Ali LandKirja-arvosteluja

Yikes. This is one creepy read. It's not overly graphic but it is disturbing. I couldn't put it down but I hope I don't have nightmares about it. Speaking of which, the bad dreams are some of the scariest parts of the story. Just a really good scary book.

Going into this book, you expect dysfunction and psychological damage as Ali Land details a few weeks in the life of a fifteen-year-old girl who is taken in by a foster family after reporting her demented, child-torturing, murdering mother to authorities. Her stepdad doubles as her her therapist and father-figure she has never had throughout the trial process for her mother. However, the demons inside her leave her to question every move she has made and continues to made and even the thoughts she has. Is she inherently "bad" like her mother and doomed for a lifetime of lunacy? Or, has her mom brainwashed her only so much that she still has time to save herself from the evil she sees?

This is a demented, deranged, and unhinged story that you can't step away from. Ali Land nails the notion of the human tendency to attain power over others for self-preservation. She braves the boundaries of evil vs decency. I applaud her courageous and bold undertaking of a very complex character and scenario. I wanted to read this because I have a background in psychology and a minor child abuse and neglect and I guess this just intrigued me that I could not help myself. As I said is it Nature or Nurture that makes us who we are? Who will win the angel on her shoulder or the devil? This reads so well that I really do see it as a movie or a tv movie. 5 stars from me this was awesome.

This is Ali Land's debut and she has certainly came and made her mark in the Psychological Thriller genre.
And a really clever unique spin on the Serial Killer fiction books I have read before. Such an easy book to read, the story flows threw the pages sweeping you along for the ride. I couldn't put the book down so i finished it in less than 36 hours!
The book is about a female serial killers daughter Annie and that it was Annie that turned her mother over to the police.
Annie is now Milly, with a new life and new home. No one knows the truth about who Milly really is but who knows how long a secret like that can stay buried?
Especially as she will have to stand up and give evidence against her own mother!
But the question is "Is she Milly, the new girl with a fresh start? Or is she Annie, the serial killers daughter?
What side wins? Good me or Bad me?
Brilliant book, I have recommended it to anyone and everyone I know who loves to read and even purchased the book as a present for a friend.
Cant wait to see what Ali's next book will be like.

Annie (who gets her name changed to Milly) is the main character. She turns her mom (who's a serial killer of children) in & is put in foster care at 15. She was groomed, abused, & a witness/helper to her mom's child killings. But, was she a participant or not? Milly is put with a foster family (Mike, Sas, & Phoebe) to live with until her she has to testify at her mother's trial. The foster family is as dysfunctional as Milly. A drug hazed mom, the counselor husband, & the bitter vicious daughter. Typical story of bullying and insinuating yourself into a family. The 1st person POV of Milly talking in her head to her mom was hard to follow because it blended into other sentences with other characters. Milly wants to be good. but is she really bad is the focal point of cat and mouse. A convoluted mess and I'm not sure why there are such high ratings

So, this was different. Milly’s mother is a serial killer. She turns her mother into the police and while waiting for the trial to testify against her, Milly lives with a foster family. She adapts to a new high school and a foster sister who is a complete bully. Aside from the trial aspect of the story, I wasn’t too sure where this book was going. While Milly is battling within herself whether she is a good or bad person, I felt like I was on a journey without a destination. As events started to unravel, the story got creepy weird and intense. Ali Land is a good writer and story teller. Hopefully she’s working on her next novel.

4.5 Stars.

Gahh, this book has my emotions all over the place. Anger, disgust, sadness, pity, pain. Millie is one of the best anti-heroes I’ve read about in a while. For a book that made me cry, it also made me feel bad about the crying. It’s like: oh, you felt bad about that?? Well, here’s this to make you completely change your mind about those feelings.

I know this is an Adult book, but it has definite YA crossover appeal.

This book was rough to read-- emotionally. It's about a girl who did the right thing, but nevertheless was a completely damaged person. Milly grew up for 15 years with a psychotic serial killer for a mother-- abusing her, brainwashing her, making her witness horrible, unimaginable things. Milly was never going to be normal.

