This really wasn't my style of writing. Written completely from the point of view of the father/husband of the family, the book skirts around a lot of issues without actually addressing anything. It alludes to accusations without really defining what happened. Very little actual story for me. Not a fan of this one

A good father.... a good read that's dark, twisted and a vivid look at the frenzied and unpredictable mind of a man on the edge. A page turner from start to finish.

Woah this was dark. I "enjoyed" getting into the narrator's head as it was well written but the book itself is very twisted and dark. Not for the faint of heart but a well written journey.

A Good Father. 3.5⭐️ rounded up.
The book follows Des, he is married to Jenny and has three children. The book bounces timelines from past to present day and follows Des’s journey trying to be the best he can be early on so Jenny will move in with him and love him like he loves her to present day when they are married with kids. Des has a lot of problems the worst is his treatment of Jenny which comes with his over possessiveness and jealousy.
This was at times a hard book to read because of the sensitive subjects covered. The ending was brutal to say the least. I feel this book would have been better if we’d have been able to hear from Jenny and how she felt and why.
A different read that has opened my eyes a little.
I would like to thank Netgalley and Penguin Books UK for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

Interesting premise, but I felt this one fell a. Little short for me! I did enjoy the writing style, but it lacked the twists and wow moments I thought it was going to have.

Des is a good husband, a good father - a good man.

He encourages his wife's artistic endeavours. He holds down a well-paid, if unfulfilling, job. He is manager of his sons football team. He reads bedtime stories to his children every night.

But appearances can be deceptive, and behind closed doors secrets threaten to ruin everything.

Des is master of his home, and he must maintain his authority over it - and everyone in it - at all costs.
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This book starts with a killer line: "Before the end of next summer, before the kids go back to school, I will kill my family". Jepp, this line got us all - we are already invested and want to find out more.

A Good Father had a very interesting concept, We are following our narrator relatively blindly(except for the first line - but maybe he means 'kill' in the metaphorical sense????), believing every word he is saying. Only gradually do we realise that he is not the nice man he thinks it is.

I love books that have an unreliable narrator. Especially when it takes the reader quite some time to pick up on it. It adds a certain twist to it that is extremely enjoyable, because we want to believe and trust our narrators so so bad.

In this book however, it was not executed that well, in my opinion.

The whole book is written in a stream of consciousness type style, which lost me as the reader completely, as most of the things I am being told by the narrator are, quite frankly, a little boring, This writing/style seems clumsy at times, which made me think the book could have done with a little more editing.

This is a book that is very close to the bone.
It is very factually correct and like a diary of events which lead to that fateful night.
It's chilling and almost unreadable in parts.
I'm finding it difficult to find the words to review it as I'm left in complete turmoil.

A tricky one to review; very well written but at times hard to read too as result of the subject matter.

If the story had opened up a little and we had been given the chance to see events through Jenny's eyes it may have made Des a more sympathetic character but I suppose that would have been a different book entirely.

I'm not sure that I'd recommend this book although in a funny way I am glad I read it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced read copy of this book.

This was not an enjoyable read. Des is deeply disturbed. He wants to kill his family. He is selfish and needy and self absorbed. It is an uncomfortable read.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

I’m sorry. I tried to like this, and thought the opening was fabulous. But I can’t pretend I enjoyed this uncomfortable read. I think I get what the author was trying to do. She was trying to show how Des’ delusions, obsessions and inadequacies developed over time as he struggled to be a good husband and father. But the narrative didn’t grip me, and I never felt as though I understood Des or his wife, Jenny. Des experienced tragedy as a child, and had an abusive father himself, which presumably shaped the monster he becomes, but we didn’t really learn how this moulded him, and why. A more experienced author may have used this to engender some pity and understanding, but Des just came across as one-dimensional and awful, with his bullying and deception and abuse and vomiting. We also never get to understand Jenny as we don’t hear anything from her perspective. As a result, she’s not a believable or rounded character.

This was a very weird book.
Well written, but I just couldn't get through very easily.
About a man, a father of 3 with a wife who is an artist, and he seems to have mental issues and jealousy issues.
I can understand that this could be a real life scenario, but I didn't enjoy the book at all, but that is nothing against the author, as it is well written.

3.5 Stars 

This book was unnerving. It served its purpose in making me extremely uncomfortable. This is a disturbing story following Des, a man consumed with jealousy. Des's POV is split into 2 timelines. The past, where he first meets his soon-to-be wife, Jenny. And the present, where we see his toxic jealousy begin to poison his marriage, and eventually his children's lives. 

This is a difficult book to rate. I liked to see the mental health rep in the book, except it was included in a way that just disturbed me. Seeing the way Des perceives things was shocking, and so this book definitely succeeds as a thriller. I do think the writing style was peculiar at times. There was some weird imagery going on, and I couldn't tell if that was due to the fact that we were reading in the point of view of a mentally unstable man, or if the author actually thought it was a good description. Even so, I often found the writing style made the book a little disjointed? I will say this is more of the editors fault than the author. I also thought some parts of Des's POV got a bit repetitive, to the point where I was getting bored and skipping a couple paragraphs. 

Overall, the plot was great and the book is a very good thriller, I just think some it was slightly boring at times. I wish it was a bit more fast-paced.

This novel had me hooked from the first page ...
" By the end of next summer -before the kids go back to school ,I will kill my family "
Wow -I couldn't wait . However for me that was as exciting as it got .
I knew that Des was a complete nutter -but most of the following story -which was told from his perspective alone -was just his thoughts on his life and family .
There was always the feeling that something evil was lurking on the next page -but it didn't quite get there. .

