5 stars - I loved this delightfully evil story!

Thank you to the publisher for providing an ARC via NetGalley.

Teachers, students, and families at a prestigious private school find themselves in a tangled web of murder, poison, secrets, and lies.

I was super excited to read For Your Own Good after loving Samantha Downing's other two books, My Lovely Wife and He Started It. I knew to expect some wild plot twists and unlikeable characters, and while For Your Own Good certainly had those elements, I unfortunately did not end up enjoying this book as much as I had hoped. I think the most challenging part of this book for me was the choppy point-of-view shifts that sometimes would happen every couple of pages or even paragraphs. I never really felt like I could get into one character before we moved onto someone else's. I felt disoriented while reading much of this book and was unexcited overall by the ending, but I do love good unlikeable/unreliable characters, and we definitely have those in this book. For Your Own Good was not my favorite book by the author, but I am still excited to dive into more!

CW for murder, death, poison, suicide, stalking, infertility, drug use, vomit.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC of For Your Own Good by Samantha Downing.

Oh the twists,
Oh the turns.
OH MY GOODNESS!!

Samantha Downing has to be the queen of bait and threw off the cliff because you don't know s#$t. I loved this book so much. All the twists and turns that came with ever word. I don't know how she does it but I am happy about it!

If you are a lover of mystery/thriller novels you need to pick this one up! You will not be disappointed.

| BOOK REVIEW |

Title: For Your Own Good
Author: Samantha Downing
Format: 🎧
Rating: ✩ ✩


I'm shook that I didn't not enjoy this clearly loved prep-school thriller. It started off on the wrong foot for me, which I think may have influenced the appeal later. I just lost interest, and I can't tell if it was the story, pacing, or even the narrator that did it for me.


Things looked up briefly toward the middle when a former student of unhinged prep school teacher Teddy came back to join staff. Fallon clearly has a bone to pick with Teddy, as he purposefully tanked her chances of getting into a "good" college. This added some extra tension to what I found to be a dry start.


But even Fallon couldn't resusciate this one for me. There was no Whodunnit or even Whydunnit, there was only, when will they get caught. I didn't connect with the characters in a substantial way and the pacing, despite the short chapters, felt slow!


I am honestly excited to read other Samantha Downing novels, but this one just didn't hit right for me.

Key Points:
• Prep school
• Murder mystery
• Revenge
• Unhinged teacher

Ahhh...I love a great thriller with plenty of twists and turns and a truly unique character that you can't stop thinking about. This is that book and Teddy the teacher is that character. This author does such an amazing job writing in this genre and I love the private school setting in this story. The audiobook is fantastic and I highly recommend listening to this one.

Teddy Crutcher is a teacher at an elite private school and because he never had the same opportunities are the students he teachers, he feels the need to teach them a lesson. However, things spin out of control and there are casualties.
Samantha Downing has done it again! Always a must read author to me and this book was no different!

The incompetency is just too damn high. In a group of supposedly high achieving individuals, not a single intelligent thought can be found. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but that part frustrated me a bit. The book lacked a bit of focus between the different perspectives and this was an instance of unlikeable characters not intriguing me quite enough to compensate for their unlikeability but I’m still rounding up to four stars for the storytelling. Least favorite of her three I’ve read but I still enjoyed it.

No one writes characters more twisted, unlikable, and delightfully fun than Samantha Downing. Every single book of hers is a surprise and delight!

No one is more committed to helping their students achieve excellence than Teddy Crutcher. Teddy is not your average teacher, though. He’s won Teacher of the Year at the prestigious Belmont Academy, he loves helping his students be their best selves, and he is most likely a complete psychopath. Teddy uses…unconventional teaching methods. But of course, he only does it because he knows what is best for his students, right?

As the book opens, Teddy is meeting with the father of junior Zach Ward over a B+ Teddy recently gave Zach on a paper. Zach is attractive, comes from a wealthy family, and beloved by students and teachers at the school. Teddy sees it as his job to knock Zach down a peg and teach him a lesson. Teddy’s utter disdain for Zach is presented comically, as even in his own private ramblings he admits that Zach is quite intelligent and talented, while the lower grade is related to Zach’s privilege in life, not his academic performance.

Downing also narrates some chapters from Zach’s perspective, and we learn that Teddy’s opinion on Zach couldn’t be further from the truth. Zach is a hard-worker, smart, privileged young man who is (like many of the students at Belmont) being crushed under the weight of pressure from his parents to get the right grades, get into an Ivy, and have a successful career. Zach is close friends with another student, Courtney, and I found it fascinating how Teddy had the opposite opinion on Courtney as he did Zach, despite her also having the same privileged background.