She's living with a psychiatrist (Mike) and his family until the trial of her mother can take place. She's going to a prestigious, private school and excelling. The only problem is that Mike's daughter, Phoebe, is also a sociopath and she's not about to let Milly acclimate to her new situation smoothly.

The biggest theme of the book has to do with the title. Is there a bad person living inside of Milly because of the way she grew up?? How much does nurture influence her? It was a super interesting aspect of this book, and I was totally on edge waiting on Milly to snap.

For the entirety of the story, the reader is in Milly's head, which is kind of a sobering place to be. She has feelings of empathy and sorrow, anger and grief-- but you can also feel that there's something missing somehow. I had equal feelings of wanting OUT of her head and wanting to see her succeed.

Good Me, Bad Me worked. It was a readable, addicting, painful story-- and it felt totally real. Soberingly real. I won't forget Milly anytime soon.

OVERALL: I loved this psychological thriller and think it was one of the strongest debut books I've read in a while. I don't think it's for the faint of heart-- it was a hard book to read-- but it is totally worth it if you can handle being in Milly's head.

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Pink Polka Dot Books

Eccomi qui, sulle note di Migraine dei Twenty One Pilots a cercare di mettere insieme due parole per riuscire anche solo in parte a descrivere le emozioni che questa sconvolgente lettura mi ha provocato. Parlare di questo libro è molto difficile, i temi trattati sono spinosi e complessi e riuscire a raccogliere i pensieri in modo coerente non è semplice. Questo romanzo è stata una scoperta, avevo avuto modo di adocchiarlo ma un po' per il titolo, non troppo accattivante, un po' per la copertina, troppo semplice, avevo deciso di ignorarlo per dedicarmi ad altre uscite tra cui Phoneplay sempre edito dalla Newton Compton. È proprio quindi quest'ultima che devo ringraziare, se la Newton Compton infatti non mi avesse gentilmente inviato una copia del romanzo sicuramente l'avrei letto dopo chissà quanti anni, maledicendomi per averlo perso e snobbato per tanto tempo in quanto questo thriller mi ha letteralmente stregato tanto da farmelo divorare in pochi giorni.
Fin dalle prime pagine veniamo intrappolati nella mente di Milly, una giovane di quindici anni che ha deciso di denunciare sua madre, accusandola di crimini orrendi perpetrati ai danni di poveri bambini innocenti, veniamo quindi catapultati in una lettura frenetica e disperata alla ricerca della verità. La stessa ragazza sembra giocare con il lettore provocandolo, la protagonista è quasi sfacciata e fin dalle prime pagine non esita a giocare con noi, ci fa capire che c'è qualcosa che non va, che non tutto è così semplice e scontato che lei non è solo una ragazzina vittima o "spiona" come sottolineano Phoebe e le sue amiche bulle, Annie (questo il vero nome della ragazza) ci lancia addosso fin da subito un indizio, un sasso, per poi abilmente e crudelmente nascondere la mano, lasciandoci fin dalle prime pagine smarriti.
Leggiamo "Dovrei sentirmi fortunata, invece ho paura. Paura di scoprire chi sono e cosa potrei essere. E ho paura che anche loro lo scoprano." e ci chiediamo che cosa spaventi così tanto una quindicenne, una ragazza che a quell'età dovrebbe solo pensare alle amiche, ad andare bene a scuola, alle prime cotte. Che cosa spaventa così tanto Milly? Che cosa l'ha portata a "tradire" la stessa madre per la quale sembra provare un affetto a tratti malsano? Chi è veramente questa ragazza? Una semplice vittima? O forse... una carnefice? Queste sono le domande che mi sono posta fin dalle prime pagine e che mi hanno spinta a gettarmi a capofitto nella lettura.
Il romanzo è incalzante è il punto di vista di Milly è così sfuggente ed enigmatico che riesce a tenere alta l'attenzione, la trama è ben sviluppata, gli eventi che si susseguono sono ben distribuiti nel corso dell'intero romanzo senza ritrovarsi di fronte odiosi, quanto inutili, momenti morti. Tutto sembra curato nei minimi dettagli, il mondo di "Good Me, Bad Me" nelle sue 346 pagine sembra essere immenso e si apre di fronte ai nostri occhi bramosi di conoscenza e verità. Non troviamo solo Milly, anche se è lei la protagonista ed è suo il punto di vista, non è sempre lei la star, non ha sempre i riflettori puntati addosso, Ali Land non si limita a descrivere Annie ma ci permette di apprezzare anche gli altri personaggi e soprattutto la sua nuova famiglia, una famiglia che agli occhi della gente comune appare perfetta, la dolce famiglia del Mulino Bianco, con una madre carismatica e indipendente, un padre amorevole e dedito alla comunità e una figlia forte, bella e sicura di sé, una famiglia in cui chiunque vorrebbe vivere eppure che come tutte le famiglie nasconde segreti e imperfezioni
