The Good Girls is a YA thriller that takes on important and timely social issues. When good girl and daughter of the over-protective police chief, Emma, disappears in a way that harkens back to another murder, the whole school is in a panic. Police quickly focus on interviewing a number of seemingly unrelated people: her academic rival, the bad girl, and her straight-laced friend from cheerleading. But as the book reads on, you find out that everyone has more in common than it might seem on the surface.

The Good Girls was a quick, fun read, and the plot had interesting twists and turns. I especially liked the inclusivity of the characters in terms of LGBTQ issues. However, the plot feels a bit trite now- we've all read the who-done-it murder with seemingly unrelated characters. In my case, that type of plot is exactly my jam, so I was in. I'd recommend this to fans of One of Us Was Lying.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."
This was so, well, good. I liked the order information was revealed. It is a compelling story about abuse and it's aftermath, wrapped in a mystery. It was interesting and intriguing, very well done.

The Good Girls is a character driven YA thriller perfect for fans of One of Us Is Lying. Anyone can label someone, but that doesn't define who we are. There is the good girl, the cheerleader, the overachiever, and the bad girl. What happens when the good girl ends up dead and the other three become the main suspects? But remember - appearances can be deceiving. The story explores sexual assault and tears apart stereotypes. There are plenty of twists throughout to keep readers guessing. Highly recommended to anyone looking for a thought-provoking mystery.

3.5 rating rounded up

"One of Us Is Lying meets Sadie in this twisty, feminist thriller for the Me Too era."

That hook is what captured my attention as I really enjoyed both of those books. The Good Girls was a good read, but it felt more cliched than the other books. The story goes back and forth between police interviews and the flashbacked story.

Good girl and daughter of the police chief goes missing and is assumed dead. Three girls wind up as prime suspects. But that's just a part of this story. In many ways, The Good Girls was a vehicle to talk about sexual harassment, LGBTQ+ issues, and stereotypes. High school students are often put into specific little boxes, but those boxes don't always tell the full story.

A good mystery and thought provoker.

*I received a copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Honestly, the who dun it mysteries that have taken over YA have kind of exhausted me from the genre and I usually think I've got the entire story pinned down. In the case of, The Good Girls, I had no idea. While the book isn't the most action packed, the mystery and the storytelling keeps it interesting. It's a very character driven book. Each of the girls was different from each other, but they also fit well into their stereotypes. I enjoyed them breaking out of them.

This is one mystery that both fits into the others, but also keeps itself apart. Claude, Avery, and Gwen were interesting characters to read. The beginning made me feel like any one of them would do it, which is what kept me interested and also wanting to know more about them. The end felt bittersweet in a way and I definitely don't want to give too much away.

I do know that this book will find it's way onto the shelves of our library.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I really liked the way it was set up with changing point of views and including different evidence such as diary entries and texts. I read a lot of YA murder mysteries and this one kept me in suspense the entire way through. The prediction I made early in the book was not at all correct and finding out the truth was really interesting. The way it wasn't immediately obvious how everything fit together made me want to keep reading. I especially liked the last chapter and what the character had to say.

The goody-goody cheerleader, the nerd, the bad girl and the dead girl. All defined by their parents, peers, society. All bound by a terrible secret.

I really liked the main characters. Gwen (the nerd) and Emma (the dead girl) are locked in an academic battle to win a full ride college scholarship that will get one of them out of their dead end town. Avery is the cheerleader and the pressure, especially from her parents, to be perfect is stifling her. Claude is the school’s bad girl- the sexually aggressive party girl who really isn’t as tough as she seems.

I really liked the main characters, but it just felt like it took a long time for their story to unfold. Two of the girls are victims of a sexual predator. The other two girls are victims of the fallout of the predator. The girls feel powerless and believe no one will believe them. So they hatch a plan to stop him themselves. As far as this being a thriller, it’s pretty slow and not very thrilling. There was a lot of potential with the story. It just needed to pick up the pace.

I would definitely recommend it to fans of One of Us Is Lying, but it lacks the intensity and punch in the gut of Sadie.

This book was such a slow burn that it was almost too much to bear. I needed it to be more action packed than it was. I was disappointed by my feelings about the timing and pacing of this book because I thought the story line was super interesting and had a bunch of potential.

This started out a bit slow to me, but I was drawn in by the characters and their relationships. The story itself is satisfying, but what I liked best were the underlying societal pressures/expectations etc that were explored, from believing women to the different expectations we have for girls based on class and family wealth, to female sexuality etc. I would recommend this to teens who enjoyed ONE OF US IS LYING.

3.5* rounded up.

Claude (the delinquent), Avery (the cheerleader), Gwen (the nerd), and Emma (the dead girl) all have one thing in common, and it's unfortunately not hard to guess what it is.

