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A review by alexblackreads
The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing by Sonia Faleiro
3.0
I have some conflicting thoughts on this book. I did really enjoy it. It was incredibly worthwhile and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone who's interested. It's a really close look at rape in India, how it affects women's lives and how it's dealt with politically in the broader system as well as individually.
It's really heartwrenching to take a deep dive into this case of two girls who are found dead, and whose deaths mobilize the country in protests (again) for the safety of women. Faleiro takes you through the girls' childhoods, their final days, their deaths, the aftermath in their families, and the aftermath in the country as a whole, while discussing rape and violence against women as a larger issue. It was fascinating to read.
But I was never excited to pick this book. Despite enjoying it quite a bit, I didn't love it. Mostly, it felt a little basic in terms of structure. Like fantastic information, but it wasn't structured very well as a narrative. It did read as rather dry at points, and lacked a connection with the events of the story.
I also think there was too much information for the book to handle. Not only is Faleiro tackling this entire years long case of the girls deaths, but she also discusses a number of other cases of violence against women, sometimes in a great deal of depth. And she really wants to give the reader every single detail of the case, even when it's not overly important. All of this, in what amounts to about 280 pages of actual story (because a fair amount of time at the end is spent on notes/references/etc). It's just too much for this book to hold. It comes across feeling like an onslaught of information.
One thing that also bothered me was in the author's note at the end, Faleiro discusses her desire for objectivity in this book. Nothing bothered me until she said that because objectivity isn't possible in journalism, and especially not here. There's so much bias that goes into the decisions of what to research, and how to research, and who to talk to and trust, that objectivity isn't a realistic goal (which is fine, there's still plenty of room for worthwhile and trustworthy journalism). Especially in this case, by the time you get to the end, people have come to so many different conclusions and everyone has spent so much time lying, that what you think happened comes down to who you believe is telling the truth. Saying her goal was absolute objectivity just makes me feel like she's not confronting her own biases and judgments, and that makes me trust her a little less. Again, had zero issues with that until I got to her final note, and it kind of had me reflecting on my experience again.
But I would recommend this. I think it was an incredibly close look at violence against women in India, and a heartwrenching account of what appened to these two young girls who died because of it.
It's really heartwrenching to take a deep dive into this case of two girls who are found dead, and whose deaths mobilize the country in protests (again) for the safety of women. Faleiro takes you through the girls' childhoods, their final days, their deaths, the aftermath in their families, and the aftermath in the country as a whole, while discussing rape and violence against women as a larger issue. It was fascinating to read.
But I was never excited to pick this book. Despite enjoying it quite a bit, I didn't love it. Mostly, it felt a little basic in terms of structure. Like fantastic information, but it wasn't structured very well as a narrative. It did read as rather dry at points, and lacked a connection with the events of the story.
I also think there was too much information for the book to handle. Not only is Faleiro tackling this entire years long case of the girls deaths, but she also discusses a number of other cases of violence against women, sometimes in a great deal of depth. And she really wants to give the reader every single detail of the case, even when it's not overly important. All of this, in what amounts to about 280 pages of actual story (because a fair amount of time at the end is spent on notes/references/etc). It's just too much for this book to hold. It comes across feeling like an onslaught of information.
One thing that also bothered me was in the author's note at the end, Faleiro discusses her desire for objectivity in this book. Nothing bothered me until she said that because objectivity isn't possible in journalism, and especially not here. There's so much bias that goes into the decisions of what to research, and how to research, and who to talk to and trust, that objectivity isn't a realistic goal (which is fine, there's still plenty of room for worthwhile and trustworthy journalism). Especially in this case, by the time you get to the end, people have come to so many different conclusions and everyone has spent so much time lying, that what you think happened comes down to who you believe is telling the truth. Saying her goal was absolute objectivity just makes me feel like she's not confronting her own biases and judgments, and that makes me trust her a little less. Again, had zero issues with that until I got to her final note, and it kind of had me reflecting on my experience again.
But I would recommend this. I think it was an incredibly close look at violence against women in India, and a heartwrenching account of what appened to these two young girls who died because of it.