Downing presents Teddy’s dichotomous thoughts about Zach and Courtney to great effect. With Zach, Teddy feels it is his duty to knock him down a peg, despite his stellar performance. With Courtney, Teddy wants to actively help and support her, though this is largely because her mother is the president of the PTA and was active in awarding Teddy Teacher of the Year. Teddy is so delightfully, grotesquely self-serving. His opinions on any given person are solely related to whether they help him or make him feel less than.

I found Teddy to be a completely captivating character. He’s arrogant, vindictive, spiteful, devious, intelligent, delusional, quirky, and manipulative. As a character, he’s often unintentionally hilarious (I was particularly tickled by his tendency to reward himself with a glass of 2% milk despite his lactose intolerance) and at times he can even be somewhat sympathetic, despite his atrocious actions.

No one writes compelling villains the way Downing does. Like some of her other villainous characters, Teddy’s actions, behaviors, and thoughts are often despicable. Yet he is presented in such a playful way, the reader can’t help but have tiny moments of rooting for him, only to then remember all of the things he has done and quickly reverse. By the end, I was rooting for his demise but unsure if it would come. Downing always surprises at the end of her books, so no outcome is off the table.

A delightfully wicked book that I couldn’t put down!

I love a prep school thriller. I believe this was my first Samantha Downing book, but it won't be the last!

Samantha Downing does it again! She really knows how to write characters that you really can’t stand, but you still can’t put the book down until you find out what’s happened to all of them. Masterful! This one did something different than most prep school thrillers, and it was very captivating. The milk thing was extremely off-putting but I think that was the point… no one who drinks milk can be in their right mind 🤣

Another winner from the uber-talented Samantha Downing. I am at the point with this author where I would read her grocery list if she published it and I enjoyed every single page of For Your Own Good!

this book is a trip, let me tell you what.

there are so many characters, so many POVs, and the chapters are short so theres a lot of switching back and forth, it got to the point where i was half way through and wondering what the heck was going on. lol.

i think the interesting thing about this story is the reader is kept aware of everything that is happening as the multiple POVs provide all of the details. so the story becomes less about the mystery and more about if everyone is going to get away with everything. some readers may not like that but, as a teacher, i found it shocking how much i was actually relating to the messed up staff at belmont academy.

this is a super quick and really fun story that any fan of academic thrillers will enjoy.

Belmont school is one of the most prestigious in the country. The students come from wealthy backgrounds, so once a teacher dies at the school, folks take notice. Then another teacher dies. This books takes off like a whirlwind, and I loved it. This will be one my top faves of the year.

Once again, Samantha Downing has given a book that I couldn’t put down. Great story, great characters and an unbelievable conclusion. I continue to look forward to more from Samantha and can’t wait to add this to my staff recommendations!!!

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was an unexpected read. It was filled with twists and was very clever. The characters were mostly terrible people that you loved to hate but sometimes cheered for as well. A very unique story.

I am a little unsure about this book.
This started out interesting enough, but the ever-growing list of characters was too much.
I’m not a fan of a ton of POVs. It can get a little confusing.
It didn’t help that everyone was so unlikable. All the things they were doing was basically for no reason.

I liked the book and I needed to know the end. I just didn’t love it. It was missing something and the ending just left me with more questions.

LOVE LOVE LOVE! One of my faves to read! Definitely would recommend picking this one up if you see it in the store.

I absolutely love Samantha Downing's books, and For Your Own Good hit all the right boxes for me. You won't be able to put this dark academia thriller down.

Thank you, Netgalley, for my arc.

Downing is quickly becoming one of my favorite thriller authors. Once again, she knocks it out of the park! For Your Own Good is an unputdownable, propulsive novel.

Belmont is an elite academy with the parents of the children who attend demanding nothing but the best from their kids. Teddy, named Teacher of the Year, also expects the best of his students, and refuses any deviation from the rules. As mysterious deaths begin happening on campus, Teddy remains unaffected, only demanding that the killer be found immediately. As the complex plot unfolds, I was kept on my toes, unable to turn the pages quickly enough to find out what was going to happen next.

This was a fantastic book. I believe this is my favorite Downing thriller so far. You won't want to miss this one! Thank you so much to Berkley and Netgalley for a copy of this one exchange for an honest review!

VERDICT: 4.5 STARS

Having recently finished the previously published “For Your Own Good” by Samantha Downing, I am happy to have had the chance for the Advanced Reader’s Edition e-copy; thank you NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group!

This is a story with another bad guy name that will stick with me. I wasn’t able to shake Tobias (My Lovely Wife) for awhile and now Teddy will be a name to creep me out for a bit.
What I find myself enjoying about each of Samantha Downings’ novels is how EVIL her everyday characters are written. A devious husband and wife team of murderers had me disturbed with her debut, and now a deranged teacher will stick with me until her next novel arrives and I can enjoy another TWISTED and thrilling story!

"He tries and tries and tries, and yet sometimes, even he can't help them, Not that he's going to give up. He never gives up. It's for their own good."