And at the end of the day a “good guy” is still going to believe he’s a good guy despite being exposed and there being multiple people with the same experience/truth. Thank you to NetGalley for this Arc, I absolutely enjoyed reading this story.

Thank you NetGalkey and publisher for this audio!

WOW!! Just wow! This was a great book! I enjoyed the storyline and the narrator did great. It’s very much had a grip on me from the first page

Araminta Hall, a name familiar to every mystery/thriller enthusiast, especially after the success of her notable work, "Our Kind of Cruelty." The anticipation surged as I acquired an advanced copy of her 2024 novel, "ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS." The intriguing and playful cover, coupled with a compelling synopsis, instantly captured my attention. From the outset, the trajectory of the story becomes palpable.

Following his recent separation from his wife, Cole departs London for a simpler life in the countryside, seeking a fresh start on a new path. Embracing a role as a wildlife ranger and residing in a coastal cottage, he immerses himself in mornings of swimming and communion with nature. His neighbor, Leonora, an artist in a nearby cottage, becomes a captivating presence, sparking instant attraction. As their relationship blossoms, the town is visited by two women's rights activists, advocating against domestic abuse. When these activists mysteriously vanish, the entire community, including Cole and Leonora, becomes entangled in a police investigation and media frenzy. Amidst the unfolding probe, the tension between Cole and Leonora intensifies, revealing uncharted aspects of their relationship.

The book immediately emanates an aura of unpredictable behavior. Revealing more would spoil the experience, but suffice it to say, the narrative is binge-worthy and entertaining. It employs diverse perspectives and writing techniques, incorporating media outlets, articles, and social media posts. While I discerned the book's trajectory early on, it didn't diminish my enjoyment of the character-driven journey. Sinister characters and eye-opening moments contribute to the overall allure. "ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS" may not suit everyone's taste, but for those acquainted with the author's previous works and fans of the genre, it's undoubtedly worth a read!

Spoiler - he was not a good guy, reader! This was a good read and I love that he was exposed for being that bag of dicks that he truly was. You go in thinking he is a good guy and learn what is really going on! This was my 1st book by Araminta Hall but will not be my last!

#OneoftheGoodGuys
#NetGalley

One of the Good Guys by Araminta Hall

Where to begin? One of the Good Guys by Araminta Hall was absolutely terrific. Yet, that is definitely not an apt description as one sentence will not do this propulsive and complex story justice. Because while it was well written, very creative in structure, effectively paced and plotted – it was so much more. The story telling was direct at times, and nuanced at others. It accurately describes the feelings and experiences of many women, which are both complex and sometimes even contradictory.

Told from three different points of view, the book will take you be back and forth in time with a variety of storytelling formats, using traditional narrative structure while incorporating news headlines, podcasts and social media content. True to form as a psychological thriller, the mood is suspenseful and also incredibly reflective.
Ms. Hall did a masterful job creating a story that was both thought-provoking and a compulsive read, or in my case, listen. The audio production was excellent with multiple narrators and the unique elements of the structure were effectively used.

Thank you to the author, Dreamscape Select & Gillian Flynn Books for the advance listener copy.

At the beginning of the book, I was like what am I even listening to because this character is awful. Then I realized that was the premise of the book - an awful man who thinks he’s one of the good guys. I enjoyed the second half of the book when you find out a bit more of what’s going on but overall I wasn’t enthralled. This took me quite a bit to get through because I wasn’t dying to keep reading.

One of the a good Guys

I really tried, but I couldn’t finish the book. I stopped and started the book at least 10 times, but couldn’t get into it. The first section is Cole, who whines about how his wife (separated) didn’t appreciate all of the wonderful things he did for her. The next section is the wife speaking about how Cole was pressuring her into having a baby.
I’m sure the story picks up at some point, but it’s taken me weeks to get through 50% of the book and I’m no longer going to trudge through it.

That being said, I value the opinions of many other book raters on here and they scored this book very high, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

The narrators were fine for the parts, but could only do so much to keep me engaged.

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Select for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ok wow. What an addictive and enthralling psychological thriller! This was so much more than your typical thriller and I relished in how compellingly clever it was! I loved how unsettling it was but in such a fun way!

