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A review by thepetitepunk
The Good Girls by Claire Eliza Bartlett
3.0
Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
3.5 stars
The Good Girls has a compelling premise. Emma Baines ends up dead a few years after the supposed suicide of Lizzy Sayer. Unlike Lizzy, however, Emma was a good girl--well-behaved and qualified to win a prestigious scholarship. Ruled as a murder, there's three main suspects behind the death of Emma: Claude, a troublemaker known for sleeping around; Avery, a cheerleader with strict parents; and Gwen, a competitive student who was also aiming for the same scholarship as Emma. Although all three girls claim they weren't behind the death of Emma, it's clear they know something that others don't.
This was a difficult book for me to rate because some parts worked so well and some parts didn't. The pacing at the beginning was strange. It was both boring and slow, and it took me an unreasonable amount of time to push past the first chunk of the book. However, towards the middle, things really picked up and had me hooked until the very end. I think part of the reason this book was so difficult to get into was the POV style. There are alternating third-person point of views--Emma, Claude, Avery, and Gwen--along with diary entries and police records that were mostly told in first person. While I do understand that the intention of this narration style was most likely to convey the different sides of this story and keep the readers on their toes about which characters are actually suspicious, it was a bit much at the beginning. There were way too many facets of the story for me to keep track of so I didn't feel like I had a good understanding of who was who until maybe the middle of the story. However, despite the confusion, I ended up really loving all of the main characters. As I mentioned before, it wasn't easy to tell the characters apart at first, but once the book delved deeper into the individual stories and personalities of these girls, I appreciated how such different characters could somehow still be linked together.
The themes of feminism and victim blaming were well done. Often times, I think the endings of thrillers are most at risk for being the weakest part of the story but I actually thought the ending was the strongest part of The Good Girls. I wish the beginning/part of the middle wasn't so slow and confusing because I'm sure this will put some people off from finishing the book, which is a shame since the ending is so powerful. Overall, I have some mixed thoughts but I do think it got better as the book progressed.
Trigger warnings; murder, mentioned suicide, eating disorders / body image, drug use and selling, underage drinking, pedophilia, rape, grooming, sexual assault, slut shaming, victim blaming
3.5 stars
The Good Girls has a compelling premise. Emma Baines ends up dead a few years after the supposed suicide of Lizzy Sayer. Unlike Lizzy, however, Emma was a good girl--well-behaved and qualified to win a prestigious scholarship. Ruled as a murder, there's three main suspects behind the death of Emma: Claude, a troublemaker known for sleeping around; Avery, a cheerleader with strict parents; and Gwen, a competitive student who was also aiming for the same scholarship as Emma. Although all three girls claim they weren't behind the death of Emma, it's clear they know something that others don't.
This was a difficult book for me to rate because some parts worked so well and some parts didn't. The pacing at the beginning was strange. It was both boring and slow, and it took me an unreasonable amount of time to push past the first chunk of the book. However, towards the middle, things really picked up and had me hooked until the very end. I think part of the reason this book was so difficult to get into was the POV style. There are alternating third-person point of views--Emma, Claude, Avery, and Gwen--along with diary entries and police records that were mostly told in first person. While I do understand that the intention of this narration style was most likely to convey the different sides of this story and keep the readers on their toes about which characters are actually suspicious, it was a bit much at the beginning. There were way too many facets of the story for me to keep track of so I didn't feel like I had a good understanding of who was who until maybe the middle of the story. However, despite the confusion, I ended up really loving all of the main characters. As I mentioned before, it wasn't easy to tell the characters apart at first, but once the book delved deeper into the individual stories and personalities of these girls, I appreciated how such different characters could somehow still be linked together.
The themes of feminism and victim blaming were well done. Often times, I think the endings of thrillers are most at risk for being the weakest part of the story but I actually thought the ending was the strongest part of The Good Girls. I wish the beginning/part of the middle wasn't so slow and confusing because I'm sure this will put some people off from finishing the book, which is a shame since the ending is so powerful. Overall, I have some mixed thoughts but I do think it got better as the book progressed.
Trigger warnings; murder, mentioned suicide, eating disorders / body image, drug use and selling, underage drinking, pedophilia, rape, grooming, sexual assault, slut shaming, victim blaming