All The Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman - Review

I had seen someone reading this and I was really intrigued, so I went looking for it but discovered it's not out until the 10th of April. So I went looking for it on Netgalley and lo and behold, there it was! So thank you very much to Fourth Estate for granting me access to this. I was provided with an electronic copy of this book for review purposes, but was not otherwise compensated for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

So, Florence is thirty one years old and lives in London with her ten year old son, Dylan. She is American, though; she grew up in quite a white trash kind of family in Florida, but the family moved over when she was a teenager. Florence was then in a girl pop band called Girls Night. Will, Dylan's dad, was their manager, but he's now married to her ex bandmate Rose, and doesn't have much to do with Dylan. Florence is a chaotic person and honestly, she's just not that nice. She leaves Dylan alone overnight to go on dates (he's TEN) and they're rarely at school on time, stuff like that. And all the other mothers do hate her. 

Dylan goes to a private school with a ton of posh boys so the mums are a cut above, and I honestly did like how they were portrayed. They think Florence just basically isn't good enough for them, and some past information does come to light about why this is exactly. Dylan has also had some problems with a kid called Alfie. When these problems are explained it's obvious what has happened, but still, there are problems. Alfie's parents are super rich and super well connected, too.

Which is why all hell breaks loose when Alfie goes missing on a school trip. The parents go to pick the kids up and discover that he is missing and didn't return on the bus. Florence quickly takes Dylan home as she suspects that Dylan might have had something to do with the disappearance. Her suspicions deepen and she doesn't know what to do except protect her son. She meets a new mum, who is also American. She and Jenny team up to try to find where Alfie is. 

I did like this story. I wanted to know what had happened to Alfie, and I mostly liked Florence and I liked Jenny. So from a story point of view it would be a four out of five, and I would be recommending this to everyone I know. 

However, I found there were just a few bits that I couldn't get to grips with. I didn't feel like we were shown enough about what went wrong with the girl band - if it was relevant. And if it wasn't, then why spend so much time on it? That was annoying. I expected some information about Rose that never came. Similarly, I thought there needed to be more about Jenny and her background because otherwise she just felt like a device to have someone who didn't hate Florence, someone she could bounce off. They also do really stupid things and make really stupid decisions. 

And the end of the mystery just didn't quite ring true to me. I didn't quite get it, it just wasn't satisfactory enough. I'm not sure I understand it now. So all these criticisms would make me give it a three out of five. 

So basically I guess that's a three and a half out of five. I would read something else by the author, for sure, so I didn't hate it, but... it had problems.