⭐️⭐️ 2/5 Stars (Meh)
Setting: Silver House, the ancestral home of the Sterling family located in the English countryside
Genre: Psychological Thriller

I wanted to love A Girl Like Us. A locked-room thriller set against the backdrop of obscene wealth and family secrets? It had all the makings of a gripping, high-stakes read. Unfortunately, what started as an intriguing premise quickly became a repetitive, drawn-out story that failed to deliver the tension and pacing I was hoping for.

The Sterling family’s world is undeniably fascinating, and Maya’s fish-out-of-water perspective had potential, but the narrative gets bogged down in endless internal monologues and recycled conflicts. Instead of a tightly wound thriller, the story meanders, making the twists feel more like obligations than genuine surprises. By the time the big revelations arrived, I found myself more exhausted than exhilarated.

That said, there are some strengths—the setting is vividly atmospheric, and the themes of power and control are compelling. But ultimately, the sluggish pacing and repetitive storytelling made this more of a chore than a page-turner. If you love slow-burn mysteries and don’t mind a bit of redundancy, this might work for you. But for me, it just didn’t live up to its promise. #netgalley #agirllikeus #booked_this_weekend

3.5 rounded up.

I wanted more from an alleged Succession x Saltburn (both of those were sooo up my alley), but this did deliver the rich people behaving badly trope that's so addictive. The story is solidly between a 3 and a 4, but I listened to it as an audiobook and the quality of the read made me round up to 4. I highly recommend the audio format for this!

Premise - A reality star, Maya Miller, marries a media heir, Colin Sterling, and then there's a murder in the family. Everyone goes into lockdown in a fancy estate in the English countryside, but 'safety measure' soon turns sinister as Maya begins to suspect that the murderer is amongst them...

Read this for:

* rich people behaving badly
* classy vs. trashy class tension
* everyone's a little bad
* conniving family
* crazy people you root for anyway
* antiheroine
* claustrophobia locked-away-from-the-world-with-a-murderer

There's a lot of good material year! It came together pretty cohesively and was a fun ride the whole way through. While some of the characters didn't feel fully realized and the pacing towards the end was a little off for me, Maya won me over from the start. She felt the most real of anyone (possibly with the exception of Arianna). Colin was a cardboard cutout, so I felt 0% bad for him even when I knew some empathy should be kicking in.

As aforementioned, I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Allyson Morgan. Morgan did a great job with the read and all of the characters! Her 'crazy' character was hilarious, quirky and charming.

Thanks, NetGalley and RBMedia, for the audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.