All Good People Here

[Joni Reads]

Thank you to Netgalley for a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Beware- slight spoilers ahead. I usually avoid them but in order to fully articulate what I disliked about this book I had to hint to a few things that happened and talk about the ending of the book.

Oh boy. I wanted to love this one so much. I'm an avid listener to Crime Junkie and The Deck so when I found out Ashley Flowers was writing a book I was so excited. But this book just left a bad taste in my mouth.

It started when I realized just how closely the January Jacobs case in the books was similar to the real life case of Jon Benet Ramsey. That case is what got me into true crime at the ripe age of 12 and it's one that I know very well. The story line being loosely based on the crime I could handle but it was just a little too similar to me. If you don't know much about the case you probably wouldn't notice so this was a "me" issue but it left a bad taste in my mouth that a true crime podcaster wrote a book so heavily based on a real case and as far as I have seen there is no press about the book that says it is based on or inspired by a true story.

Moving on to the actual storytelling. I feel as if the big reveal happened much too late in the book. There was no resolution. There were a lot of false assumptions and right at about the 93% mark comes the big twist. The epilogue really frustrated me. The last chapter before the epilogue ended in a really preachy way about how the main character didn't want to become just another name on a long list of girls who are victims of bad men. It is a good sentiment but not for the very end of the book. And then it jumped to the epilogue which includes a slightly graphic depiction of the murder of a 6 year old girl.

I'm not a fan of ambiguous endings in thrillers. I understand that in real life not everything is tied up in a bow but if I wanted real life I would read the newspaper. In thrillers I want some kind of resolution and we just don't get that in All Good People Here.

Is the main character ok? We don't know.

Does the real bad guy ever get caught? We don't know.

All we get is a preachy internal monologue and description of child murder and then *end book*.

I think if you don't know much about true crime and you are going into this with the expectation of simply reading a thriller you might enjoy this. I'm sure I am in the minority with my opinion but I can't say for sure as I haven't read any reviews for this book.

I will probably remember this book but not because its one that I enjoyed but because its one that I had such high hopes for and was so let down by.