Monday, August 15, 2016

Book Talk: The Good Girl

Over the last several days, I read The Good Girl by Mary Kubica.  It came out at the beginning of last year, but somehow, I missed it and only got around to reading it now. But the great thing about me being late to read it is--- it was easy to get at the library!  I didn't have to wait on it at all.
the book The Good Girl, pictured with my good girl, Lucy...

And I really loved it.  It was advertised as "for fans of Gone Girl"- but I'm not sure why.  However, I was a fan of Gone Girl, and I am a fan of this one, so maybe whoever wrote that knew what they were talking about.  But really, the two books are nothing alike. 

This book is about a girl named Mia that gets kidnapped by a man she meets in a bar one night- But then he changes his mind on the kidnapping, and takes her to a secret cabin in the woods, during the winter, in a very cold area of the country.The narration of the book switches back and forth between several of the characters in the story, and it goes back and forth in the timeline as well.  Sometimes this back and forth in time thing can annoy me, but in this book, it worked and didn't get in the way of the story at all.

I liked the way there was both good and bad in most of the characters of the story.  I actually found myself pulling for the "bad guy".  I figure that's a hard thing for an author to pull off, and I love it when it's done well.  The best example EVER was Walter White, played so brilliantly by Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad... That was the best layered character there ever was,in my opinion. Breaking Bad made me realize how much I love it when I see all sides of a character and they challenge my moral standing on things. I liked that this book did that too.

Before reading The Good Girl, I had read there would be some big twist. It's probably never helpful for me to hear that before I dive into reading a book because it makes me overthink what's coming next.  And then, the "big twist" usually feels anti-climatic.  There was a gradual twist in The Good Girl, that I really liked (but I'm trying to avoid spoilers here...), but the other "twist" that came out in the epilogue of the book just sort of bothered me, in that it made me have to rethink everything about the main character that I thought I understood. For me, it was a better story without that epilogue.  (Again, trying not to spoil, but I SO want to talk about it and this is difficult...)

I would give this book an 8 out of 10- I would have given it a 9 if it had not had that final chapter.


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