Troviamo Mike, uomo brillante, per tutti il padre perfetto, uno psichiatra che si occupa di ragazzi problematici, l'uomo ideale per avere a che fare con una figlia adolescente eppure che quasi con superficialità ascolta e consiglia tutti ma è incapace di comunicare con la sua stessa famiglia, con la sua stessa figlia e spinto dalla sua generosità e bontà d'animo accoglie senza pensarci due volte una giovane, una intrusa a turbare e invadere il suo santuario, il suo porto sicuro.
Saskia, una donna che vorrebbe soltanto riuscire ad essere una buona madre per sua figlia, che cerca disperatamente di amarla come solo una madre sa fare e che nonostante tutti i suoi tentativi sembra sempre essere troppo distante, senza riuscire a prendere per mano la sua bambina, senza poterla aiutare e proteggere dal mondo e dalle sue insidie e questo la sconvolge, la abbatte spingendola ad autocommiserarsi per colpe che sente di avere ma che di fatto non ha, per affrontare il dolore quindi si circonda di sogni ed illusioni comportandosi agli occhi della comunità come la classica mogliettina adorabile che frequenta corsi di Yoga, lavora ed esce con le amiche
E poi c'è Phoebe... Phoebe la cattiva, Phoebe l'adolescente ribelle, Phoebe la bulla che minaccia di morte una "sorella" e sembra gioirne come il peggiore dei mostri eppure Phoebe non è un mostro, è solo una ragazza come Annie, che da un giorno all'altro si ritrova una sconosciuta in casa e di conseguenza ha paura... paura di non riuscire a parlare con la sua famiglia, paura di perdere l'affetto del padre che sente sempre più distante e quello della madre con la quale non riesce a creare un rapporto, paura di non farsi capire, di non riuscire a dare voce al caos che si sente dentro, paura di perdere tutto e di ritrovarsi in casa con una ragazza che potrebbe in qualche modo invadere i suoi spazi personali e scoprire ogni suo piccolo segreto, ogni piccola crepa nella sua corazza. È in parte la paura che la spinge a comportamenti crudeli e infantili nei confronti di una ragazza che neanche si sforza di conoscere ma che nell'impeto della giovinezza odia, cerca di bruciare, con le stesso fuoco, con la stessa rabbia che sente dentro. È proprio Phoebe ironicamente quella che mi ha colpito di più tra tutti i personaggi secondari, forse perché al suo posto e alla sua età una parte di me si sarebbe comportata allo stesso modo con rabbia, gelosia, paura, forse io stessa avrei odiato è cercato di "bruciare" una rivale tanto scomoda.
Tutti i personaggi del romanzo sono incantevoli e... imperfetti. Ali Land riesce con maestria a descriverceli attraverso gli occhi di Milly e a darci fin da subito un quadro delle loro fragilità, dei loro difetti spingendoci spesso ad odiarli, a vederli come dei nemici.
Annie è una narratrice perfetta, riesce a stregare il lettore e con la sua bellezza ad ammaliarlo e a condurlo nella sua ragnatela.
Nel corso della lettura possiamo apprezzare lo sviluppo del personaggio, la psicologia che la caratterizza e vedere come Milly e Annie spesso sembrano due persone diverse che si incontrano, che si scontrano a duello, i loro pensieri entrano in collisione e ci chiediamo chi sia la ragazza che abbiamo di fronte... Annie, la vecchia e cara Annie, la Annie per tutti infame, vittima degli abusi fisici e mentali della madre perpetrati fin dalla più giovane età o Milly, la nuova Milly, la ragazza nuova e coraggiosa che lotta contro tutto e tutti per urlare al mondo la sua innocenza, per riprendersi la vita che una madre crudele le ha per anni negato... ci chiediamo quindi... chi è davvero la nostra protagonista? Chi è Annie? Chi è Milly? Dove finisce una e inizia l'altra? Queste domande ti portano a leggere avidamente, come un assetato in un deserto, e a sconvolgerti ed emozionarti per ogni frammento, ogni dettaglio, ogni piccola scoperta. Mi sono sentita come una bambina, una piccola bimba alla scoperta del mondo, mi sono emozionata, commossa e indignata con Annie... per Milly.
Questo romanzo mi ha letteralmente conquistata tanto da non riuscire a posarlo fino alla fine, era da un po' di tempo che non trovavo un thriller psicologico che riuscisse a coinvolgermi così tanto spingendomi a interessarmi, spaventarmi e preoccuparmi per la sorte della protagonista. Mi sento di consigliarlo senza alcun timore a tutti gli amanti del genere, visto i temi trattati la considero una lettura un po' delicata e al contrario di altri titoli per essere letto ha bisogno del giusto momento, del giusto stato mentale per riuscire a cogliere fino in fondo la psicologia della protagonista e delle persone che la circondano, è quindi un libro da leggere con attenzione su cui focalizzare l'attenzione, forse meno adatto a una vacanza o a un momento più frenetico un libro che riesce comunque a fare molte soddisfazioni a stregare il lettore e a provocargli emozioni che difficilmente dimenticherà.
Ringrazio ancora la Newton Compton per avermelo mandato e avermi fatto entrare nel mondo di Annie e nei suoi segreti.

