4.5/5

Aria Aber's debut novel starts as the tale of a Berlin party girl and transforms into a nuanced exploration of identity, displacement, and belonging. As an Afghan woman raised in the West, this story resonated deeply, offering representation beyond Khaled Hosseini’s well-tread narratives.

Nila, a university student more invested in Berlin’s nightlife than academics, chases a manipulative American author while masking her shame about her Afghan roots. Born to immigrant parents who fled the Soviet invasion, she’s caught between the rigid expectations of Muslim immigrant culture and the reckless hedonism of Berlin. Her struggles to fit in, compounded by drugs and fleeting relationships, reveal the alienation and self-erasure she endures.

Aber’s writing is vivid, capturing Berlin’s contrasts with precision, though the excessive portrayal of drugs and sex felt overemphasized. The resolution is intentionally incomplete, mirroring the fractured identities of immigrants, though I yearned for more closure. Despite some mixed feelings, this is a raw, poignant story of identity and belonging, and I’m glad to see more Afghan representation in literature. A must-read for those exploring life between cultures.

Thank you Penguin Random House Canada for the digital arc

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House- Hogarth for this advance reader copy, in exchange for an honest review. This is such an exquisitely written, heartbreaking, soulful book— it is sure to be a buzzy book of 2025!

The character of Nila was so beautifully complex and reading in her voice was an emotional ride, as the author was able to clearly and sharply convey all of the complex emotions at play here; feelings related to a deep sense of shame at her heritage and family, to her unexpressed grief at the loss of her mother, her feelings of unworthiness, her deep desire to lose herself to raves and drugs. There is so much at play here but, it never feels messy or like the author is trying to do too much. This feels like an extremely true to life mess of emotions and you can just feel Nila spiraling downward, with bad decision after bad decision. The plot is propulsive and after a while, I just couldn’t put the book down because I was waiting and hoping for Nila to pull herself up. The author’s prose lends itself so well to these characters, this story, and to the exploration of these themes— I know I’ll need to go back to this story at some point just to savor these beautiful sentences.

I am eager for this book to come out to press it into other readers hands— especially in today’s intolerant, politically charged environment, this work is all the more important, as we seek to understand and empathize with others. The emotions of loss, shame, anger, and a desire to find your way are universal and I think there is a lot that readers can either empathize or sympathize with in Nila and in this book. Needless to say, I highly recommend this book and can’t wait to return to it myself!

GOOD GIRL is a unique coming-of-age novel about nila, a nineteen-year-old daughter of afghan immigrants living in germany. she quickly falls into a group of friends she met in the berlin rave scene, and she spends her days doing obscene amounts of drugs and terrifying her family. she also meets marlowe, an american writer who is much older, and as they continue their relationship nila struggles to keep her head above water and figure out who she wants to become.

the first third of this book was fantastic. i thought the descriptions of nightlife in the rave scene felt so authentic, and the descriptions and stream of consciousness style during the different drug binges also felt so well done. it was chaotic and messy but wasn’t difficult to follow, even when the characters started mixing drugs. i will say though that the party scenes got old after a while. i think it was probably a stylistic choice to make the story match the monotony of getting high and going to raves night after night, but as a plot device it lost me after a while.

shame was a recurring theme in the book, and it was interesting to examine the different ways nila was ashamed of her heritage, the ways her family was ashamed of her, and how nila was ashamed of herself. nila wasn’t a likeable character by any means, but i think that was also intentional.

the prose was beautiful, and if you’ve been here a while you know how much i love poets writing prose, but this actually is a rare instance where it felt too poet-like at times. there were so many beautiful sentences and passages that i marked, but there were other times where i felt like things rambled on a little too long.

overall, i think this was a really solid debut, and i’m excited to see what she writes next.

Delicious, poetic prose that captivated me from the first pages. Good Girl is the story of an Afghan girl, Nilab, who navigates the politically charged realities of living in Berlin as a member of the lower class. Filled with drugs, partying, miserable boyfriends, techno and teen angst, Good Girl is a representation of a child of an immigrant who defies the norms of her culture, dreaming for a life of middle class comfort.

It highlights the harsh realities of how difficult it is to transcend social classes and the guilt and shame that we carry with us. I will never understand hatred based on a person’s skin or where their family was born, but I do have a bit of a glimpse into the blight that Nilab faced. Wonderfully written and a fabulous debut novel.

this is the story of a young girl, a party girl, a daughter of immigrants - that's a lot to have one's plate!!! aber's novel is relatable on a personal level. there were times that the party scenes started to feel a bit repetitive, I enjoyed the flashbacks a lot and aber's skill as a poet shines through the prose. excited to see what she does next

Dark, funny, heartbreaking. And totally relatable for every girl/young woman who is "in love" with the toxic, artsy, philosophical asshole who strings her along. Nila wrestles with the loss of her mother, the wreck of her father, her heritage and identity, and then the overall unbearableness of being a human on this trash planet. Faced with racism, the threat of violence from hate groups, and her own self-destructive tendencies, Nila is never not moving in her world. I did want to yell at her the whole time I was reading and tell her to stop doing dumb, detrimental things. to take care of herself!
Since Nila is narrating it from a distant future, I do believe she is living a life she wanted and started doing much better by the end. I love a character who makes huge changes, even if it only feels like it to them, and still talks about how they are scared to make those changes and do them anyway. I really hope this book gets all the hype it deserves.

