it all came together at the end. I’d read another book from this author!
    • 2/5
      Narration wasn’t my favorite. The book was kinda boring
    • 4/5
      You don't need to be a mother to enjoy this
    • 4/5
      I loved this story and this audiobook. The narrator did an incredible job, especially with the different accents for the characters. The book kept me on the edge of my seat and thoroughly engrossed the entire time. I had to know what happened to baby Mitus. I highly recommend to anyone who's a fan of Liana Moriarty (similar to Big Little Lies and The Husbands Secret).
    • 5/5
      This book was engaging the entire time. The twists and turns in the plot were masterful.
    • 3/5
      The book was captivating but at the same time way too confusing. It was hard to follow the characters and the skipping between time lines towards the end. The end made no sense and I found myself growing agitated. I still don’t understand what happened.
    • 5/5
      Great book. I had no idea it would end like it did.
    • 4/5
      I wasn’t sure about this initially but this is such a good thriller.
    • 5/5
      So good! I couldn't stop listening. I loved that I couldn't guess the outcome until it all came together.
    • 2/5
      Yet another book compared to Gone Girl, Girl on the Train, yada yada. The suspense just wasn’t there for me. A newborn is kidnapped, but I never felt the worry you should, and didn’t really wonder what happened to the kid or how. I think that could have been much better developed. The twist was actually really good - it didn’t punch me in the gut since I wasn’t too invested in the story, but it never crossed my mind so I give it points for that.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 2/5
      This book was so hard to follow. I thought as I read more it wouldnt seem so confusing but it was the whole book. Ok story…

      1 person found this helpful

    • 1/5
      Very difficult to follow! The characters weren’t well developed. I kept reading because I wanted to know what happened to the baby, but I can’t say I enjoyed it.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      LOVED IT! I was sitting on the edge of my seat the whole time!
    • 2/5
      Domestic suspense novel about three mothers participating in a larger group, meeting regularly during pregnancy and continuing after the births. A mother’s night out is organized to give the new moms a break, and during the evening one of the babies is abducted.

      I did not like this book, but I take the blame because I can’t even recall why I purchased it and it is not in any of my preferred genres. It is set up to mislead the reader, which made it rather annoying when I figured out what was truly happening. (I hope I have worded this in generic enough terms to avoid a spoiler.) I did not come to care about any of the characters, except the missing baby who was offstage for most of the book. Each chapter started out with a pithy report about a baby’s progress, which I could not tie to any of the material in the chapter and became tedious.

      The point of view changed frequently throughout the novel, which made it feel choppy, and took time to get re-oriented. Many of the plot points were based on convenience, and the odds of these specific people coming together were very low. On the plus side, it is a page-turner, and I found the author’s portrayal of the way the media handled the disappearance to be very true to life, where the assumed abduction is turned into a trial by social and visual media, gossip and innuendo, rather than finding and reporting facts.

      I would have preferred the author to make a statement about the trauma that each of the primary characters had experienced, inserting some deeper meaning. I think the main characters were supposed to be “strong women,” but instead they came across to me as adults constantly complaining and acting like children.
    • 3/5
      3.5 starsThis mystery/thriller actually surprised me at the end, though, again, there wasn't really a way for the reader to solve the mystery. But I like to be surprised, so yay. I didn't love every character's story arc, but that is fine. They were all quite different, and that is good and feels very real--even if all of these arcs didn't feel common or typical, they are all quite real. But I need to rave here about Cristin Milioti's narration. She is AMAZING. I would not have guessed there was only one narrator on this book. She's got accents, tones, pacing. She is very very good. Her narration for the May Mothers emails was painfully funny. Molloy's writing of those emails is also spot on--completely cringeworthy reading, just as they were when I got a few similar ones years and years ago. I could not take it and unsubscribed.
    • 4/5
      Amazing! Another great story with twists that aren’t expected. Enjoy this one a lot also and that’s 3 in a row. Would love to keep this streak going!
    • 1/5
      I would have rated this a 3 stars because it was an okay read all the way up to the ending. One of my reading pet peeves are those info dump endings where the villain reveals themselves and divulges all of their plans and explains all of their actions for no apparent reason. Like, they have gone through complex planning to set things up but then with the most minimal pressure, reveal everything. It's stupid and I hate it.
    • 3/5
      Good book, easy read, gripping from the beginning but kind of predictable.
    • 4/5
      The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy is a riveting, suspense-laden mystery about the disappearance of a six week old baby.

      A group of first time mothers form a mother's group they dub the May Mothers because all of their due dates are in May. After everyone gives birth, they remain friends and support one another as they traverse the complicated changes their newborns bring to their lives. On July 4th, Francie Givens, Nell Mackey, Colette Yates and the only dad in the group, Token, convince single mom Winnie Ross to join them for a night out. With Nell's prospective nanny Alma Romero watching Winnie's baby, Midas, the group head out for a night of frivolous fun at a local bar. However, Winnie disappears at some point during the evening, leaving her phone and house key behind which Nell holds for safekeeping. Just as everyone is to head about home, Alma makes a shocking discovery: Midas is missing from his crib. With the police making little progress in the case, media scrutiny turns to the May Mothers who are launching their own investigation into what happened to Midas.

      The chapters alternate between Francie, Nell, and Colette's perspectives as they try to make sense of what happened to Midas and their own struggles with motherhood. Nell is unexpectedly called back into work before her maternity leave is scheduled to end and she is very concerned that her past might be uncovered during the investigation. Colette is falling farther and farther behind on a project with a looming deadline when she stumbles onto case files about Midas's disappearance. Francie is fixated on Midas's kidnapping and she continues to insert herself in the police investigation as she takes her suspicions about different suspects to the lead detectives assigned to the case. All of the women are initially extremely sympathetic to Winnie's devastating loss, but as she keeps out of the public eye, they begin to wonder why she is so conspicuously absent.

      Interspersed with their narrations are occasional chapters from an unknown person's point of view. This woman is obviously part of the May Mothers' group but her identity remains carefully shrouded in mystery.  As the story unwinds, she becomes increasingly fraught as she desperately tries to cling to someone who might be slipping away from her. Who is this woman and what, if anything, does she have to do with Midas's disappearance?

      The Perfect Mother  is an intricately-plotted mystery that is quite compelling. The characters are well-drawn and their lives with a newborn are realistically depicted.  Aimee Molloy does an absolutely outstanding job keeping the truth about what happened to baby Midas cleverly concealed until the novel's shocking conclusion. Fans of the genre do not want to miss this outstanding fiction debut.
    • 4/5
      What a great idea, a club for a local group of mothers whose babies are all born in the same month. Everyone joins and they get together, with their babies in tow, at a park every two weeks to discuss progress of the babies, baby products, and all things concerning their babies.They're all strangers and don't delve too deeply into each other's private lives, as that's not the purpose of the club. They even have one member whose actual name most of them don't know. They call him Token. They assume he's gay as he's a stay at home father.They decide, as a group, that they could all use a night out , away from the babies. They even find a babysitter for the only single mom, Winnie.Unfortunately, Winnie's baby disappears from his crib while the ladies are at a bar.Truths start coming to the forefront, new facts are learned, suspicions form, and still the baby remains missing. Police and detectives have questions and suspicions of their own.The searching for the truth is the best part of this book, and, no, I didn't see it coming.Well written psychological thriller, will be enjoyed by all who like the genre.
    • 4/5
      Do not read if pregnant or a new mother. This is an exciting book with twists and turns.