Thursday, September 8, 2016

Steph Reads: The Good Girl by Mary Kubica

The Good Girl follows the story of Mia Dennett, a young school teacher who comes from a massively wealthy family making her the perfect target for an abduction demanding a hefty ransom. The story takes place through the eyes of Mia and her captor during the time she is living as a captive, as well as after her return switching perspective between the Detective on the case and Mia's mother. Upon her return from being held captive, Mia has selective amnesia which has blocked most of her memories of her time in the Minnesota woods with her captor, making her case all the more interesting and complex.

Kubica manages to pen this story switching between points of view as well as places on the timeline without confusion and is able to reveal a great deal about many characters in few words. Overall I enjoyed the set up of this story as well as the ending, but I felt the middle of the story was a bit lengthy without much development. It was most likely intentional, but just when I thought the characters were getting somewhere in a scenario or conversation, the chapter would end and the point of view would shift to a different character and part of the timeline forcing me to abandon the momentum I had going in a previous scene.

I do think that the ending of this story was worth the wait and well worth the repeated taunt at some sort of fulfillment in the mid portion of the story, but I do think other books (such as Gone Girl and Girl on the Train) do a better job at keeping a more consistent engagement with the story. When people refer to these types of stories as 'thrillers' or 'roller coaster rides,' I would say with this novel I felt a peak at the beginning, one long plateau, followed by a last peak where as with the previously mentioned novels I feel a ton of bumps along with the massive peaks throughout the story's entirety. Again, I think the ending of this book is very well done and made me want to read the story again (seriously, read the Epilogue...my jaw dropped and I gasped on the subway), but be prepared for a bit of a slow burn with this one!

xxSJ

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