Thank you Net Galley for an ARC in return for an honest review

Self-important characters with an unoriginal storyline. This could have been so much more. Really disappointing. Would not recommend this author.

This is a rather difficult book to review, it is not your typical psychological thriller but it is very much to do with the inner thoughts and insecurity of an adult man. The beginning is quite heart-stopping and the end is stuff for nightmares but the rest is basically a stream of consciousness.
The story is told entirely from Des's point of view and divided into two separate timeline. One is in the 90s when he met his future wife Jenny, a painter, and the other is in 2016-7 when he lives with Jenny and their three kids, the twin Joey and Mickey and Maeve.
They seem to have the perfect family life and Des is really good with his kids, hence the title of the book , but he is also increasingly obsessed about losing Jenny. Sadly he is not that good a husband. There is a reason for this, in 1995 he took Jenny away from her boyfriend Jerome and not only he is still worried about Jerome somehow returning but he is also concerned that what he did to another man would eventually happen to him. But jealousy takes over him.
This is a very good debut and ideal for those who love the psychological aspect the most, you have to be interested in that side as most of the book is about Des's mind and not many things actually happen. Having said that you wish you could know Jenny's side of the story, the fact that this book is so one sided can be a strength or a weakness. It is quite interesting to see a woman writing about a man's feelings and thoughs so well.

This was a real struggle to read and I kept on reading in the hope that it would get better but it just kind of flatlined for me the whole way through. I know that not everyone will think the same way as me but I just never really became invested in the story or in any of the characters.

Des is a family man. His wife (Jenny) and his three children (Maeve, Mikey and Joey) are his life. He has a full time job (which he puts up with) and is the main bread winner while his wife works on her art.

The story is told from two different timelines. The present day (when Des life appears to unravel before his very eyes) and the year he met Jenny. We get an insight into his character and don’t always like what we see (this is definitely the case as the story progresses).

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced read copy of this book in exchange for an honest unbiased review.

DNF

I was sent the book through netgalley (my first one) and within the first sentence it escalated quickly. However, after that it was far too detailed, down to the description of vomit every time he was sick (which happened quite a few times!) I had to stop reading by 27% as I felt like it was just going on and on with not much happening.

A very dark and disturbing read. It is the story of Jenny and Des, told by Des in two time-frames, A seemingly happy family, Des is disintegrating and controlling. Told as a narration, we hear only Des’ thoughts and motivations, which becomes a little wearying. Too dark for me, this is a book I could not say I particularly enjoyed.

This book opened with a bang “before the end of next summer, before the kids go back to school, I will kill my family.” I was enthralled. And then it went downhill. This is the story of Des and Jenny, all told from Des’s POV in two timelines 1995/96 when they first got together and 2017 when it was all broken.

I can see what the author was trying to do and she did paint a vivid picture of a man riddled with obsession, jealousy and doubts about his own manliness I guess. But along the way we are privy to every little thought Des has and they were either banal in their ordinariness or quite disturbing and by halfway I felt I was drowning in minutiae, his obsession with cooking pasta and detail, detail, detail. He tried to hide his more disturbing thoughts from Jenny - if she had had an inkling she would have run a mile. Or would she? She seemed strangely detached. Des was just horrible and came across as a ‘little man’, always needing to puff himself up but I didn’t really like Jenny either she seemed ‘not present’ a lot. But, for me, the amount of minutiae spoiled it and I was skimming a lot of the detail just to finish. What the book did well was illustrate that a man doesn’t have to be violent, (Des had only slapped Jenny once) to snap and end up killing his family. Not a cheery thought when the news is full of such stories, some of them quite horrific. But I knew that already and didn’t need to wade through all the boring detail to get to that realisation. I did not enjoy this book.

The opening line in the book sets the pulse immediately racing. “By the end of next summer, before the kids go back to school, I will kill my family”.
I was drawn in already and excited to read it. It didn’t however turn out to be what I thought or indeed hoped it to be.

It’s the story of Des, Jenny and their three children. The whole book is told through the eyes and mind of Des. A nasty character(opening line is a clue), he’s abusive and controlling, jealous, self obsessed, a control freak...I could go on.

The format at first was intriguing. Every word in the book are the thoughts of Des. Even when there are (short) conversations they are just relayed by Des, so we have no inverted commas to display a conversation. It was a little jarring at first but I got used to it.
Told both in the present day and in flashback when the couple first met, it becomes clear that this is not really a thriller at all, more a character study. It’s page after page of thoughts from Des. It becomes tiring and uninteresting after a while. His mind rambles off to the most inane things and we have to read it all.

While I didn’t hate the book, I did find that the whole thing left me a little cold. It held my interest for about half of it but the incessant nature of the chosen format just wore me down and left me bored for large chunks. I think a better edit could have easily knocked 100 pages off this book and they wouldn’t have been missed.
On the plus side, there were parts where I was intrigued. There were even chapters where the format actually just had a lovely hypnotic flow. They are in the minority unfortunately but show the author has plenty of talent and potential.

It’s a debut novel and something different for sure. There is lots to admire and the author shows a lot of promise but I feel the format, along with a not very strict editor let this one run away with itself and just became a one trick pony that grated the nerves in the end, rather than tingled them.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Penguin Books and Catherine Talbot for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.