Book Review: Good Bad Girl by Alice Feeney

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Alice Feeney is one of my favorite authors in this genre. I loved Rock Paper Scissors, Sometimes I Lie and His and Hers. I’m always eager to be immersed in her stories and left shocked at the surprises she throws your way, though I found Daisy Darker a tad disappointing on account of its predictability and lack of originality. I really wanted to love her latest offering but sadly, Good Bad Girl failed to deliver on the thrills.

The narrative begins with a baby being stolen from a stroller in the supermarket on Mother's Day. Twenty years later, on Mother’s Day, we meet eighty-year-old Edith, a resident of an assisted living facility who resents having been placed there by her daughter Clio. Edith’s relationship with her daughter is strained on account of reasons that are gradually revealed. Edith is befriended by young Patience who works at the care home and is fond of Edith, often going out of her way to help her. We also meet Frankie, who works as a librarian at a prison, who is frantically searching for her teenage daughter who ran away from home after an emotional confrontation. The narrative follows these characters, weaving past and present timelines together as we discover how these characters’ stories are connected, as they get entangled in a web of secrets, lies and murder.

Plenty of dysfunctional family drama, complicated mother-daughter relationships and the mystery of a missing baby at the core of the story would have made for a riveting read had there been a few less predictable “twists” and of course, a very convenient surprise toward the end of the story. While the characters were well thought out and the author discusses several sensitive issues such as post-partum depression, the pacing is on the slower side and the story feels relatively more character-driven than plot-heavy (Which is fine but, in a thriller, I would expect a stronger plot!). There were moments I found a few developments in the story rather amusing more than surprising ( I did laugh out loud a couple of times, so there’s that). The mystery surrounding the elder care facility could have been developed more which would have added to the suspenseful vibe, but that element of the story was relegated to the background and there is more telling than showing how it was resolved.

I can’t categorize this as a psychological thriller in the true sense of the term and had I not been looking for a more intricately plotted and twisty read, I would have enjoyed this more. I should mention that this novel is emotionally heavier than Feeney’s other novels. Overall, while I did not dislike this novel, it certainly wasn't what I had expected. However, I’m clearly an outlier here and would ask you to read the other reviews before deciding on reading this one.

I listened to audiobook (9 hours 21 minutes) narrated by Katherine Press and Stephanie Racine who have done an overall decent job of voicing the characters and breathing life into the story.

Many thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the ALC. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.