Motherfaker - Anna Brook-Mitchell
- Kindig
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
MOTHERFAKER
ANNA BROOK-MITCHELL
*****
HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO FOR A YEAR OFF WORK?
Meet Barri Brown. Respected teacher. Upstanding citizen of Guernsey. Down for a bit of law-breaking . . .
Barri is preparing for a year’s paid maternity leave but there’s a catch:
She isn’t pregnant.
With seven foam bumps, a wardrobe full of smock dresses and a great pregnancy heist planned, all Barri has to do is blag it until she can disappear for good, without getting caught and being sent to prison for fraud. Child’s play.
But can she really get away with telling the mother of all lies?
MY REVIEW
*****
As someone who is child-free, the blurb, concept and title of Mother Faker made me laugh which is why I chose to request it.
Barri is fed up with picking up the slack for the pregnant women at work who seem to have so much time off and get away with so much more than she can in the name of family. So when she finally snaps and tells someone a lie that she’s expecting, it starts a chain reaction of deception and problems that she could not have foreseen coming…
This is Anna Brook-Mitchell’s debut book, although she has some credits in screen-writing, but it feels so assured, so well-plotted and so well written that I wouldn’t have guessed it. Barri is such an interesting main character - she can come across quite unlikeable in places, and she makes some crazy decisions, but as a reader we empathise with her and are inexplicably rooting for her to succeed. The plot is centred around this woman who pushes people away and keeps secrets but slowly learns to allow people in and accept a found family which is heartwarming. She felt so well-rounded, so realistic and so relatable that you couldn’t help but warm to her. There’s a lot of chaotic situations to get us to this point though, and I was almost reading through splayed fingers as the plot progressed and things got more and more out of control.
Setting the story of the Island of Guernsey was also a brilliant choice to ensure that everything felt just a little more claustrophobic as Barri tried to keep her secret when everyone knows everything and island gossip is so prevalent. Without giving spoilers, I thought the conclusion felt realistic – it would have been very easy for Brook-Mitchell to write an out for Barri but the way the ending was handled felt well balanced.
Overall, Mother Faker is a brilliant story – a great premise and a story filled with humour and warmth whilst also balancing high stakes and drama. Thank you to NetGalley & Pan Macmillan for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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