It also was incredibly evocative as it’s extremely timely and impactful. It dives deep into topics such as gender, power, consent, misogyny and delusion but in subtle ways.

It’s certainly a dark and disturbing tale that’s also weirdly entertaining and the mixed media bits sprinkled throughout add a refreshing element. It’s sure to leave you thinking king beyond the last page…

4.5 stars rounded to 5 for goodreads

TLDR (possible spoiler alert): One of the Good Guys isn't really a mystery/thriller. It's a sociology case study.

I wish we could give half-star ratings. I more than "liked" One of the Good Guys, but less than "really liked" it. I enjoyed the way that multimedia was used throughout the book, almost exclusively in the final third. This was enhanced by sound effects in the audiobook, a fun touch. I'm sure I'm about average when I say that I selected One of the Good Guys for reading thinking that it would be a British Gone Girl. I mean, it is published by Gillian Flynn Books! If that's what you're after, you're going to be disappointed.

One of the Good Guys is really a case study on the modern battle of the sexes. Araminta Hall would make my former political science professors proud in that she manages to offer myriad perspectives, male and female, without making her own beliefs known. Araminta Hall leaves it up to the individual reader to make up their own mind. I can't really say that she presented me with new information. (Although it would appear that Britain is a vastly more dangerous place to lack a Y chromosome than most of the places I have lived. Or, maybe I've just been ignorant. Or lucky.) I can't say that I regret having read it, and I think that it has potential utility in a classroom setting. I disagree with calling it an "urgent psychological thriller." It's an episode of Law and Order: SVU.

I would like to thank Dreamscape Select, Gillian Flynn Books for allowing me to experience this NetGalley audiobook.

An excellent read for those who enjoy a thoroughly disturbing tale of human dis-function and the after affects of centuries of misunderstanding. Take a moment to absorb the full content and its worrying conclusion on humanity.

I give One of the Good Guys a 3.5 star rating. Thank you NetGalley for my ARC audio copy.
The audio quality of this book is great – I've never encountered one that has the treatments of supporting sounds for parts like news reports and WhatsApp messages. It really helped immerse me into the story, and feel like I was a fly on the wall for the events unfolding.

The book deals with the confronting nature of the gender divide and all the violence that ensues from it. It's such an important conversation, and Araminta Hall has artfully unfurled the narrative in such a way that echoes reality.

I would definitely suggest content warnings at the beginning of this books as it thoroughly deals with sexual violence and sexism. It's not an easy to stomach read, nor should it be.

And the ending... I guess it really, solidly, reflects reality in that it wasn't overly satisfying. I think any "good for her" story benefits from an ending that has something vengeful or spiteful occur to the main culprit. But I also understand that being left with the rage of how it all turned out is useful to the theme of One of the Good Guys.

This is now my third read by Araminta Hall and they’ve all been solid reads! I was really hooked listening to this audiobook. There are multiple perspectives and the three narrators Elliot Fitzpatrick, Olivia Vinall and Helen Kelley were all great! They really brought these characters to life. I liked how we open with Cole’s character and how he sees things and then as the story unfolds we learn how the women feel. The audiobook production was really well done with the tweets, texts, podcasts and Reddit threads with accompanying sound effects. The setting of the countryside was great too. I can’t wait for her next book!

One of the Good Guys is a very thought provoking read. The multiple perspectives told throughout the novel are especially intriguing looking back on the thought processes of all of the characters. This novel is very relevant in todays Me Too culture, and highlights how nothing is often cut and dried.

What a different kind of thriller that had quite the twist I really did not see coming! I thought this was headed one way, and it took a left turn and I was stunned. This is my first read of Hall’s and I need to go back and read her backlist after this one. I really enjoyed the audio, and was glad I listened to it vs. reading the physical copy as it included sounds such as texting, etc. during the portions of the book that referred to social media, which only enhanced the experience.

This was refreshing in a way to focus on how women feel walking home at night, why we don’t feel safe and how it is viewed by society. It also shows though how it can be easy to judge ‘one of the good guys’ and put them on the social judgment stand right off the bat. It was an excellent look into both sides of the coin for sure.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for the ALC to review.

