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Straight away I realised that this novel was going to be a bestseller. It ticks all the boxes of a great, original psychological thriller. I was sad, yet relieved when it concluded. Sad, because I wanted to read more, I didn't want to stArt another novel, that frankly would be a disappointment after this, but relieved because I could return to my life without constantly thinking about this book!
It was unsettling, creepy with so many unexpected twists. I was constantly saying to myself 'just one more chapter...'
The characterisation of Milly was so well developed, she was such a dark, tormented character, it must have taken the author so long to think how she should be portrayed. I get the impression that every little detail in the novel was really thought about and considered. The reader is really taken on a thrilling, terrifying roller coaster. More please!!

Gripping read from the start. Real page turner! Highly recommended

Came across the book by chance .All I can say is wow, a must read, could not put it down. Looking forward to the next one by this author. Would highly recommended

Review Please be aware that I was given a copy of this novel through NetGalley for the purposes of an honest review and this in no way affects the rating, or review I am giving.
This is an excellent psychological thriller. Our narrator is the 15 year old daughter of a female serial killer and has suffered an enormous amount of abuse at her hands, including participating in the aftermath of the murders.
You really feel the horrors she has suffered and how this impacts her into manipulative behaviour. Can a 15 year old convey things accurately, or has the abuse altered her perception and ability to understand events?
I will not give the storyline away. Suffice to say that you are kept guessing for most of the novel - you only get small pieces of information at a time. All the more to build the suspense and horror of the situation. If you enjoy psychological thrillers then this is a must read. Clever stuff! (less)

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FRIEND REVIEWS (3)

This book blew me away! I loved it! Annie went to the police and told them her mother was a serial killer. 9 children died at her hands. Annie becomes Milly while the trial is being built and goes to live with her psychologist, his daughter Phoebe and his wife Saskia who all have their own problems. Milly struggles at school and has difficulty in making relationships and often misreads people's intentions, especially her art teacher who helps her a lot, but Milly gets too attached. Phoebe bullies her really cruelly. There are flashbacks in Milly's head back to what her mother would have said to her and what she was doing. I think the main thing the book brought to mind was the huge debate of nature V nurture.

An interesting narrative voice full of challenges to the reader. Is Annie a reliable narrator or not? I finished the novel not really sure-which is the strength of this novel and quite a feat for Land.

You can't help but feel sorry for Milly, her mum was a sick, evil woman. When she moves in with her foster family she hopes to ease in without any trouble. Unfortunately, Phoebe dislikes Milly from the start and whatever Milly does is not good enough.
Milly also has her mother's trial to deal with, which isn't easy.
I really enjoyed this book and found it easy to read. I would recommend it to other readers. Thank you for the advanced copy.

Good me bad me has definitely been one of the best books i have read this year. Fifteen year old Milly hasn't had the best start in life, the daughter of a serial killer who Milly herself turned over to the police. We join Milly as she is doing her best to settle into a new family with a new identity whilst dealing with the upcoming court case where she will need to give evidence against her mother. This is a very dark and somewhat disturbing story that will have you page turning into the night as you won't want to put it down.

Well I liked this book. It was quite chilling in places and somewhat dark too but it all fits in with the story, Milly is a strong character the young daughter of a serial killing mum, you don't see the mum but she is constantly in Millie's head and she has conversations with her often so you gather what kind of relationship they had and what went on through that. I really felt for milky through all her trials and tribulations and was angry how so many adults seemed oblivious to what was happened especially at school. I hated Phoebe but then saw why she behaved the way she did, the family wasn't perfect after all far from it. I thought It was a slow paced book I thought but it wasn't an issue and I enjoyed it a lot.

Fifteen year old Annie's mother was a serial killer who preyed on small children who wouldn't be missed, and who abused Annie into helping her keep her horrific secret until the day she goes too far and Millie turns her in.

As a result Annie is put into a witness protection scheme with a new name, Millie, and housed with Mike Newmont, a therapist, his wife Saskia and daughter Phoebe who is the the same age as Millie but resents her coming into her family home.

Millie tries to fit in, desperate for a normal life with a normal family, but the Newmont's life isn't a sweet and rosy as it first appears, either. It seems that Millie can't escape the pull of her mother, either, as the date of the trial in which she must testify against her looms ever nearer, and the bullying that she receives at her new school makes keeping her secret, especially from the one friend she has made, increasingly difficult and pushes her further towards the edge.

