All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

"The missing boy is 10-year-old Alfie Risby, and to be perfectly honest with you, he's a little shit."

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

March 2025; G.P. Putnam's Sons; 978-0593851463
audio, ebook, print (384 pages); women's fiction

Florence Grimes is a walking train wreck.  She's 31 years old and having trouble living her life.  She used to be in a girl band but she quit.  She enjoys drugs, alcohol, and sleeping with lots of men some of them married.  But the love of her life is her 10-year-old son, Dylan.  Dylan is a quirky kid.  He doesn't have a lot of friends and keeps getting in trouble at his expensive boy's school.   Her ex is paying the tuition and wants Dylan to go to that school no matter what Florence wants. 

Dylan is a bit different and gets bullied at school.  The worst bullying comes from Alfie who has a very rich family.  When Alfie disappears on a school trip and Dylan is his partner and the last person to see him, everyone assumes that Dylan had something to do with Alfie's disappearance.  The mothers at the school are all very cliquish and most are very rich, so it is easy to look down on Florence and her son and easy to blame the different kid as a suspect.   When Dylan won't answer his mom's questions, even she begins to wonder if he might be guilty.  She decides to find out the real story behind Alfie's disappearance to clear her son's name.  With no talent as an investigator, she makes some major mistakes but her new friend at school who is a lawyer, helps her to try to find out more information.

It was easy to see why the other mothers didn't like Florence.  She's a free spirit who has made some major faux pas at school events and with the other mothers.  I found her to be a bit different but very likable despite being kind of quirky.  Her most redeeming feature was the love that she had for her son and her willingness to help him out no matter the circumstances.  

I really enjoyed this book.  Florence was a train wreck who didn't fit in with the other mothers at the school.  She was funny and sarcastic and loved her son more than anything.  I loved her friendship with Jenny,  Even though they were total opposites, they worked well together in solving the mystery.  I shook my head several times at what they did to try to solve the mystery but must admit that I didn't know who the bad guy was until almost the end.  This is a debut novel and based on this story, I look forward to future books from this author.

 Buy All the Others Mothers Hate Me at Amazon

Susan Roberts grew up in Michigan but loves the laid-back life at her home in the Piedmont area of North Carolina where she is three hours from the beach to the east and the mountains in the west.  She reads almost anything but her favorite genres are Southern Fiction and Historical Fiction.   

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