I am thankful to the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read and review this advanced copy. While I rated this book with four stars, it did fall a little short for me. The beginning set up the story so well. Each time I thought I figured it out, something would happen and I had to try to figure it out all over again. I will admit, I never even guessed who the killer ended up being, so that's why I gave it four instead of three stars. However, after all the build up, it felt like the book just ended. It was a bit of a let down in the end.

The book opens with a mystery; why did Mary leave college when that was her life dream. Mary is home and takes a job in a local grocery store to have some cash and for something to do. She deals with reactions to her being home and handles them beautifully. Her mother has died and that leaves her and her father. A murder occurs and Mary gets involved with helping to solve it. She handles the towns people with their change in reacting to her, as she is now an adult and not a school girl. A second murder occurs! Are they related? Wonderfully spun book - emotions, twists and turns and genuine characters.

I really loved the writing style of this book as well as the main character Mary who was very relatable. I loved that this book touched on topics such as mental health and race. This book kept my interest the entire time and the ending was absolutely wild!! Highly recommend.

I liked the important social aspects that the author brought up about DeMaria’s character. She pointed out that DeMaria’s disappearance wasn’t being investigated or taken as seriously as Olivia’s disappearance all because of the difference in ethnicity. I felt like the words spoken by DeMaria’s mother conveyed a heartbreaking sense of overwhelming frustration and sadness with the system in relation to the disappearance of a white girl who was given grand attention compared with her daughter who received next to nothing.

I also liked the setting when Mary confronted the killer. The author did a great job of setting up an unsettling atmosphere. She made it foreboding and isolating which created a sense of doom and this-won’t-end-well feelings for me.

I really enjoyed the beginning of this book. The introduction and storyline had me intrigued and I wondered what was going on with Mary and why she had a mental break. After that I lost interest. I ended up not liking her as the main character. I felt that she was unreliable as the narrator of the story. Her theories/ideas about the possible murderer were choppy. Also, one minute she was a student and the next she was a junior sleuth. I had trouble making the connection and understanding her behavior. I also didn’t feel like her character was likable. The “Ivy League Mary” nickname definitely went to her head.

I look forward to other books by this author.
(2.5 stars)

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishing house, William Morrow and Custom House, for providing an advanced copy for review. All thoughts and opinions written in this review are my own.

This one fell a bit flat for me. Didnt really care for most of the characters but there was a decent amount of suspense, enough to keep me reading. Some annoying stereotype and racial things came up. It definitely had more potential to be better and more realistic. Oh, and the ending was a bit confusing for me. I definitely had so many questions after reading the last page

This one fell flat for me. At the beginning, we are teased with wondering why Mary was kicked out of school, but that doesn't even really come into play at all. Several things in the book were a little too hard to believe, and just didn't seem to gel together. Characters didn't really draw me in, and I found myself not caring what happened to them. The ending left me a bit confused as well. I won't say why as to not spoil it for anyone, but I had questions when I was done. Overall, the book was ok, but I wouldn't recommend to a friend looking for something new,.

Our main character, Mary, was not a very like able person in my opinion. She had her struggles in high school and then went off to college (ivy league) in hopes of her life turning around and actually making a name for herself. If I recall, it is mentioned she lost 50 pounds while in college, and by doing so in what sounded like to be an eating disorder. Mary ends up getting kicked out of school the first semester of her senior year and we don’t find out until much later on in the story as to why. She ends up back home in Liberty Lake, MN living with her stand-off-ish father and is forced to find a job, where she finds one as a cashier at the local grocery store. She also ends up reconnecting with an acquaintance from high school that works there and they hit it off. Right after she starts her new job, her childhood “friend” Olivia goes missing. Olivia was the pretty white popular girl in high school and was working her way up to be an Instagram influencer, so of course all eyes were on her disappearance. Until shortly thereafter a body part washes ashore of the lake, but it isn’t Olivia’s- it is from a black girl who disappeared months ago from the “Sewers” as it is described in the book. The police brushed her case under the rug as just another runaway, but Mary takes it upon herself to become this amateur sleuth to find out the connection and the killer.

I did enjoy the suspense throughout the book and Mary piecing everything together. It did seem a bit far fetched at points, because couldn’t the FBI have found all this out just as easily as Mary seemed to piece it all together? But otherwise it was a good story and I was pretty hooked the whole time.

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A couple things I did not like… This seemed to point out certain stereotypes and current racial issues throughout most of the book, but really just played into them? I don’t know how else to describe it, but it seemed that the effort was there to bring awareness, but it was like they were being used to fit the book’s narrative? It just seemed off.