This is the story of Milly who used to be called Annie.
She is 15 years old she is put into Foster care with Mike and Saskia they have a daughter called Phoebe same age as Millie. Phoebe doesnt like Millie she is jealous of the attention Mike pays her.
Mike is a Psychologist. The reason why Milly is living with them is because her own Mother is a Serial killer she killed 9 children. Milly will act as a witness in Court to try and convict her Mother, Mike will help her through this process.
Milly goes to school with Phoebe, She gets bullied straight away by Phoebe and her gang of girls.
Milly doesnt really have any friends at the school.

Saskia isnt a very good Mother to Phoebe she is on medication and has no real love for her. Mike is really the only one keeping the family together.
Milly gets a friend from the local council estate called Morgan who is a bit younger than her. She tells Morgan about her past life.
Milly also tries to befriend one of the Teachers at the school. Only Mike, Sakia and the Head mistress know Millys true story.

The trial goes to court Milly gives evidence behind a screen. It was a big deal for Milly to go to court as she still loves her Mother even though she was also abused and is scared of her.
Mother is rightly convicted and gets life in jail with no chance of parole.

All the emotion and the thought of Milly leaving Mike and Saskia's house is to much she takes an overdose but is rushed to hospital in time.
Phoebe is still being rude to her. Milly recovers and throws herself into her school work and helps out with a play.
Phoebe is found dead she falls down the stairs at home.

Spoiler alert
It was Milly that pushed her down the stairs. Then she went back to the school to get a good alibi.

Good story well written for a debut novel.

Liked the narrator, but took a bit to get into the story. Psychological insight related to trauma and abuse.

