Catherine (alternativelytitledbooks) - so very behind!'s Reviews > Good Bad Girl

When it comes to Alice Feeney, I'm the first to admit I'm a full-fledged Feeney Fangirl.

There's a certain gravitas to her thrillers, a thoughtfulness that always catches me off guard...and then THOSE TWISTS that have always managed to shock, stun and amaze with such effortlessness. I truly do consider her to be the QUEEN of the twist, as she's been so aptly named, and I've never felt anything less than pure, unadulterated adoration for all of her books...until now. I normally tear through her books in a few days, riveted, and unable to think about much else until I close the book with a reluctant yet satisfied sigh.

So how did this book take me WEEKS to finish? How was I able to put it down for DAYS at a time, without giving it a second thought? I'm still not entirely sure...but I think it all started with a plot that read less twisted and twisty thriller and MORE as needlessly complicated domestic suspense that had me LONGING for the Ghost of Feeney Past! 🎄 👻

Our story centers around 4 women with unique bonds: Clio, Edith, Patience, and Frankie. Edith is a spunky and lovable 80 year old woman who is mourning the loss of her friend May at the care home she lives in. As much as she resents her daughter Clio for forcing her to live in the care home rather than her house, she is grateful to have her adorable dog Dickens for company...when said dog is snuck in by Patience, a young worker at the care home. Patience is Edith's one confidant, but she's a bit less forthcoming with her OWN past...and the mother she left behind. Frankie is a prison librarian who longs to have her daughter back in her life after spending so many years without her...but will she come back into her life and her circle...in HANDCUFFS?

The story focuses on the ramifications of multiple crimes: twenty years prior, a baby was stolen from its carer in the supermarket and was never found, and the present-day murder of Joy, one of the owners of the care home in question. How do these four women fit into the slots of victim or perpetrator? Who is GOOD and who is BAD? Or could each one of these intrepid, mysterious, and devious women be considered a Good Bad Girl?

When an author gets past their first few books and is still on fire (or progressively building on their following with each release), fans begin to look for the certain trademarks that made them fall in love in the first place.

For me, this formula was simple:

*unique, multi-layered characters
*pitch-perfect pacing
*astute, thought-provoking observations that stopped me in my tracks
and OF COURSE
*a plethora of breathtaking twists, carefully obscured by red herrings

So although some of these elements were present in some fashion...there was something about this read that felt like maybe this PARTICULAR Feeney equation didn't quite add up.

For starters, though this book only involves a handful of characters, for some reason it felt like too many. While they all NEEDED to be present in some capacity for the story to work, I had a hard time feeling like I ever fully climbed in any of their heads...and I think some of this comes back to narration. At times, we were in first person, then back to third...sometimes even in the same chapter. I didn't even make this realization while reading, but with four alternating voices AND narration styles, it made the storytelling FEEL more jumbled and less linear than I would have preferred.

There's also the tiny fact that this is very much not a psychological thriller at all and reads VERY domestic suspense...and while I have no problem with this in general as I also enjoy that genre, I just don't feel like it's Feeney's lane.

One of my OTHER favorite thriller authors, JP Delaney seems to have made a similar jump and went from writing 'so many twists it'll give you whiplash' thrillers to domestic suspense (also ironically, involving lost and missing children), and there's just something about reading a book by an author you KNOW can do one thing so well and so much better than others but then chooses to do another, that is so bittersweet. I applaud ANY writer that wants to broaden their horizons, or has a story that is so important to them that they feel compelled to share it: the other side of this creative exploration, however, is that it can have such a different FEEL to a reader that it can feel almost like an author is speaking a foreign language. You might be able to translate what they're saying, but something is ALWAYS lost during translation.

I also felt like Feeney made this one a bit overly complicated, and I have NEVER felt that way before while reading her books. There were a few decent red herrings, but the murders and disappearances almost felt 'required' to make this domestic suspense rather than exciting or terrifying as they have been in her previous books. While I was mildly curious to find out whodunit and how all of these women connected to each other, it was simply that: mild curiosity. I want to be on the edge of my seat waiting for the next big reveal, and even when the twists DID arrive, I felt more apathetic and like I'd guessed most of them to some degree, aside from ONE...and that also felt like a huge letdown.

At its core, this is a story about mothers and daughters and the complicated bonds between them...and while I liked this as a concept, for this book to work for me, I would have liked to FEEL more while reading. Again, so many of the elements were there and there was boundless potential for Feeney's thoughtful observations to tap into my own complicated feelings as a daughter, it never came to pass.

And while I am full of nothing but the utmost hope and excitement for Feeney's next book Beautiful Ugly, when it came to Feeney's 'Surefire Formula' in Good Bad Girl?

I just kept waiting for the 'aha' moment that never came. 🧪🔬👩‍🔬

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4