The plot follows these three girls as it is slowly revealed how they were connected to Emma's death. Each girl is different, but each is in her own way expected to be a "good girl" especially when it comes to dealing with the men around her, and Bartlett does an excellent job of highlighting the nuance of those challenges without turning THE GOOD GIRLS into a preachy treatise on misogyny. She definitely gets up on a soapbox at the end, but by that point those girls deserve it, goshdarnit.

For me, though, while I enjoyed finding out more about the characters and their story, this thriller lacked some thrill. I would easily believe that the formatting of the eARC did not do this book any favors. There were some segments where it was unclear if the girls were talking or the reader was getting internal narration, where the language/phrasing was really not believable for an actual conversation, and I fully believe that certain thriller-y bits would have raised the tension much more if the formatting had been different. While I suspected the culprit of the obvious crime approximately five pages in, I did not expect the twists and turns of the murder, and the final reveal was an utter shock.

I would recommend this book to fans of One of Us is Lying who aren't quite up to the intensity that Sadie brings to the table but like a good mystery.

Trigger warnings for sexual assault/statutory rape mentions
This is not your average murder mystery. I almost always can guess the ending/correct suspect, but I can confidently say that I did NOT see this ending coming, and I honestly loved it and think it should be used more! But I won't spoil anything.
This book is mainly told from the POVs of Claude Vanderly, Gwen Sayer, and Avery Cross. Claude is known as the school slut, the suspected drug dealer and vandal with a criminal record, Gwen is the hyper-competitive straight-A student viciously competing with missing person Emma Baines for a full college scholarship, and Avery is the head cheerleader on Emma's former team, who is overwhelmed by her wealthy parents' and classmates' expectations on what type of girl she should be. None of these narrators are particularly likable in the beginning and they can all be viewed as "bitchy," but I think that's the point of the book. To show that girls are not one-dimensional or defined by labels. This is even shown in the chapter names, which are various examples of labels used to describe the girls, including Emma.
Emma is the daughter of the town sheriff, who is very strict and protective of her after his divorce with Emma's mother. Her story is told through her past diary entries, that show her fascination with the mysterious death of Gwen's sister, Lizzy Sayer, three years before. Everyone says Lizzy's death was a suicide, but Emma won't stop until she finds proof that Lizzy was murdered, which makes Gwen dislike her.
By the end I had sympathy for all the narrators, especially Avery, which surprised me. I thought she was the worst in the beginning. There was also a romance subplot with her and Gwen towards the end. Gwen is in the closet and both of them worry about the judgments they'll face if they make their relationship public, but what I liked is that Gwen was never outed, like I've seen in way too many thrillers. There is a mysterious blogger talking about the case, but not the "everyone has secrets that get exposed" cliche (à la One of Us is Lying, which, speaking of, there are characters in this book named Bronwyn and Addy as well) I wish so badly I could rave about the ending and this reveal, but everyone would hate me for ruining a book that isn't even released yet.

The Good Girls is a good mix of twists and turns throughout the story and it held my attention. I really enjoyed the first 3/4 of it...however, I did feel the ending was somewhat rushed and hurried through. There is a good mix of characters that are interesting and entertaining that left me curious to know how this story would end.
Thank you to netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is a solid 4.5 stars rounded up. More of a slow-burn, character driven suspense read than a breakneck, page-turning thriller, but I enjoyed the "mood" of the book a lot and enjoyed returning to the pages and sitting with the characters. In particular, I loved the small town Colorado feel; the town was vivid for me, as were the typical "types."

Where I think for some readers they might not be as sure-footed with this one is that it's in third person and it's multi-POV, with some chapters a bit more omniscient. There are also many chapters that are half police interview/half narrative. I enjoy close third person, and it's part of what contributed to the tone I ended up liking about it--it had a grander feel than a typical 1st person might have. But the trade-off is definitely that more almost languid mood and there's a little bit of distance to the story. This wasn't a "whodunnit" read for me, but more of a whydunnit... even with the things I was able to piece together relatively quickly, I enjoyed the journey and what the book had to say. It's all about high school girl stereotypes, the assumptions we make, etc.

So really it's all about the characters: Claude the "slutty" bad girl, Avery the peppy cheerleader, Gwen the intense academic, and Emma the "good girl." Emma is murdered at Anna's Run, a treacherous stretch of river and Claude, Avery, and Gwen are suspects--they all had a reason to want Emma gone. We get Emma as a character through her diary entries from the year+ leading up to her death. She was obsessed with solving the murder of another girl who also died at Anna's Run--Lizzy, Gwen's older sister. You move through Emma's diary, seeing how deep she got and who might have actually killed her... while the present day narrative covers a 48 hour stretch as the police hyper-focus on Claude, Avery, and Gwen.

There was just one aspect of the ending structure that I'm not 100% sold on, though it's a quibble (and one I won't elaborate on for spoilery reasons). There were also a few moments where the book's message as a bit heavy-handed, and I could see some readers chafing against it.

