A review by casskrug
Good Girl by Aria Aber

3.5

good girl follows 19 year old nila, who is of afghan heritage and living in berlin. her relationship with her family becomes especially splintered after the death of her mother, and she falls in with berlin’s nightlife crowd. the group centers around the older writer marlowe, who nila gets involved with. we see nila grapple with the shame she has surrounding her identity, the sense of displacement she feels among her friends, and how that shame drags her even farther away from her family.

i really enjoyed aber’s writing style - her multilingual background and origin as a poet made for some really interesting turns of phrase. nila’s narrative voice was engaging, and i was rooting for her the entire time. her struggles felt nuanced and realistic. i also thought aber did a great job of evoking a sense of time and place with her descriptions of the 2000s berlin club scene.

i was compelled by the progression of nila and marlowe’s relationship during the pivotal events that took place throughout the novel, but the toxic relationship and constant partying storylines started to grate on me towards the end of the book. i think i’m realizing that toxic relationships aren’t my favorite topic to read about, so that comes down to personal preference. i saw some similarities to if only by vigdis hjorth, with the cyclical nature of nila and marlowe’s benders and fights, and would’ve loved to see some of that repetition tightened up a bit.

overall an enjoyable debut! thank you to hogarth for sending me a copy of this book, and happy pub day!! 💗