The Good Girl in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Jul 09, 2015 Melissa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I love a good psychological thriller from time to time and Mary Kubica really delivered with this one! I love how she goes back and forth in time, so readers have to put the pieces of the story together, not really knowing what to expect or where certain aspects come in. It kept me guessing the whole time, wondering when everything was going to fall into place.

The story is so well-written and compelling. It's not often that I care about a supposedly "bad" character, but I found myself really li ...more

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May 23, 2020 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was ok

1.5 stars

This wasn't very good. I kept reading it because I was curious to find out if Mia was faking her amnesia or not. It was crappy but it was also reasonably painless, sort of like watching Gilligan's Island: I knew I wasn't being entertained, and I knew I didn't have to pay full attention, it was just a mindless distraction.

This is told in several POVs, primarily:
* Gabe, the cop working the kidnapping case
* Colin, the kidnapper
* Eve, the mother

I think we are supposed to like all three of t 1.5 stars

This wasn't very good. I kept reading it because I was curious to find out if Mia was faking her amnesia or not. It was crappy but it was also reasonably painless, sort of like watching Gilligan's Island: I knew I wasn't being entertained, and I knew I didn't have to pay full attention, it was just a mindless distraction.

This is told in several POVs, primarily:
* Gabe, the cop working the kidnapping case
* Colin, the kidnapper
* Eve, the mother

I think we are supposed to like all three of them, as well as Mia, the kidnappee. Mia's father, James, and Colin's boss, Dalmar, were set up as the clear bad guys. But I didn't like any of them. The casual racism in each POV was ridiculous. I know there's the argument that the opinions expresses are those of the characters, not the author, but ... come on. At least four separate times, the scene was described as safe or unsafe based on the percentage of white people present in the area. Like, what? An area is safe to live in if it's predominately white? That's what we're going with? At first I thought it was just the cop who thought those things, and maybe Kubica was just trying too hard to make the cop into some hard-boiled retro creature who tosses around racist and homophobic comments (which was also odd since we were clearly supposed to like Gabe), but ALL of the POVs eventually expressed this same idea that black=danger and white=safe. It wasn't just the cop.

Also, the tired old trope of the bad guy with a heart of gold who was really a good guy in a bad situation was ... tired. The tired trope was tired. I didn't buy Colin as a good guy.

Eve was annoying. Also, I kept confusing her with Mia, so neither character really jumped out at me as a real person.

Mia was supposed to be, what? I don't even know what kind of person she was supposed to be. She was incredibly bland, considering she was the focus of the entire book. I guess she was an artist, therefore an artsy individual of some sort, born rich but working to teach the poor unfortunates. Yay?

Also, there is a strong abortion is murder and women always feel guilty after abortion message that I could have done without.

There's a little twist that is supposed to be clever and shocking, I guess, but it just felt flabby. I was really over it by then. ...more

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Sep 22, 2017 Christina, Join Me on Storygraph! rated it really liked it

Shelves: audio-book, 2017

This book was engaging enough for my commute, but it ended somewhat abruptly then went into the epilogue.

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Jul 10, 2015 Melanie rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2015

Interesting twist, but slow going until the end.

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Aug 12, 2015 Sharon rated it liked it · review of another edition

I would give 3.5 stars if I could. Unlike others who described this book as suspenseful, I only found parts of it suspenseful. Other parts of the first half of the book dragged, but I was interested enough in the plot to continue reading to find out what happened.

I liked the little twist at the end. Overall, a solid effort by a first-time author.

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