Reviews - The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing

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159 reviews for:

The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing

Sonia Faleiro

3.81 AVERAGE

v_a_n_e_s_s_a's review

3.0

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

It’s a truly tragic story. It was a slow read nonetheless because it was difficult to read. I would say it almost read more like an essay instead of your typical book.

srijoninandy's review against another edition

3.25

Lots of mixed feelings. Disgust, grief, shame, fear are just a few of them. I wish I could say that after having finished the book, I was left with hope, but I wasn’t. In fact, if anything, this book has snatched away even the little glimmer of hope that I had left in me. It exposed how vulnerable I am, it exposed how privileged I am. The basic right to education is a privilege to a girl child. Heck, even the fact that I am alive and not married off already is a privilege and I should consider myself lucky!

I’ll keep my commentary on society to a minimal and come back to the book. It was a good piece of narrative journalism, but as a piece of literature, it seemed lacking. The only true crime book I had read before this was In Cold Blood. While Capote was a genius, and maybe I shouldn’t have had such high expectations, but I did think that the author would explore the psychological aspect of the accused and victims as well. That would have made the book more compelling.

The subject matter chosen is definitely dark and this is not a book for everyone. So beware of the trigger warnings before you go for this!

priyastoric's review against another edition

3.75

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

This is the second book I picked up because of Lilly's Library and really did not know what I was getting into. The only reason this is a three is because I wasn't really prepared for the subject matter, which is tough, and incredibly difficult to read. Sonia Faleiro pulls together interviews about the specific incident involving the two murdered girls and contextualizes it amidst the broader issue of violence against women in India.

It is not easy to read this book, but perhaps necessary to understand the silences and deflections where the victims and who they were and how they died just simply disappears into the wind.

Content Warnings

grabowsk_'s review

3.75

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

deepti_srivatsan's review

4.0

Such a poignant, heart wrenching story. Sonia Faleiro’s narrative style is excellent. In one of her interviews she had mentioned how she had written 6 drafts to fine-tune this book. Thanks to her for bringing this story out.
The one star less is because I felt she wasn’t completely non judgemental as a journalist ought to be. She brought in her own bias against Hindus,Modi etc into the narrative which would have still been ok if she had used the same tone against the previous govt under whose regime the Nirbhaya rape occurred.