Deluded Review – The Good Girl
About the Book The Good Girl
- Written by Mary Kubica
- 352 pages
- Published July 29, 2014
From Goodreads: 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.
My Review
I decided to read this book because it had good reviews and was pitched as a psychological thriller in the veins of Gone Girl. I liked Gone Girl because it was exciting, unexpected, and downright creepy. Therefore, I would expect a book that’s being compared to it to have those same qualities.
Unfortunately, The Good Girl shares no similarities other than having “Girl” in the title.
Eh, maybe it’s because I just watched The OA, which was also a kidnapping story told through flashbacks, but I didn’t find this book to be very good. To me, it seemed just like an average mystery crime thriller, which isn’t really my favorite. To sum up – girl is kidnapped, rescued, and conveniently left with amnesia so no one really knows what happened to her. While the story is about Mia, she never actually gets a say – instead, we get to see the story through the eyes of her mother, Eve, the detective looking for her, Gabe, and her captor, Colin.
This setup was problematic for me. I feel as though I never got to understand Mia at all. In fact, it made it hard to see any sort of development or change in character throughout her “traumatic” experience. She started out as a whiny and weak when she couldn’t deal with her daddy issues, remained whiny and weak throughout her kidnapping even as she found “love” with Colin, and was the whiniest and weakest of all after being rescued for reasons I won’t spoil.
Nothing really exciting or unexpected happens, except in the epilogue, which didn’t really make any sense if you consider the rest of the book. All it did was add to Mia’s unlikable demeanor. Overall, there was no element of surprise, shock, or uniqueness, as you knew she would be rescued since the story was told in a before/after perspective. The “twist” was kind of easy to catch and didn’t really change my thoughts on the book at all.
Another issue is that despite being told from the point of view of three different characters, everyone had the same tone and voice. The dialogue was unrealistic. And I don’t understand the romance at all. As the doctor says, it’s Stockholm syndrome. Certainly has nothing to do with Gone Girl like the description claims. Just meh.
It’s weird, because a lot of people like this book. I didn’t think it was downright bad – I’m just not sure it was very good.
Rating