[TW: Language, sexual assault, infertility, toxic relationships, abusive relationship, divorce, miscarriages, animal death (rabbit skinned/gutted), death of parent, gaslighting, misogynistic behavior, use of c-word, domestic abuse, violence, grooming, abusive mother, child sexual abuse]

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book:Desperate to escape the ghosts of his failed marriage, Cole upends his life. He leaves London behind for a remote stretch of coast, relishing the respite from the noise, drama, and relentless careerism that curdled his relationship and mental health. Leonora has made the same move for similar reasons. She’s living a short walk from Cole’s seaside cottage, preparing for her latest art exhibition. Although Cole still can’t figure out what went wrong with his marriage, and Leonora is having trouble acclimating to the hostile landscape, the pair forges a connection on the eroding bluff they call home.

Then two young female activists raising awareness about gendered violence disappear while passing through. Cole and Leonora suddenly find themselves in the middle of a police investigation--and the resulting media firestorm when the world learns of what happened. And as the tension escalates alongside the search for the missing women, they quickly realize that they don’t know each other that well after all.
Release Date: January 9th, 2024
Genre: Domestic Thriller
Pages: 304
Rating: ⭐

What I Liked:
1. Loved the author's writing style
2. Characters were well developed
3. Shirt chapters
4. Fast read
5. The cover

What I Didn't Like:
1. The ending
2. Part 3 tone

Overall Thoughts:
When I first started reading this book I kept thinking that Cole killed his wife. I kept thinking that he really killed her but kept pretending in his mind she was alive. But then he didn't.

This story is wild. There were so many times when he was saying that Mel was abusing him when she was talking to him and asking him for reasonable things. She wanted him to sign papers to sell the house and wanted to have the embryos destroyed. Very understanding. He continues to act as though he is the victim to her.

Mel is your typical women. She always talks herself down when she isn't being polite to her husband or someone . She doesn't really want kids but then changes her mind. She continues to tell herself to calm down so not to make a scene.

Cole gets her her favorite squash pasta and she doesn't even like that one but the mushroom one instead.

Honestly I tried to read this book less from a female prospective (I am a woman) and more from a human perspective. When Mel works so much it does suck. Cole wants a family that Mel has agreed to have with him but she is always at work. It's hard to maintain a relationship with someone that doesn't listen to you. So in that aspect it's understandable that Cole would be upset because even if roles were reversed and Cole was the one working so much he couldnt be bothered to sit with Mel after a treatment, people would be pissed at that. What makes me mad is the gaslighting that Cole puts into the passive aggressive comments he aims toward Mel. The whole and only focus on having a kid is creepy.

Mel and Cole are complete opposites. Mel really doesn't want kids and is more focused on having her business succeed. There is a stigma that is put on women that don't want kids but want a life that is about themselves. People label them as selfish and none caring.

Cole wants kids and he wants his wife and child to live off the land with no connection to work. He wants to isolate his wife and children to almost control them to what he believes and away from society.

Cole hates it when Mel cries but he has no problem with crying. What a master manipulater. Always trying to control her feelings.

We learn that Cole can only have sex with Mel if he is pretending to sexually assault while dressed in black clothing and "breaking" into the house.

God this book has such good commentary. Mel finally leaves Cole but then when she thinks about why Cole is the way he is she concludes that it must all be his mother's fault for the way he is. Speaks volumes about what Mel said earlier that society always blame women for what men do. We are just a society of people saying it's the woman's fault.

Men like Cole believe they’re right because society has told them that they are their whole lives. And, as a result, they find it difficult to be told "no."

Yesssssssssss!

"But the truth is, men who want to protect women should never be trusted because we only feel the impulse to protect the things we think of as weaker than ourselves."

I don't agree with that at all. You can be protective of people but not think of them as weaker. I'm protective of my family but I don't think they are below me - I just love them and hate anyone who hurts them.

Towards the end of the book it becomes this mixed media format that I just did not care for. Because the whole part of the book in the beginning was actual story and then we jump into how media dictates to how things are. I just feel like it was very jumbled when it got to that point. Also it just keeps repeating the details we already read and know about.

