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A review by themermaddie
Good Girls Die First by Kathryn Foxfield
3.0
this is a weird one, because i feel like this would've made a much better screenplay for a 6 episode hbo show or something instead of a novel. the bones of a strong story are absolutely here, there's interesting stuff happening but it's largely overshadowed by a truly enormous (10!) cast of characters and strange behaviour all around. i also didnt realise that this was a supernatural mystery book, which was fine with me but just unexpected. the context of this book makes more sense when you read the acknowledgements and the author cites agatha christie and stephen king as inspirations: this feels like IT x And Then There Were None had a YA baby.
something about the writing in this book made it feel like a script, but like, not enough? i feel like this would have been a great tv show bc foxfield's setting descriptions were not doing enough for me, but i can absolutely see what she was going for. the characters all feel like archetypes; they were better than cliches, but there were unfortunately just so many of them that it gets a little confusing at times. especially when we get introduced to all of them at the same time, i feel like it might've been better to slowly introduce characters over the first quarter of the book instead of info dumping too early. i liked that all of their secrets were actually very bad, but there's not enough time dedicated to actually processing each one; even ava's secret reveal was like "ok thanks for telling me now we should run for our lives."
i wish jolie and ava's friendship had better support, it was SO weird watching ava continuously defend this girl when jolie had literally never been shown to be kind to anyone ever on page. like okay maybe jolie has changed but if you want me to care about her at ALL you need to show me something about her worth being invested in. all she does is be cruel, i don't care that she's traumatised and lashing out, it doesn't make sense that ava is the only one seemingly mourning their friendship, ugh. it just makes it seem like ava has bad taste in friends and jolie is a bad person.
the mystery was, well, eh. once you figure out the "rules" it's interesting to see who will survive and how ppl will die. which i will say! this book is not shy about killing characters off, which can't be said about all YA thrillers. the whole whispers thing frustrates me bc i feel like it would be SO MUCH BETTER if it had been on screen! i think all the imagery that foxfield was trying to get across would've been so slay if visualised; the cage, the ocean, the cavern, the funhouse MIRRORS?!? would've been so atmospheric and cool.
lastly and least importantly, whoever did the US translation of this book did a fucking horrible job. these kids talk like british teenagers but with 90s american high school slang?? the US version took the time to change all the british spellings to american spellings (eg realize instead of realise) but you shouldn't take the time to change "year 6" to "5th grade"?? it was very weird and distracting.
anyway this book was fine ig, good vibes for what it is but really should've been a tv script imo
something about the writing in this book made it feel like a script, but like, not enough? i feel like this would have been a great tv show bc foxfield's setting descriptions were not doing enough for me, but i can absolutely see what she was going for. the characters all feel like archetypes; they were better than cliches, but there were unfortunately just so many of them that it gets a little confusing at times. especially when we get introduced to all of them at the same time, i feel like it might've been better to slowly introduce characters over the first quarter of the book instead of info dumping too early. i liked that all of their secrets were actually very bad, but there's not enough time dedicated to actually processing each one; even ava's secret reveal was like "ok thanks for telling me now we should run for our lives."
i wish jolie and ava's friendship had better support, it was SO weird watching ava continuously defend this girl when jolie had literally never been shown to be kind to anyone ever on page. like okay maybe jolie has changed but if you want me to care about her at ALL you need to show me something about her worth being invested in. all she does is be cruel, i don't care that she's traumatised and lashing out, it doesn't make sense that ava is the only one seemingly mourning their friendship, ugh. it just makes it seem like ava has bad taste in friends and jolie is a bad person.
the mystery was, well, eh. once you figure out the "rules" it's interesting to see who will survive and how ppl will die. which i will say! this book is not shy about killing characters off, which can't be said about all YA thrillers. the whole whispers thing frustrates me bc i feel like it would be SO MUCH BETTER if it had been on screen! i think all the imagery that foxfield was trying to get across would've been so slay if visualised; the cage, the ocean, the cavern, the funhouse MIRRORS?!? would've been so atmospheric and cool.
lastly and least importantly, whoever did the US translation of this book did a fucking horrible job. these kids talk like british teenagers but with 90s american high school slang?? the US version took the time to change all the british spellings to american spellings (eg realize instead of realise) but you shouldn't take the time to change "year 6" to "5th grade"?? it was very weird and distracting.
anyway this book was fine ig, good vibes for what it is but really should've been a tv script imo