Alice Feeney is one of my auto-buy suspense authors. I love her dark take on the world, her intricately crafted narratives, and all the little Easter eggs she leaves for readers to find. Her earlier books, like His & Hers and Rock Paper Scissors, were more focused on dysfunctional couples. With Daisy Darker, she shifted to dysfunctional families with dark secrets. Where does Good Bad Girl fall and will you like it? Check out my Review of Good Bad Girl.
Good Bad Girl by Alice Feeney
To be published on August 29 by Flatiron Books.
Thanks so much to the publisher for providing me an advance copy for review.
I read this book in August 2023.
Review of Good Bad Girl
It’s always so exciting to start a new book by a favorite author. What will it be like and where will it be similar or different from the author’s prior books?
How Does Good Bad Girl Compare to Alice Feeney’s Other Books?
In my Daisy Darker review, I said that I thought that book was a departure for Alice Feeney, and in some ways it was (check out my Daisy Darker spoiler post if you want the details on the one BIG departure from her prior books.)
But now that I have read Good Bad Girl, I can see that the themes of Daisy Darker (Dark Family Secrets and parent/child relationships) are also present in earlier books, like His & Hers and Rock Paper Scissors. I feel like Feeney and Lisa Jewell often empty similar themes.
Alice Feeney is also a very thematic writer. I think Rock Paper Scissors is the best example of this, as that game and those objects were woven deeply into the story.
In Good Bad Girl, the mother-daughter relationship is paramount, and one of the thematic elements is the ladybug. They are alluded to on the cover with its red and black circles motif, and very explicitly in the text. The UK cover has the actual bugs crawling on it. I discuss this motif more in my Good Bad Girl Spoiler Discussion post, which I’ll also link to at the bottom of this post. I’d love you to join me there after you read the book!
In my review of Daisy Darker, I also said that despite the title, it was less dark than Feeney’s prior books. And I’m not sure that is 100% accurate. Very dark things happen in the story, but the overall tone of the book was more fairytale like and the events were never too graphic.
Is There a Big Twist in Good Bad Girl?
I’d say not really.
If you really disliked that big twist in Daisy Darker, nothing like that happens here.
Good Bad Girl focuses mostly on events that happened in the past, which makes it (to me) a less suspenseful book.
There are a couple of reveals in Good Bad Girl, but nothing that surprising. A lot of the book is figuring out what happened in the past and what that has to do with what’s happening in the present.
Did I Like Good Bad Girl?
Someone told me that it can be hard to tell whether I loved a book or not. My goal here is to help you decide if YOU will love it, as books are super expensive these days (or a long library wait.) Is my library the only one cutting way back on ebooks?
Don’t go into Good Bad Girl expecting page-turning, nail-biting suspense, because it’s more of a slow build suspense book. It held my attention and I enjoyed it. Alice Feeney remains a favorite of mine! If you get creeped out by really dark and twisted books, and found His & Hers too creepy, this might be a great fit for you.
Tell me what you thought in comments OR better yet, come to the Good Bad Girl Spoiler Discussion where we can really talk about it all!