The moment that Leonora mentions that her next art piece needed Mel I figured they were going to hide the girls. Then when Leonora is the one that finds the tent it sealed it in what she was doing it.

Leonora making tons of money on her show of exploiting domestic abused women pretty ties up how much sense this book ended up meaning.

Final Thoughts:
I was enjoying this book immensely so much so that I finished it in a day (in 6 hours). The story was fascinating. The writing was fantastic. The characters were interesting. Then we got to part three and all I felt about the book quickly took a nosedive. I get having an idea for a book but lately it feels as though authors are adding so many want to be twists to amount to little in their stories.

This book uses mixed media to almost blind you and disorient you from a predictable and mediocre ending.

A lot of this book is just the same details and actions of our characters from different perspectives, which makes the story come off dull and boring. Hearing the news and social media reports repeating the same facts about the case wore on my nerves. It all comes off pointless because they give us zero information to advance the plot other than to showcase how judgemental and horrible people can be. I feel like some of it could have really added to the story but there was just too much of it to make the story better. Endless recounts just dragged this story down making me want to skim some parts.

The revival was just not good. I'm not sure how girls disappearing and then them being found alive had much meaning. How would them lying about what happened to them give the cause to women being believed give women any credibility? It wouldn't. It would prove to all the misogynistic men that women are trash. To the people worried about them they would lose faith in them for lying.

I also wish that this book could have also focused on males that are also sexually assaulted because this story makes out that all males are dangerous. That no men can be a victim to abuse either. 1 in 4 men have experienced rape and physical violence.

IG | Blog

Thanks to Netgalley and Gillian Flynn Books for this advanced copy of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I had to sit with One of the Good Guys before I could rate or review it. How the book started, I thought it was going to be a meh one for me. Then it all changed. For some reason I didn’t see it coming and how things ended up going honestly shook me a little bit. I was left with a lot to think about after this one!

One of the Good Guys by Araminta Hall is one of my favorite reads. This book was fast-moving and superbly paced with great characterizations and sequencing. Told from different points of view, One of the Good Guys is quite engaging and the subject matter will intrigue and anger you in equal measure. Hall does a great job placing the reader into multiple points of view for the consumption of opinions and ideologies. The audio quality is excellent and the narration reads like a movie. The audio had a mixed media approach (i.e. social media posts/sounds) to it which added to the enjoyment of the story. I loved Hall's book, Our Kind of Cruelty and this book lives up to the hype.

2.5 stars - rounding up to 3 stars. Holy moly - I ended up hating everyone in this book, however, I didn't hate the book (audio version) itself. I have to say, I was really enjoying the first half from Cole's perspective. I knew something was up with him, of course. No guy can be that "good". However, the twists fell flat for me and just too unbelievable. It turned me off. The narrators were excellent. They really know how to pull an audience into the story.

Huge thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy of the audiobook. #Netgalley

One of the Good Guys is an over-complicated look at gender issues. Essentially how men treat women. I could not relate to any of the characters, and at times, the story was monotonous. Unfortunately, this book was not for me. The narrator was very good, though.

This was an extremely quick read. I was fascinated by the cleverness of the writing. Hall was able to capture the views of females, males, extremists groups, etc. in a way that was not condescending or heavily opinionated. The reader was able to take on the feelings of females who feel unsafe and alternately the males that could contribute to why a woman might feel that way. Hall used direct points of views from the characters, as well as social media and news blurbs. These additions added some necessary color to how people hide behind their keyboard and aren't afraid to say some wild things.
As I read, I found myself thinking "wow, what if he really wasn't intending to be a jerk and this is just how he processed her information" or "yes! she really is feeling trapped and manipulated. she needs to get out of there" and then "wait. someone is taking this way too far but which one". I am still letting all of these different points of views cycle through my mind even days after reading. The news outlets have so much persuasion. The people out there fighting hard for important causes have such strong beliefs and views. The world may never be a place that people can live in complete harmony without someone being insulted or felt like they were attacked.
I think this is a relevant book for this day and age and I do think it will stick with me for a long time.