I have been recommending this book to every person who has ever rolled their eyes at the phrase “mom brain” and every person who has ever used it to dismiss someone. Hackett has written something genuinely clever here, and it deserves a much wider readership.
The premise: Georgia Evans is a busy working mother of two who has just been crowned the “internet’s worst mom” after a very public debacle. Desperate and exhausted, she accepts an invitation to The Program, an exclusive week-long wellness retreat in Hawaii designed for mothers in crisis. The founder, Cecilia Clements, promises something radical: that the biology of motherhood has imprisoned you, and that freedom is possible. Georgia wants to believe her. And for a while, she does.
What Hackett does brilliantly is ground the story in real neuroscience. The research behind “mom brain” is genuinely fascinating, and the fact that a mom of two who once worked in a biomedical lab wrote this book is evident on every page. The science never feels heavy-handed; it feels like someone who really gets it, having a very smart conversation with the reader.
This is part thriller, part social satire, and fully committed to taking an honest look at what society asks of parents and how that pressure can make even intelligent, capable people vulnerable to exactly the wrong kind of promises. There’s a creeping dread that builds slowly and earns it.
My one caveat: the pacing slows slightly in the final act, and I found myself wishing the ending had the same propulsive energy as the setup. But that’s a small thing in an otherwise sharp, surprising read.
If you’ve ever felt like the world was asking too much of you and you’d do almost anything for one week of peace, you’ll understand exactly why Georgia says yes.