Thought provoking and absolutely graceful with its stream of consciousness. I was hooked from the first chapter, worth a read, you will definitely learn something.

Stellar writing and a narrative that truly embodies life as a woman perpetually out of place. Nila, daughter of Afghan immigrants living in Germany, is our first-person narrator, guiding her readers through the story of how she once dated an American author in his flop era who was far too old for her and got involved with some druggie Berlin losers who like to discuss Marxism after they snort speed. The flashbacks of this story are the most poignant, as are the dissections of life as an immigrant daughter and the way this identity has a way of placing you right on the borderline that separates the dichotomy of good vs. bad girlhood. The story is told by Nila from an undefined future, which sort of explains the substantially poetic nature of the narration (I’ll get to that). The writing is beautiful and one of the only reasons I finished this, as this does get repetitive with the excessive partying and the disgusting, often sexual accounts of Nila’s predatory, abusive relationship with the flop (Marlowe is a perfect author name though, kudos). Only other thing that sent me to the finish line was the aforementioned, profound depictions of the identity crises that seem intrinsic to life in the diaspora, especially when one is a woman. Side characters were merely side characters in this one, unfortunately. Eli is treated most as if he were fully-realized, but the most I understood from him outside his relationship with Nila was that he…hates Greeks. Ok.
This is kind of a portrait of an artist as a young woman, as the blurb here on Goodreads feels inclined to claim. Nila wants to be a photographer, and there are absolutely glimpses of this desire imbued into the story, but it’s also evident from the writing style and the fact that Nila’s literary and mythological references outshine the photography ones by a mile, that the author is not a photographer. She’s a poet, actually. A great one. Y’all read “Zelda Fitzgerald”? Slay. I probably don’t have to tell you that, though, since the sublime prose riddled throughout GOOD GIRL tells on her for you (also because you can literally just click on the author profile). That’s the thing, though. The narrator is a writer, not a photographer, and the author is trying to convince you that the opposite is true. If this had truly, fully been a portrait of a young female artist, well, it wouldn’t have worked. Because Nila is a mere stand-in. And I love a good stand-in! That’s usually how we get the most complex characters we’re allowed. But this is not a true stand-in. If it were, Nila would’ve been a poet. And a story about a poet finding her voice, from a writer as talented as Aber, would’ve blown me away. That is not what this novel is about, though.
Aber said this online: “writing a sex book so i can make $$$ and buy my parents a nice house where they can retire and never speak to me again as they will disown me for writing a sex book. it’s called being an immigrant daughter” …And, yeah. The plot oscillates between the story of Nila’s year of drug-fueled clubbing alongside Marlowe and the rat pack and the more astute accounts of life as an immigrant daughter. The climax is underwhelming, but still perspicacious, as is the ending. I actually loved the ending, because it did for me what a good poem does. There are musings throughout the novel that do this, which is why I stayed until the end. But some of the most interesting parts of the story, like the inconclusively included glimpse into the juvenile, sapphic relationship of Nila’s past or the allusions to a “This Is What Makes Us Girls” by Lana Del Rey-esque boarding school experience are just flashbacks here. I would’ve found those experiences or the actual start to Nila’s artistic journey in London so much more compelling than what I read, but I still really loved and resonated with so much of this story. All in all, the beautiful writing is the gem here. I want more fiction from this author!

I really wanted to like this, and I appreciate the struggle of the main character to find herself amid the pressures, dangers, expectations and temptations of the world. However, the endless days and nights of raves and drugs made this a slog for me. It felt repetitive, which I suspect was the point, but for me, it only bogged down the story.

I AM OBSESSED! This book altered my brain chemistry. I crave brown girl books like this and it's so soul filling and refreshing to see a book like this published in the United States. The book carries so much heart and honesty and an unearthing of complicated family and societal dynamics that I could not get enough of. Excited to share this with people I know will also love it.

DNF @ 19%

It's not me, it's you.

I tried, tried again. I gave Good Girl several ol' college tries. I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm falling into a slump. Perhaps my SAD is disrupting my pleasure reading. Alas, no. I've found another novel (or two) that had me hooked, and I realize that Good Girl and I are just not a great match. So sorry.