And the end made me angry. Why did Mary’s father cover up what happened with her? Did he know about John Stack and the monster he was? His SUV conveniently ended up within range of his dead body and the cabin… How did he know to leave it there, and where Mary’s car was left? The cabin was quite a bit outside of town. Could he have been in on it? Is that why they didn’t want to be involved in an investigation because something might come up about him, too? The ending does not include a conversation between them when she returns home so it is a bit confusing and leaves us scratching our heads.

Bonus points for the cover of the book.

Nice Girls started out very strong for me. The premise, a take on the trope "successful individual screws it up and is forced to go back home where he/she is comes to terms with her past", was intriguing and I couldn't wait to see how the rest of the story would play out. The writing was really good and for the first 25% I was really engrossed in the story of "Ivy League Mary", an ex Cornell Senior student who is expelled from the prestigious college (for reasons that we will know only towards the end) and goes back living with her dad in Liberty Lake, the town where she grew up and she had made out of, unlike almost everyone else in her graduating class (hence the moniker that is attached to her). Without any prospect in sight she starts to work at a local supermarket (where, obviously, she is not going to win employee of the year) where she meets another ex-prodigy- turned-into-supermarket-employee, Darryl, with whom she starts to go out, and while she is living in this limbo, an ex-girlfriend from primary school disappears and puts the town in a frenzy. While at the beginning she is a bit indifferent to the fate of the missing girl, after she reluctantly takes part in a search organized by the local police she starts to get more and more involved and becomes sort of obsessed with solving the case. While her friend comes from one of the most affluent families in town and has all the attention of the media and the police, another girl from the wrong side of the tracks also went missing but nobody is looking into that crime. Could the two be related? Here is where things start to get a bit messy and I felt the book lost direction. Our MC makes many assumptions that turn out to be wrong and follows them through without any basis in facts. The storyline becomes a bit sloggish and we can't help shaking our head at the MC over and over. Then towards the end the book picks up speed again but becomes a completely different book, almost like a slasher movie. The resolution of the mystery is at the same time far-fetched and predictable but at least it is fast-paced. To me the biggest fault of the book is that it doesn't delve into relationship between the main character, the missing girl and her best friend when they were in school together (surprisingly, in that I thought it was really going to go there) so we don't understand her motivation in doing what she does. Like, at all. Besides the fact that she has too much time on her hands. To say it differently: there is nothing unresolved in the past of our heroine that explains the present. However, I still think that it was entertaining for the most part and I didn't feel that reading it was a complete waste of time. For one, it's well written and I am looking forward to the author's next efforts, I think she has a lot of potential. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy in exchange of my honest opinion.

Two missing girls from the same small town. One white, the other a black girl from the poor side of town. Authorities are focused on one case, while the other is brushed aside. Mary is convinced the two crimes are connected and is determined to figure out the mystery.

The audio was well done and I enjoyed the tense build up of the story. I struggled a bit with the main character, Mary but by the end I also wanted her to get her life together. This is a solid debut and I'm definitely interested in seeing what Dang brings us next.

I was very interested in the premise of this book, but it fell flat for me, especially the ending. However, there are some really interesting themes that kept reflecting back to months after reading it, especially in regards to race and the stories the media covers.

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow for the digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book helped get me out of a recent book slump. Immediately engrossing, the short chapters and snappy writing made the book very propulsive. I really loved all the characters, especially the main character, even when she was at her worst. I don't like to compare books too much, but this book gave me to plot that I was hoping to get from Mona at Sea. I thought this book blended the mystery plot with the overall themes really well and it was very balanced. I'll definitely recommend this book and look for more from this author!

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC; my review is my honest opinion.

NICE GIRLS by Catherine Dang was an interesting read. Mary wasn’t the most likeable character and it never got better. Her homelife wasn’t great, so some of her behavior was understandable, but not enough to make me like her. She wasn’t a reliable narrator, either. Dang kept throwing stuff at the reader, which kept me reading but still not sure how felt. Dang wrote it well and it was a twisty ride, but, sometimes, things went a bit further than believable, at times.
Overall, NICE GIRLS was an entertaining read and a good escape from the everyday normal.
Thanks to the publisher for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own and freely given.

I really got into the first part of the book, but the last half of the book fell flat for me. Maybe I just enjoy books more with a finished ending vs. leaving you guessing what happens to the main characters.

