Published by Harlequin MIRA on Jul. 29, 2014
Genre(s): Fiction, Suspense, Mystery, Thriller
Format: Audiobook/Kindle
Pages: 352
I've been following her for the past few days. I know where she buys her groceries, where she works. I don't know the color of her eyes or what they look like when she's scared. But I will.
One night, Mia Dennett enters a bar to meet her on-again, off-again boyfriend. But when he doesn't show, she unwisely leaves with an enigmatic stranger. At first Colin Thatcher seems like a safe one-night stand. But following Colin home will turn out to be the worst mistake of Mia's life.
When Colin decides to hide Mia in a secluded cabin in rural Minnesota instead of delivering her to his employers, Mia's mother, Eve, and detective Gabe Hoffman will stop at nothing to find them. But no one could have predicted the emotional entanglements that eventually cause this family's world to shatter.
An addictively suspenseful and tautly written thriller, The Good Girl is a propulsive debut that reveals how even in the perfect family, nothing is as it seems.
This book was recommended to me- as it likely was to many others- preceded by the question, "did you like Gone Girl?" I decided to give it a try because I did like Gone Girl, but I also liked Gillian Flynn's other novels of the same Suspense/Thriller genre, so I guess I was kind of hoping this story would fall in line with those...It didn't.
From the moment the story started to unfold, The Good Girl was predictable in almost every way. The mystery genre was lost on this one when nearly nothing was surprising. The characters had depth, but in a very far-fetched way such that the author described many of them to be one way, yet in their actions, they appeared completely- almost unbelievably- different. This definitely added to the unreliability of the suspense and shock-factor. Characters were doing and not doing things that just plain didn't fit to the point where it wasn't surprising because apparently anything goes.
The pace of the novel was slow, which also didn't help the suspense factor. On the other hand, the slow pace might have been the only reason I kept reading. Even though the story was boring at times, chapters were short, making it easy to keep going. Before I knew it, the book was over. I read a portion of the book on my kindle, which shows percentage in the bottom corner. At about 91%, I could tell things were wrapping up, and there was still so much unexplained. However, by the time the book ended, those explanations were somehow thrown in. Needless to say, the last 9% of the book is where things got a bit fuzzy for me. For how much was supposedly going on in between pages, trying to thoughtfully explain the plot from the beginning in one last chapter just didn't work out. I found myself rereading sentences because it was that unbelievable-- not the explanation itself, that I did see coming, but the way the author wrote it off in a few short paragraphs.
Overall, the story was highly predictable for me, but because it was short with quick chapters, it was still an enjoyable read. With more nuanced characters and plot details, I think it could have been a lot better.