Okay, prose aside, my point remains: this is just not a book for me. I like it in theory, but I am not getting any connection to the main character, the setting, the drive. I tried speed-reading to find a "good part" that would hook me, but eventually I asked myself "Why do I care for this character at all?" and realized, I do not. That was the moment I called it done-zo.

Anyway... A lot of readers will probably find Good Girl touching, inspiring, provocative, awesome, etc. I found it blah and not worth my ticking time. (Sorry.)

Aria Aber's debut novel begins as the story of a Berlin party girl and slowly changes into something nuanced and complex. Nila is nominally a university student, not attending many classes but going out to nightclubs in search of a specific man, a middle-aged American author currently partying in the downmarket clubs Berlin is famous for. She does find him and manages to catch his interest and even go home with him, but this is an uncertain win. The writer is mercurial and enjoys stringing her along and even as she assures the reader that she is playing the same games, that's not entirely true, or even mostly true.

Nila's not the free spirit she presents herself as. She's not Italian or Israeli or Greek, or any of the rotating places she claims to be from. She's born and bred in Berlin, but her parents left Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, leaving their medical licenses and their home behind to resettle in a grim apartment block and working menial jobs. She's living in their apartment still, with her father who has given up after the death of her mother. She's ashamed of her roots, finding herself at home neither in the rigidly structured world of Moslem immigrants nor in the free-wheeling world of young well-off partiers, although she throws herself into the latter world with all her might, staying up all night, taking whatever drugs she's offered and hoping that the taxi driver taking the group she's with to their next party isn't someone she knows.

Aber's a solid writer and she's able to write her story without needing to be obvious about where she's going. Nila is an unreliable narrator, who constantly works the narrative to make it appear like she's in charge, that she's fine, that she's making choices, even as she is barely treading water. It's interesting to see what Aber is doing as the story unfolds and her picture of Berlin, from the neighborhoods housing skinheads and refugees to the tawdry nightclubs, is vivid and unique.

Thank you Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the advanced copy of this publication.
While it's a sweet love story, it lost me in translation and left me wanting more. I tried to follow it, but the author left me so in the dark that I had to let it go.

In Good Girl we meet Nila as she’s grappling with her identity as an Afghani girl living in Germany. She’s reckless and makes terrible decisions as a result of her shame, numbing herself with drugs and toxic relationships.
Thoughtful, propulsive, and incisive. Will read more by this author

crushing and gritty, deep and interesting coming of age and more importantly coming of self story. intimate. 5 stars. tysm for the arc.

It’s a weird reading experience to find something compulsively readable, and yet not necessarily enjoyable.
I started this and within a few hours had already read 20%, without feeling attached or excited to be reading it.
I was initially interested in the title because there’s already people suggesting it’ll be the next Cool Girl book. I can see why!
The writing itself is sublime. Really gritty and glittery. And yet the writing style is also what made me lose interest. Repetitive, with moments where the language was *too* flowery—weird in an off-putting way, instead of making me feel like I was absorbing something brand new.
I think this is what can happen in stories with disaffected narrators. The novel tries so hard to convince us the main character doesn’t care, that it’s successful, and I therefore do not care, either.
I still think this will find its readers, and blow them away. I’m simply not one of them.

I can’t stop thinking about this book. At a sentence level, it stuns. I loved the narrator so much I wanted to reach through the pages and pull her out of some of the situations she found herself in, but of course I couldn’t - the heart of the book lies in Nilab’s finding her own place in the world. Compelling, complex, gritty, and gorgeous. I loved it.

Thoughts

This will definitely be one of my favorite books of the year. It is one you have to have patience with because the MC makes a lot of bad decisions and is just self-destructive. But it comes from trauma and grief she inherited from her parents. From living in a country that treats immigrants poorly.

Nila is 19 in Germany during the second decade of the 2000s. Her parents came from Afghanistan in the late 80s. They were doctors but Germany wouldn't accept it without paperwork and Afghanistan would release it. So they lived in poverty. And this shaped her life.

This book had me rooting for her the entire time but man sometimes it was hard because she really was making the worst decisions. But the author did a great job of helping you understand where it comes from. You feel her pain and anger.

I cried for her, I got mad at her, I wanted to hug her. I think the author is an amazing writing and storytelling to be able to really take you on the journey with her.

Also, I am glad this was an eARC because I have never had to look up so many words in my life. But it never felt pretentious. There are characters who are! But the writing is not.

Put this on your reading list for next year! Especially, if you like Queenie or books like that.

This coming of age novel brings the underworld of Berlin and Nila's struggles to find her way into adulthood in a visceral, palpable way.

Enjoyed this debut. We follow Nila, who is Afghan, but pretends to be other nationalities to avoid being profiled in Berlin.

The story is well crafted and it made me feel gritty and uncomfortable sometimes while reading (this is good!).

Loved!


TW: Substance abuse, domestic violence