Good Me, Bad Me is a taut, engaging tale about what it means to be the offspring of a monster, and how this shapes and affects your life and those around you. Millie desperately wants to be good, to counter the wicked things that her mother did, but her abusive history keeps coming back to haunt her, and the shadow of her mother looms large over her.

Her struggle to fit in, her internal conflict between her loyalty to her mother and her abhorrence at her crimes, and the worry that despite all of her good intentions, she may end up being very much her mother's daughter make for a gripping, unflinching, page turning read that builds to a terrific climax.

A real page turner, and something quite different. It is refreshing and unusual to read a book where the "bad guy" is someone's mother. I enjoyed trying to work out Millie's character - is she good or bad? A juicy, different novel!

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. Thank you to the author, Ali Land, and the publisher, Penguin Books, for this opportunity.

This is such a compelling read, unafraid to traverse on dark and even taboo subject matters, and shed light on topics often left undisclosed.

This story focuses on Annie, who is the child of a serial killer. Her life is haunted by the children she could not save and the horrors of living her life with one so degenerate. She is granted a fresh start with a new family, but her new life isn't as rosy as she imagined it to be. Every family has secrets, and they might not be as dark as hers, but Annie vows to unearth them all.

I have been looking for some time to find a book as depraved, nefarious, and as rich in thrills as the likes of Gone Girl, You, and The Girl on the Train. It seems every psychological thriller is likened or compared to these heavy-hitters of the genre, but it is for good reason. These books set a bar for newcomers to aim for, set so unprecedentedly high that it takes the work of debased genius to even come close to them. Yet this book has done that. Move over Amy Dunne, and welcome the new Queen of the Depraved.

What a book! GoodMeBadMe is an awesome, provocative and exciting book that really grabs you by the throat and refuses to let go. An unflinching look at a subject many of us would rather avoid, this will definitely give you a fresh look at 'grip-lit' from Milly's eyes. I often dismiss books that are really hyped but I'm so glad that I got to review GMBM before I heard any spoilers. Ali Land has written a fantastic book with a cast of characters that will make you think. The after-effects of abuse and depravity never make for easy reading but I never found this book gratuitous or unnecessary in its bold content, The older readers in my sixth form will devour this - it's a deftly -plotted intriguing and very different read. I already can't wait for her next book :)

Good me bad me by Ali Land.
'NEW N A M E . NEW F A M I LY. S H I N Y. NEW. ME . ' Annie's mother is a serial killer. The only way she can make it stop is to hand her in to the police. But out of sight is not out of mind. As her mother's trial looms, the secrets of her past won't let Annie sleep, even with a new foster family and name - Milly. A fresh start. Now, surely, she can be whoever she wants to be. But Milly's mother is a serial killer. And blood is thicker than water. Good me, bad me. She is, after all, her mother's daughter...
A fantastic read. I wasn't sure about Milly. A very emotional read. Full of twists. Highly recommended. 5*. Thanks netgalley and penguin books.

