I feel bad saying this but I did struggle. It felt at time like some Ai generated attempt at knowing a disturbed and me tally ill young woman...with the aim of taking us away from the struggle of woman, mental illness and making her instead beautiful,deep and ethereal.
Like how do we make murder and ocd somehow poetic and stunning. Nope mental illness is disabling, can be fatal and he'll on earth for all involved. It should never be anything other.. it should.never be seen as anything other than a poor poorly person suffering. That doesn't make them bad humans. At all. But you wouldn't never try and make cancer or dementia some lyrical beauty or magical glow. Let's not be more stigmatic and problematic for mental illness sufferers eh. This shouldn't be some Netflix swallowable version.

Lorna Hollifield, the Author of “Bright Little Girls” has written a unique, suspenseful psychological thriller. This is a book of secrets, dark suspense, twists and turns, danger and murder. Someone is watching! The author vividly describes various scenes, and mysterious, dark and dramatic characters. There is a feel of urban fantasy or magical realism, and edgy threatening suspects. The female protagonist, Eliane Pangolin is disturbed and obsessed with writing letters to unusual people, dancing, suffering from panic attacks and obsessive compulsive disorder. She sees a therapist, and is trying to find herself. Somehow, Eliane has a connection with a serial killer. Someone is watching her every movement. Eliane finds unusual and toxic connections to characters such as a narcissistic musician, that is a male friend that she is obsessed with. She has connections to the living and dead, and relates to writing, music and art.

Who is the stalker? Why are they stalking Eliane? The author plays a deadly game of cat and mouse with the readers. I recommend this twisted and suspenseful novel.

I forced myself to finish reading this book since it was a review copy and I was curious when the serial killer would finally come into play and who it was. I thought from the description that this was a mystery suspense book but it’s really not. It’s a ghost telling the story of a self absorbed, mentally unstable, tragically beautiful (of course) girl in three time periods.

It felt like readers were supposed to think the quirky, beautiful MC was deep and romantic or something but I found her unbelievably boring and cliched. We get it, she’s not like other girls. Every other woman in the world is shallow and deserving of getting murdered for being normal and conventionally pretty, but Ellianne reads books and has OCD and listens to better music and writes poetic letters to dead people. The language of the entire book tries so hard to be deep and poetic that it made my teeth hurt. The book was ultimately just depressing and long for me. I hated Ellianne and Jett, and hated the way the poor dead narrator was written to fan girl over these wretched, self absorbed, pseudo-edgy pretty people.

There are already several 4 and 5 star reviews here so it’s obvious there will be a lot of readers who will like this book. I think I might have liked it a lot more when I was a teenager, so that might be a factor too. Give it a try and I think you’ll know in the first few paragraphs if it’s a good fit for you.

I read an advance copy of this book via NetGalley.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a great read. The characters and the plot were so well developed and interesting. I would recommend it!

The blurb for Bright Little Girls was so enticing and after finishing the book, I can say that this plot had great potential.

But gahhh, I struggled so much. Time slowed at the outset while I tried to get involved and become invested. I kept waiting for the pull.…but the draw was elusive. And it didn’t change as I pushed forward. No excitement, anticipation, no emotions really.

And the way the story was told didn’t offer much help. Timelines alternated between past & present, but not with an easy fluidity. The narrator was a clever choice and I appreciated that, but I had no connection with her. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to, idk. Maybe she was simply telling the story for us, but knowing her backstory, I felt like I should’ve been empathetic as a reader to her circumstances. But I really didn’t care that much.

Same for Eliane and Jett. They were impossible to bond with. I think they were supposed to come off as deep, intriguing and intellectual. But annoying & egotistical are better suited descriptives. In the synopsis, El is painted as an old soul, broken and brilliant, alluring, someone readers will love to follow. I wholeheartedly disagree, especially with ‘brilliant’ and ‘alluring’. I found her self-absorbed, garrulous and vexing. Her obsession with Zelda seemed unnecessary and desperate. It didn’t offer the kind of insight that lends to flourishing feelings. I didn’t care for her more or understand her better via her Zelda fixation. I was categorically unmoved.

In the end, the SK’s identity is finally revealed, but unfortunately, it was anticlimactic.

It might just be me though. Obviously my main issue was the utter disconnect from the MC’s which I couldn’t control and certainly couldn’t force. The story has great bones though and I’m sure there’s many readers who will enjoy it.

Thank you NetGalley and Black Rose Writing for this arc in exchange for review. I am always grateful.

Pub date: 3.13.2025.