Member Reviews
Really enjoyable read. Good characters and a Good story. Well worth a read. Think others will enjoy.
I would like Penguin UK & Ali Land for the opportunity in having the ARC to read. Due to this I have decided to leave an honest review.
I didn't dislike the book, it's just the way it's written I would say it felt more like a diary of sorts for our young Millie. I found this a little hard to keep on track with, like something didn't fit right? It's hard to put my finger on it.
Millie turns her mother into the police for a horrendous crime, which in turn his fifteen year old Millie put into a foster home. Her relentlessly horrible foster sister would give regina george a run for her money. The foster father was also the therapist? I was bit like what? Do they even do that but yeah, ok.
The book is very multilayered so you are trying to work most it out while trying to find people to connect or like. Unfortunately for me it wasn't my bag but I can tell people would love this as Ali Land is a brilliant writer!
2 stars!
This was a book which never quite took off for me. It's well-written, with a good premise, but I kept forgetting I was reading it.
This book was wonderful. I enjoyed it greatly. I really connected with the characters and themes. This is an honest review of the book in exchange for an ARC.
It took me a while to get my head around the alternating chapters, not a fast paced novel, but ultimately a gripping read.. A debut that will keep me coming back for more.
An intensely creepy novel about a young teenage girl Milly, who was unfortunate enough to grow up with a sadistic mother.
I struggled with Good Me Bad Me. I tried to persevere as I hate to give up on a book but I was bored and lost interest. Sorry this book was not for me.
An impressive debut novel. Despite its disturbing nature, I am entertained. Milly is an interesting character and she immediately draw me in her unsettling story. Creepy and dark but not that controversial as it claimed. A good read but I feel like there's something else missing. I was waiting for even just a little interaction between Milly and her mom after the arrest but it never happened. Still an entertaining read overall.
Received a free copy from NetGalley
This was one creepy read , a chilling psychological thriller about 15 year old Annie.
Annie is the daughter of serial killer , and turned in her mother into the police for kidnapping and killing children . She is given a fresh start with a new identity of “Milly”.
However she struggles with the new identity and the horrors of her past.
I can’t say I enjoyed the book as there were parts that were dark and brutal, however I like the way it was uniquely written, the way it delves into the character’s mind and we see the internal struggle of Milly.
When Annie hands her mother over to the police she hopes for a new start in life - but can we ever escape our past? 'NEW NAME. NEW FAMILY. SHINY. NEW. ME.' Annie's mother is a serial killer. The only way Annie can make it stop is to hand her in to the police. With a new foster family and a new name - Milly - she hopes for a fresh start. Now, surely, she can be whoever she wants to be. But as her mother's trial looms, the secrets of Milly's past won't let her sleep . . . Because Milly's mother is a serial killer. And blood is thicker than water...
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.
Gritty and compelling, a good story which moves at a quick pace. Hard to like a fair number of the characters and I can see how the constant short sentence structure could infuriate some readers. I thought this convention lent itself well to the way in which Milly was probably thinking but it won't be for everyone. A big build up but not much of an ending.
This was quite a good read and it had me hooked from the beginning.The character's were really good and this was a good read.A thoroughly entertaining and enthralling book.,Hopefully there will 've more from this author.
Good Me Bad Me represented a lot of promise in the opening stages of the book. A child from an horrific background, and the foster family who hope to give her normalcy collide. A foster-sister who suffers a serious bout of jealousy to the point of tormenting her latest sibling. And to cap it off, the trauma of revisiting the crimes visited upon her and other children at the hands of her mother throughout a court trial. An attempt to make friends and readjust to a normal life for a teenager seemed to make for a brilliant read, until the ending became far too predictable - undoing all the work laid out before.
Wow I really enjoyed this book!.
So this is the story of Millie A.K.A Annie, she has been taken into foster care after going to the police and reporting her mother who is a child serial killer guilty of 9 murders, Millie has her identity changed and goes to live with child physiologic Mike, his wife Saskia and their daughter Phoebe, Millie struggles to come to terms with who she is and what it means being a daughter to a serial child killer while battling with her inner demons....after all the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
Now I have to admit that it took me a while to get into this story purley because of the writing style, the story is told by voice narrative from Millie and we spend the whole time inside her head, for the first 30% I found this jarring but soon got used to it and into the story. I felt so much emotions when reading this book and felt sorry for Millie most of the time, I could really feel her struggle with herself, trying to be good but worrying she was bad, while trying to fit in and find somewhere she belongs, I thought it was fascinating being inside her head and you really get a sense for her character. There was a couple of plot twists in here and I admit I did see both of them coming however with the major plot twist it just made me want to keep reading all the more to find out how we would get there and what would happen.
My one grumble with this book was Mike and Saskia, they were highly dysfunctional and I really don'r feel that in a real life situation such as Millie's that she would have been placed into their care.
However I did really enjoy this novel and couldn't turn the pages fast enough to see what happened. If you enjoy a fast paced suspenseful character study then I would highly recommend this!
when i read the narrative of this book i was quite excited to read it. sadly it didn’t quite live up to expectations for me. a lot of things didn’t add up or make sense. however, i know others have really enjoyed and i think it’s down to the individual to decide.
many thanks to netgalley and the publishers for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
A tense and compelling psychological thriller about the daughter of a serial killer. Not sure it would stand up to deep scrutiny, and it’s no doubt a controversial treatment of the subject, but I found it a pacy, absorbing and very entertaining read, which kept the suspense going right to the end.
Suspenseful thriller told from the mindset of a teenage girl whose mum is a child murderer. The premise of the whole book is can we trust the narrator or are we being fed false information. Set amongst teenage angst at school its a really compelling read and I would definitely recommend it.
Started off well, and enjoyed the first few chapters. Does definitely have a ‘gone girl’ feel to it. Sadly it all got a bit silly and unbelievable.
I was very excited to receive this from Netgalley in return for an honest review. This book sells itself as a dark suspenseful thriller. It has been quite popular among my peers but I felt kind of meh about it. I really enjoy stories with an unreliable nature and for a while I was really confused about Milly/Annie but felt like I quite quickly understood her patterns and behaviours. Her actions to me felt predictable and I wasn't shocked at any of the "plot twists". Surprisingly, one of my favourite characters ended up being Clondine, a friend of Phoebe. She seemed to be the most morally sound and realistic to me. A small character but an important one in my opinion. Most of the other characters felt really one dimensional and dull and I didn't really care for them.
This book claims to have a discussion about nature vs nurture but all this book seemed to say to me was "everyone is disturbed some just handle it better".
I wish we had seen more from Milly's mum, often referred to as 'You'. I wanted to feel more towards her and know her more and I waited and waited and was left slightly disappointed.
This thriller to me was just lacking in a few places. The idea was superb but just didn't hit it totally.
3/5 stars
Unfortunately this book was not for me. I wasn't struck on the style of writing. I found it to be quite slow moving as well. However other reviewers seem to have enjoyed it so perhaps it was just me!
This book has sat on my Kindle for over 6 months and I am yet to read it. Whilst I was originally really engaged by the blurb, it's yet to make it to the top of my TBR pile and it no longer really appeals to me. I'm really sorry and incredibly grateful for the opportunity to read and review this book though.