I really need half-star ratings. This one is definitely a 3.5!

Pretty creepy. Took a minute to get into and to keep the characters straight, but overall, full of surprises.

Wow! Creepy! Milly is a 15-year old girl who is a foster child of Mike and Saskia, who also have a 15-year old named Phoebe. Milly is in their care because her mother has been arrested after Milly turned her in for unspeakable crimes. Phoebe despises Milly, and makes life rough for her at the private school they attend. Mike is a psychologist, and is helping to prepare Milly for when she needs to testify against her mother. MIlly is very fragile from the abuse her mother dished out and the crimes Milly witnessed her mother doing.
Milly is fighting against the demons of her mother inside her and trying to be a good child and to be loved. It is a battle that she fights each day.
This was an intriguing look at mental illness and the effects it has on everyone.
#GoodMeBadMe #AliLand

I had seen lots of excitement about this book on Twitter so I was eager to read it for myself and what a tremendous read it was. I read it over the course of 24 hours and I could not have torn my eyes away from this book if my life depended on it. It is such dark, disturbing and compulsive reading.

Annie's mother has been arrested for abducting and murdering several children and for Annie's protection she has been housed with a foster family and has a new name, Milly. A shiny new me, as Annie/Milly calls herself. Of course, you can change your name but you can never change the person you are inside, which is what I took away from this story.

Milly is fostered by psychologist, Mike, his wife, Saskia, and teenage daughter Phoebe. What a dysfunctional family these guys are. Mike may be a psychologist but he can't see what's going on under his nose and he certainly doesn't know how to deal with his teenage daughter. Phoebe is a typical 'mean-girl'; she makes no attempt to welcome Milly, in fact she goes the complete opposite way and makes it known that she is not welcome at all. Milly does eventually make friends with a girl from a rough estate, Morgan, and she really likes her. So much so that she wants to protect her from harm - eek! Eyes on stalks time.

As the court case against her mother progresses, Milly has to give evidence but is screened from the court. Milly can feel her mother's presence and you can feel how disturbed and affected she is. It's a proper brain twister as you piece together all the evidence and realise that perhaps there's more than one killer in this book.

Good Me Bad Me is an outstanding psychological thriller; my eyes were on stalks and I couldn't read it fast enough.

I received this e-book from the publisher, Penguin - Michael Joseph, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Off to good start in the new year.
Easy to read and gripping

Whoa. What a book. First of all, it is a well written, well thought out book. With that being said, it is definitely NOT for everyone. Would I personally recommend it? Yes, but with caution because of the child abuse in it. This is a very emotional read and I will admit the story will stay with me for a very long time.
Summary: Annie's mom is in jail for killing 9 children. Annie is given a new name, Milly, and is sent to live with a foster family. The father Mike is a therapist who has been assigned to help Milly. The foster family is highly dysfunctional and the daughter Phoebe hates having Milly in the house. Phoebe and her friends bully Milly. As the book progresses Milly is continuing fighting within herself being good or bad. Mike's job is to prepare Milly for the trial as she is the key witness against her mother.
This book will keep you reading wanting more.

This is not your average read. No. No. No. This is your intense read. Do not plan anything this weekend. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Just clear your weekend and read this book!

I'm the type of person that tries to be friends with everyone, but I'm also a terrible judge of people. I can't imagine going to school with someone like Milly. I just can't fathom how one moves on from such a dark life and tries to start over with a new foster family, a new school, and a new community where you don't know anyone and you hope that no one ever recognizes you. Milly desperately needs good influences in her life. A lot of love and stability. And a whole lotta therapy! She's a fragile person, but also manipulative and conniving. She really pulls the wool over their eyes and does it with such skill.

Phoebe is an angry girl who refuses to befriend Milly. She doesn't like having Milly in her house or in her school. As far as she's concerned, Milly can just go take a flying leap. She has a lot of hostility towards her mother and she wants attention from her father who seems too busy to make time for her. Rather than confront her parents about her feelings, she chooses to lash out at Milly and bullies her at home, at school, and on the internet.