I really enjoyed reading this book- lots of twists and turns. I do think there might have been some extremely unrealistic outcomes and a lot of untied ends left for the reader, so that wasn’t my favorite. But if you can look past that, then it’s a fun read.

Mary is expelled from an Ivy League school and returns home in shame. Early on, the author teases us with why Mary was expelled--a violent altercation it seems--which keeps me reading. But it's not until the last 1/3 of the book that we're finally told the whole (unbelievable) story and by then Mary is playing detective and trying to solve 2 murders in her hometown. Really? Just a little too much for me with not a single likeable character in the entire book...

The book opens with Ivy League Mary being thrown out of Cornell university for some sort of violent incident with a younger student. Feeling dejected, she returns home to live with her dad in the town she grew up in. Most folks are surprised to see Mary back in Liberty Lake again and she certainly doesn't want everyone to know the reason why. One day her childhood friend Olivia, a local up-and-coming social media influencer, goes missing and the cavalry is called into find her. When Mary notices that another young woman, named DeMaria Jackson, is also missing she begins to wonder if the two disappearances are connected. The police don't see a connection: Olivia was a sweet white girl from a wealthy family and DeMaria was a young, single black mother from the wrong side of the tracks with a DUI on her record.....what could those girls have in common?!? The police wrote her off as a runaway and everyone moved on, but when the body of DeMaria washes up mutilated...the race is on to find Olivia, just in case there is a serial killer at work.

Nice Girls reminded me of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (minus the podcast) in that we have a young female main character investigating matters better than the police and finding herself in a bit of trouble along the way. There was plenty of social commentary about race, the dissimilarity in media coverage and police investigations, and female friendships. I've seen mixed reviews on this one with most people being put off by the unlikeable characters, which I get. It is rare that I end up liking a book when the main character is unlikeable, but Nice Girls was an exception for me personally. The ending was a bit far fetched, but I can go with/overlook it if I'm into the story. Overall, if Catherine Dang writes another suspense novel I will check it out.

True Rating: 3.75 stars

As with my previous feedback, thriller/mysteries are not my favorite genre and I am hard to impress. This one failed as well. Mary is not likable, which is fine, but she's also unbelievable as a main character. The premise, and how she inserts herself into this investigation and somehow survives the ending... Just too much for me.

2.5 stars, rounding up because of my own harsh tendencies.

I had a hard time with this book because Mary frustrated the hell out of me. I'm all for unlikable characters but she just didn't click with me. Dang's writing is propulsive, she covers a lot of interesting topics here and I liked the slow burn of the story so give this one a chance - it could have been me just being nit-picky. I'll definitely read whatever Dang writes next.

Thanks to William Morrow and NetGalley for a copy to review.

The debut novel by Catherine Dang was a slow build that started out with a good, grabbing narrative, but slowly dwindled for me. I struggled to connect with “Ivy League Mary,” as she was referred to in her small town of Liberty Lake. Once chubby and awkward, we now encounter Mary when she returns home a thinner, prettier version of herself after being kicked out of Cornell for some unknown reason. She now works in the local grocery store and seems to slog through life.

When Social Media star Olivia, once Mary’s bestfriend, goes missing, Mary inserts herself into uncovering the truth of Olivia’s disappearance.

Mary was a hard character to like – she was awful and an unreliable narrator – which made it challenging for me to really connect with the book. I found myself having to keep going back to remind myself of plot points.

I think I got the ending of the story, but the author didn’t provide much to make me sure I really got it, which was a little disappointing. I felt as if I was left with more questions than answers.

Unfortunately, this one wasn’t for me, but I look forward to seeing what Dang has coming next.

Thank you to Netgalley, Catherine Dang, and William Morrow and Custom House for an advanced copy of this book.

There were many great features of this book. It included a diverse set of characters, but also includes the casual racism of a Minnesota suburb. It featured a main character who was not immediately likeable, which I enjoy, and showed the variety of ways in which future expectations are turned upside down in an instant. I believe this was the author's way of helping the protagonist come to terms with her disappointment in herself. I appreciated this as well.

My small beef with the book is that none of the "adults" in Mary's life seemed to be able allow Mary the space to advocate for herself either at school or at home. She probably needed a great deal of self promotion to get into an Ivy League school. I feel like Mary's apathy was her anxiety and depression - super common in college and with high performing students. But authority figures around her didn't respect her enough to give her the benefit of the doubt in any situation. I couldn't tell if this was an admonishment of mean girls or Ivy League schools, or just authority in general.