Good Me Bad Me

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If you love to get into the headspace of dark, damaged and complex characters you will really enjoy this book. But Milly’s new foster family are dysfunctional themselves, lacking the support and care this troubled teenager needs. As her mother’s trial looms, with Milly as the star witness, Milly starts to wonder how much of her is nature, how much of her is nurture, and whether she is doomed to turn out like her mother after all. By selecting this method of narration to express the events of the story, it is a compelling choice that seems to work in well with the overall tone of the book itself.

She features briefly in the court episodes of the novel but Land chooses to focus on her daughter’s story instead. Milly wants to be loved, and find a home, but there’s a maze of obstacles in her way – Phoebe gets the mean girls at school to bully her; she hears mom’s voice in her head, taunting her into accepting her destiny to become a serial killer herself; and Milly’s nagging suspicions that maybe she did inherit mom’s tendencies. I devoured this one and think I read it in two days as it was so compelling and I loved the psychological aspect of this novel.

This young teen, who had so much to forget, had already been through so much, witnessed something beyond terrible, who now just wanted to be normal, and in a home where people cared about her in a healthy way. The outcome of the trial and the way in which her new home life works out don’t come as a massive surprise but I’d still recommend reading Good Me, Bad Me for Annie/Millie’s voice and her thoughts and behaviour as a survivor, the mental gymnastics she has to play in her new life with all the fresh challenges that brings, and the promising new author behind it all that is Ali Land. After graduating from university with a degree in mental health, Ali Land spent a decade working as a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Nurse in hospitals and schools in the UK and Australia.

These parts are the hardest to read--at times, I had to put the book down and just walk away as the dark, brutal images got under my skin. There were times that I thought the believability envelope was being pushed a bit far, but I was totally wrapped up in the story and able to overlook most of it. As a result, we as the reader get an in-depth insight into the human psyche of an incredibly damaged young individual. Just when I thought the psychological thriller genre couldn’t come up with anything entirely new, debut novelist Ali Land puts a new spin on a style of book I couldn’t get enough of. Annie's name is changed to Milly to help protect her and Milly is trying hard to not let the bad overtake the good within her, she doesn't want to be like her mother.We all still highly recommend this book and feel listening to this one would be the better choice as we did feel like we were missing out on an experience that Norma had that we didn’t. I liked the character Milly even though it was sometimes difficult to know if she was telling the truth.