Thanks to NetGalley and to Penguin for offering me a free ARC of this novel that I voluntarily chose to review.
This novel has Annie, a sixteen years old girl, as narrator and she tells us, in the first person, what happens when she reports her mother to the police. Her mother is a serial killer. Worse than that, she’s killed 9 children (allegedly). Whilst they are waiting for the trial, she is placed with a foster family and given a new identity (she becomes Milly). Her new family has its problems too. Mike, the father, is a psychologist and seems the most together in the family although he doesn’t realise he might be biting more than he can chew. Saskia, the mother, has problems in her relationship with her daughter and drinks and takes too many pills. Phoebe is a queen bee and not very nice at all. The dog is OK, though. Milly tries to fit in with the new family while getting ready for the trial. It is not easy.
I’m always intrigued by how writers use their narrators and here Milly (Annie) is pretty unreliable. She is very good at keeping under wraps some of the information and only revealing or suggesting other. She talks to her mother, whose voice she seems to have internalised (giving a clear indication of the effect such toxic people would have in the lives of those around them) and has a running conversation with her, convinced that her mother is still playing games with her. Milly insists on giving evidence because in some way that will give her closure (perhaps). She second-guesses not only her mother but all around her; a habit we guess must have grown from trying to survive in an extremely hostile environment.
Milly’s new life has difficulties, as Phoebe, who doesn’t know her circumstances, is jealous of the attention her father gives her and is quite bitchy. She bullies her and gets her friends to do the same at school. Milly manages to make a friend but her relationship with Morgan, a girl from a neighbouring estate, has very worrying traits and is not the healthiest.
The story is well written and paced, revealing information at a slow pace and keeping us intrigued. The subject matter is very hard, but the worst of the violence is psychological and there are few details given although we get to imagine terrible things. There is an air of threat and impending doom hanging over the novel that the author achieves by cleverly hiding some information and foreshadowing other events that not always take place.
The writer, who had worked nursing young people in mental health settings, creates a good plot and it’s difficult not to let our mind wonder and wander, worrying about what might come next.
I’ve read some of the comments about the novel and although most are positive, some of the negative ones deserve some discussion. Some people query the voice of the narrator, whom they feel is very articulate and adult-sounding for a sixteen-year-old. She is very articulate. She is also a girl who’s survived to incredible life events and who’s evidently very intelligent and even gifted (if we’re to judge by the comments of her art teacher) and she’s very good at self-censoring at manipulating others (and perhaps herself and us too). It is not easy to sympathise with her at an emotional level, although rationally it is impossible not to empathise and it might also depend on the reader (and our feelings change as we read on). There are comments about how Milly seems to behave too rationally and how somebody subjected to the abuse and trauma she has suffered would be much more affected. There is no fast and hard rule on that matter and one can’t help but wonder about Milly’s own personality. As she notes, she’s her mother’s daughter. Some of the reviewers felt that the rest of the characters are one-dimensional and have no depth but we need to remember the book is narrated from Milly’s point of view and she’s very self-centered and sees other characters only in the light of their interaction with her, not as individuals with other interests and full lives (her relationship with the art tutor is illustrative of that, although the school doesn’t do a very good job there either).
There are some points that are perhaps given too much emphasis (they are going to perform Lord of the Flies at the school, very aptly and that is subject of much discussion, therefore calling attention once more to children and violence), and we are given data ends up becoming a red herring or doesn’t go anywhere (Milly discovers information about some of the characters that makes us wonder what’s going to happen next and… nothing does). Personally, I think all of it helps create a picture of the central character as a contradictory individual, who is trying to not be like her mother but at the same time can’t help but want her mother’s approval, who perhaps has realised that being bad has its pluses too, as long as you don’t get caught.
The ending won’t disappoint, although I think many of us might have suspected what was going to happen but not perhaps how the author builds up to it, and as I said, we might have thought there was more to come.
In summary a disquieting and chilling book, that’s not heavy on explicit violence but explores the darker recesses of the mind of somebody affected by an extremely dysfunctional childhood. A word of warning, although there’s very little explicit violence, I know some readers prefer not to read thrillers where children are the victims and suffer abuse and that’s the case here.

I received this book via Netgalley and my what a great read it was! A gripping, psychological, chilling thriller!

Thrillers and crime novels are my go to genre but I have never read anything that comes close to this novel by Ali Land. She takes you to places you would never have dreamed of going before and leaves you reeling with horror.

Annie's mother is a serial killer and whilst we never get any real detail of the horrific acts she has carried out, Annie's memories of the part she played and the hold her mother still has over her even whilst she is behind lock and key is traumatic enough. Whilst her mother is awaiting trial Annie is taken into temporary care and the teenage daughter of the family (with terrible issues of her own) bullies her and makes her new life almost as dreadful as her past.

This is a book you will not be able to put down and your emotions and predispositions will be challenged throughout. I was left wanting to know how Annie copes once her mother has been sentenced and I will most definitely be on the lookout for further books by Ms Land.

I was so excited to have been approved for this book as I had been hearing so much about it and it certainly lives up to the hype. From the very first line I was hooked and I read the whole thing in a single sitting, well-deserving of its comparisons to other hit thrillers such as 'Gone Girl', I actually enjoyed this far more than any other thriller I've read in recent years. The characters here are so well-developed and the plot so masterfully crafted that I didn't want it to end. I envy anyone who has not yet read this book - I wish I could read it for the first time again and again!