Mike and Saskia are not exactly the parents of the year. Mike is a therapist, but he doesn't divide his attention equally among the three women in his house. He comes across as overly obsessed with his practice, but he's very willing to counsel Milly because of her background. Saskia definitely has problems of her own and I don't think Mike really does enough to curb her behaviors and get her proper help. Her relationship with her daughter is almost non-existent.

All in all, this book is deep. It's intense. It's worth the time to read it!

This book is twisty with a dark premise. It’s about a teenage girl named Milly that is forced into foster care when her mother’s dark secret comes to light. For years she lived in a house with an abuser and a killer. She became accustomed to the unusual and doesn’t know exactly what way to go in her mind.

She is placed with a family that seems normal on the surface, but each member brings a bigger issue to the table. Mike, the dad, is left to prepare Milly for her trail and while doing so, sets off on a dangerous psycho analysis. Phoebe, the daughter, is a jealous bully that is determined to shove Milly out the door, and Saskia, the mother, is a ghost with sinful nature. Its all a bit overwhelming, but Milly is determined to make this new place her permanent home.

She goes back and forth between being good and bad. One minute she is determined to protect, the next, she threatens to destroy. To be honest, reading her story is quite the mind mess. Everything you think you know will be questioned and not all of it will be answered.

I found this book to be intriguing and well plotted. I loved how all over the place the emotions were and found Milly to be awesome in her crazy. My only complaint would be that we got a lot of hints to Milly’s backstory, but never got confirmation on what really happened. I would’ve liked to dive deeper and see those secrets revealed.

All in all, I really enjoyed it and recommend it!

The story follows Milly as she is turned over to her new foster parents after reporting her mother as a serial killer of small children. Milly has to cope with a new family the mother who is always distracted a father who is at the same time her foster parent as well as her therapist and coach for the day she will have to testify against her mother and a hate filled teen daughter who is out to give Milly the worst experience of her life. Unknown to the daughter, Milly has already experienced that and her tactics seem to have not fazed Milly as they get more and more hateful.
I enjoyed the book the gruesome details were not there but a hint for your imagination to fill in all the horrid gaps.

cw: domestic abuse, pedophilia, assault

(This review can also be found on my blog.)

This was incredibly well-written and conceptually very interesting. It’s about the daughter of a serial killer, who turned in her mother in order to avoid her own demise. It’s a lot of introspection, but even though we’re inside the main character’s head, there’s still a lot of the story missing. Definitely an interesting read if you like unreliable narrators. I enjoyed it, but just didn’t find myself as invested in the story as I would have liked. I still recommend it, though.

Edgy, unsettling and totally twisted.

This is a review from the Amazon Vine Programme.

I am reviewing the Good Me Bad Me by [a:Ali Land|13832217|Ali Land|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1472390268p2/13832217.jpg] [ai:Ali Land|13832217|Ali Land|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1472390268p2/13832217.jpg]. After a bad start in life, teenager Annie, is now going by the name Milly and living wit
h a new family; Mike, Saskia and their daughter Phoebe. Here are my thoughts:

^^ Milly's fresh start in life is overshadowed by her impending court case, where she will testify against her own mother, but to make things worse life at her new home and school is made into a living hell, with Phoebe and her best friend Izzy constantly picking on her.

^^ You know when it's only a matter of time before you push and push someone until they finally snap? Well, if your mother was a suspected multiple child-killer, and you'd seen more than you'd care to remember, how well do you think you'd turn out?

^^ I enjoyed this so much, I read it unbelievably fast. It raised so many questions with people I talked to about this. I especially liked the control the mother had over her daughter. On one hand Annie is cruelly mistreated, but on the other hand, blood is thicker than water; they have a bond that cannot be broken easily, and years of psychological abuse c
an mess with your mind in the most obscure fashion.

