Good Me Bad Me

by Ali Land

[Leah]

Oh, holy WOW. If, like me, you were wondering if you were “over” the thriller genre, because they’re all the same, all the “new Gone Girl” or “Girl on the Train”, then you need to pick up Good Me Bad Me. It’s had a LOT of hype on social media, so you’ve probably heard of it, and I’m here to tell you: It. Is. Freaking. Amazing. It’s legitimately good. I was hooked from first page to last and I couldn’t put it down, no matter how tired I was (and I was tired, because I am not sleeping very well at the moment) but I couldn’t get enough of Annie/Milly.

Here’s the thing, I knew exactly where Good Me Bad Me was going before I’d even finished reading the synopsis, but that’s didn’t dampen my enjoyment of the book at all. In fact, I was excited to be proven wrong, and Milly’s voice was so, so captivating that I couldn’t let her go. It’s the kind of voice that resonates with you long after you’ve finished; where you’re still not sure of everything you’ve read and you sure as hell can’t believe everything Milly went through, when she was with her mother, when she was known as Annie. It’s sick, it’s like the worst ever episode of Criminal Minds, not that I think Criminal Minds would ever have an episode so disgusting, so perverse. It made me properly thankful for the family that I have, that’s for sure.

It’s incredibly hard to put into words why this book was so good, it just was. Everything about it. From Milly herself, who has spent her whole life being picked on or bullied in one way or another, and that continues even when she’s with her foster family, made worse is the fact it’s from her very own foster sibling, Phoebe, who was a horrible, nasty girl. Then there’s Mike and Saskia, Phoebe’s parents and Milly’s foster parents. Mike’s overly interested in helping Milly, Saskia’s a space cadet, more worried about her next fix than her real kid or her foster kid. And then there’s Morgan, the one teenager who isn’t nasty to Milly, and their relationship is bizarre and strange, and questionable, but it’s obviously a source of comfort for Milly. Even the way the novel is told, like it’s a love letter to Milly’s mother is both disturbing and fantastic.

I have no idea what goes on in Ali Land’s head, her imagination is out of this world, and if the product of her imagination is Good Me Bad Me, then sign me up for all of her future books because this book kept me gripped throughout. It was intoxicating, addictive, incredibly emotional and absolutely gob-smacking; everything from the characters, to the plot, to the writing was completely on point, and the culmination of everything at the end got me so excited, because just because you can see what’s coming doesn’t make it any less amazing when you see it on the page, especially with the way Ali Land writes. She’s a storytelling genius, and the worst thing of all is that I liked Milly throughout, through it all. I’ve never felt so connected to a character, and I feel like everything has just seeped out of me now that it’s over and I can feel a massive book hangover coming on.