Ultimately a solid multi-POV moody suspense read that I think will appeal to many Actual Teens. The girls are well drawn and in many cases play against type (or when they play to type, they do so with depth). There's also solid LGBTQIA rep I know many readers will be drawn to/appreciate. One main character is bisexual and another is a lesbian. One is out, the other is not, and there are no forced outing scenes or scenes of bigotry/violence against queer characters. No gays are buried, either!

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I didn't find myself connecting to or caring about any of the characters -they all come off a little stand offish or selfish which made it really hard to care about what was happening to them. The mystery was okay and interesting enough, but the clues and foreshadowing weren't compelling enough to keep me reading. The ending was rushed and underdeveloped.

The premise of The Good Girls is fairly straightforward - after the murder of a well-liked cheerleader, and all-around good girl Emma Baines, the police must figure out who did it. They have three suspects to choose from; the party girl, the head cheerleader, and the academic ice queen. But while it's easy to put people into boxes and apply narrowly defined labels (especially to young women), people are more complicated than that. When the truth eventually comes out, it's not going to be as simple as it seems at first.

I was surprised by how much I ended up enjoying this novel. Initially, I was a bit off-put by the non-traditional narrative style; much of this novel. This story is being told through interviews with the police, through diary entries, text conversations, and the occasional third-person omniscient narration for context. It can be challenging at first to follow both what is happening and to remember who all of the characters are. Eventually, three characters become the focus (Claude, Avery, and Gwen) with additional focus on Emma (the murdered girl) and Lizzy (Gwen's sister and a girl who supposedly killed herself a few years prior). The narrative follows the investigation of Emma's murder and we eventually get to see how all of the different threads of the story come together to bring about a satisfying conclusion.

The story is satisfying and told in a way that keeps the reader guessing and trying to figure out what will happen next. The pacing was well done and I appreciated that this novel tried to do something new in the genre. Although the story is certainly suspense/thriller, there are larger questions about how we define and categorize people (especially young women) that is ultimately damaging because we refuse to view them as complex human beings. I really enjoyed the fact that even within the stereotypes, we got to see more information about how these young women categorized and classified themselves and the ways in which they see each other. The ending of the novel is satisfying, although I did struggle with some of the choices during the conclusion. Although most of the loose ends were tied up, there are some questions I still had especially about how the characters move forward from the end and the ways in which interpersonal relationships may have changed or shifted. I don't want to say too much about the plot because I think that this is a novel best read with limited prior information, but I still have a few unresolved questions that I wish the novel had answered. Nothing that is crucial to the plot, but still, questions that I wish had been answered.

I would give this novel a solid 3.5 star rating (although I'll round up to 4 stars for this posting). The novel is absolutely enjoyable and different enough to stand out from other novels in the same genre.

What do the bad girl, the dead girl, the missing girl, and the good girl have in common? Only one thing, but it's the kind of thing that forms an unbreakable and relentless bond. But why is the dead girl dead? And why is the missing girl missing?

I enjoyed this book and the story. I especially liked Claude, the bad girl. She was easy to empathize with and I found myself rooting for her. I did think the book could be a little confusing. There were several main characters to keep up with. Also, I felt like the clues given to try to figure out the murderer were a little confusing too.

Overall, I liked this book and think that high school girls would enjoy reading it.

Thank you to NetGalley, Claire Eliza Bartlett, and the publisher for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book.

This was a solid middle-line murder mystery book. Was it a bit predictable? Yes, but that's fine with me. Was it the best book I've ever read? No, but if I were the target age, I probably would have enjoyed the book more. Trigger warnings for rape/sexual abuse, suicide and drug abuse.

This was a decent thriller with a good mystery. I didn't really get into the story till about the 50% mark, but I kept reading because I wanted to know what happened next. There's some LGBT representation, but I didn't feel a connection to any of the characters.

I have tried so hard to read this book. It sounded so good and the cover it is just the best I have seen in a long while. I love a good story set in a high school situation and not the lovey dovey kind and this one with with a death a river sounded like my cup of tea but I think this tea bag has steeped too long. I get all the characters confused I''m up in the air of who is dead? it just does not keep my attention and I have no compassion for anyone in this book..

Twisty and suspenseful little YA murder mystery. The “group of high school kids involved in a murder” trope is full on here, but we keep reading these books for a reason! This one does the theme well, managing to work in important issues and social commentary. While the ending was predictable and the villain pretty easy to identify, this was still a nice read. I found myself having difficulties putting it down, wanting to know how things unraveled.

I did have two issues with the book. One, the characters weren’t very likable. I understand that part of the story is that girls can be multifaceted and don’t have to fit any one notion. But I really didn’t like any of them as characters, and it was very hard to engage with them or connect to them because of it. The second issue I had was with the story pacing. There would be times when the story would just cut off and we’d pick back up with the character in a completely different setting, not knowing how we got there. The end does help this to make sense, but it’s a weird writing style choice and I didn’t think it worked. It was too jarring and impacted the overall flow.

Overall, I’d say this was a solid 3 star read.