^^ If you're a bully and pick on the wrong person, do you deserve everything you get? Do you really know what is going on in another person's life, just by the way they look, what they wear, or how they behave in public? For all you bullies out there, I'd be careful who you mess with... you never know what might happen!

^^ I could totally tell that author [a:Ali Land|13832217|Ali Land|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1472390268p2/13832217.jpg] worked in the Mental Health sector as a nurse, which I feel made this book what it is. Her knowledge of the system and mental health issues definitely played a part in how well this story came across.

^^ This book flits between past and present. It's a well rounded story, easy to get sucked into, and a fascinating read.

Overall: A top notch psychological thriller, where you almost feel sorry for the things that have made Annie the person sh
e is today... Almost. Edgy, unsettling and totally twisted.

This story was so disturbing and had so much potential. However; it fell a little short for me.
This does have triggers for abuse (physical and sexual), bullying, and child murder.

The parts around Milly and her past were thrilling. I wanted to know more and the more you learn the more disturbing it becomes. However; then you jump back to a game of mean girls at school and it just took away from the story. I was so bored with the foster family stuff in the first half of the book. Yes, there is mean girls, pranks, cheating, and scandals, but they were nothing that caught my attention. I just wanted to know more around the murders and what Milly went through. The second half did start to pick up a little. Everything does come together in the end. I predicted what was going to happen in the end, but there were still some twists I did not predict. I ended up skimming the first half to find out what happened.

I also did not love the ending. Overall, this was only ok.

Fast read, but at times I felt the conversations were choppy. Sometimes they were broken up and other times it was written in the paragraph and not broken up with speaking quotes. Nothing was ever said about what happens to “Annie” as well as the father and his potential book. Also, was this the only one? Mother truly did all the rest? It was a great story line but needs some work.

I was kind of disappointed with this book. The premise was promising - daughter Milly turns in her serial killer mom and testifies against her at her trial - but the foster family she's living with was annoying, as was Milly's habit of conversing silently with her mother (who she referred to as "you" throughout). I saw the ending coming a mile away - another disappointment. It could have been so much better, which I will chalk up to the fact that this is a debut novel.½

2.5 Out Of 5 STARS for Good Me, Bad Me by Ali Land

Lately, I've been reading genres of books that are out of my comfort zone. This may have been too far out, though. Because ultimately, I was disturbed and saddened by this story, and I wish I'd never listened to this one at all.

If you like to be inside the head of someone who has been abused mentally and psychically and see all their dark twistiness that comes from that, then the inside of Annie/Millie's head might be a welcome place for you. It's just not for me, though.

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~MY RATING~
2.5/5 STARS - GRADE=D+
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~~~~~~~~~~๏~~~~~~~~~~
~BREAKDOWN OF RATINGS~
~~~~~~~~~~๏~~~~~~~~~~
Plot~ 3/5
Main Characters~ 2.5/5
Secondary Characters~ 2.5/5
The Feels~ 3/5
Pacing~ 3/5
Addictiveness~ 2.5/5
Theme or Tone~ 2/5
Flow (Writing Style)~ 3.8/5
Backdrop (World Building)~ 3/5
Ending~ 2/5 Cliffhanger~ Not really.
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Book Cover~ It's kind of compelling, I wished that it had warned me away, though…
Narration~ by Imogen Church was fairly well done. She definitely had the creep factor going…
Setting~ London, England
Source~ Audiobook (Library)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~๏~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~½

Can you imagine having such an evil, vile person as your only caregiver? Your mother a serial killer. And not just a serial killer but a serial killer who preys on small children. The long lasting damage that could do to any person, let alone a child is immeasurable.

This book is definitely chilling and disturbing. It had all the things I love most. The writing for this twisted and demented story couldn't have been done any better. Ali Land nailed it perfectly! The past and present colliding at once, the emotions of a confused and damaged kid, and the struggle to survive ones past, this journey is definitely a bumpy ride.

I couldn't put this book down. I devoured it. It is so unique and thought-provoking. It gave me goosebumps and chilled me to the bone.