Book Review - Good Me, Bad Me by Ali Land

Good Me, Bad Me had me interested from the first line, and delivered a suitably thrilling look into the mind, and motives, of a child left behind after the killings have stopped.

Milly is the daughter of a serial killer. A serial killer that she's helped to put away. Given a fresh start away from the past, and thrown into a normal family life, Milly hopes to move forward and leave her demons behind her. However, when her new family life begins to fall apart behind closed doors, will Milly be able to keep her bad side in check? Or is she more like her mother than she'd like to admit?

I enjoyed the plot for this. We see Milly go from the early days away from her mother with a middle class foster family, up to and beyond her mother's trial for the murder of several children. As the story develops we see more of Milly's background and childhood, and begin to understand who she is, and why she behaves the way she does. The murders are, thankfully, left largely to the imagination, but I really felt the claustrophobia Milly must have experienced while living with her mother, and the desperation that resulted in her going to the police. At times these flashbacks were quite intense, and I admit I had to put the book down several times to catch my breath. It wasn't an easy read.

The story is told from Milly's point of view, as if we the reader are inside her head. Because of this, the writing can be difficult to get into with short staccato sentences. This sometimes made the story jumpy and confusing - much like Milly's frame of mind, and at times I found this hard to wade through - although I felt it added to the overall feel of the story. We also only see the other characters from Milly's perspective, who at best could be described as an unreliable narrator. Milly's mother is never properly introduced, and we only see flashes of her in Milly's nightmares and flashbacks. This made the mother appear as very enigmatic, and perhaps even more intimidating.Her total control of Milly goes above and beyond. We also never get any insight into what the other characters are really feeling, which I might have appreciated - although I admit this is definitely Milly's tale to tell. 

Milly really carried the story well for me. As a character she's vulnerable and yearning for love, yet her manipulation of her foster family, especially her foster mother, is delicious. It's the off-hand comments and subtle remarks that lead her family to doubt themselves that show she's really coming into her own. The student becoming the master. The slow unravelling of her foster family's life, and Milly at the heart of it, begs the question - is Milly the puppet or the puppet master? I thought this was wonderfully done.

Phoebe, her foster sister, is another great character. In some ways she's Milly's twin - yearning for the love of her mother, yet not receiving it in the way she craves. Acting out, bullying Milly at school, reflects her insecurities with her home life - and you can see the jealousy she has with regards to Milly muscling in on her taken-for-granted family time.

The ending I found strong. The build up to it paid off in such a way that I knew something was going to happen, but not quite what and when. The consequences of actions pans out perfectly.

A great thriller, that I feel has rightly been called one of the best this year.

 - 4 stars