Superb story, well told from teenage Milly's point of view. She is the main character and having to live with foster parents pending a court case involving her serial killer mother. I cannot say that I enjoyed it as I found it grim and sad. The other characters could well have done with more background - especially the daughter of the foster family and her rather silly, bullying friend.

This is a very good book in which we follow the life of an abused child who went to the Police and accused her mother of abusing and murdering other children. Living with a foster family in the period until her mother's trial she has to live with a false identity and finds hostility around notwithstanding counselling and support. There is tension and emotion with inevitable deception as she make new friends etc. T he pace quickens as the trial approaches and then giving evidence and facing cross examination follows. Never pleasant but will it ever end? What is the truth? You will have to make your own judgment having read the book.

An imaginative and highly credible account of circumstances and behaviour etc. Highly Recommended..

A dark compelling book which keeps you on the edge of your seat. At times heart breaking when you learn about Millie's childhood, the years of abuse by her mother and her attempts to leave the past behind. She is a deeply troubled teenager who you can't help but warm to and will on to overcome the damage inflicted on her by the one person who should have protected her.
It's hard to say any more about the plot without giving it away but I would recommend this book to anyone who likes their thrillers uncomfortable and disturbing and where normal moral judgements are questioned.
My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc.

A fantastic read with a brilliant ending that I didn't see coming! Couldn't put it down once I started reading it and was sad to finish it!

Annie child with a dark past. Her mother is a serial killer who abused and murdered young children. She forces Annie to watch her, subjecting her to abuse should she refuse. She doesn;t love her daughter. Annie is merely the mask she wears for the world - respected Nurse and loving mother.

When her last victim is someone that Annie knows, someone she has played with, she realises that there is only one way to stop her mother. To report her to the police. But in doing so, her nightmare does not end as she hope it will. There is still the trial to get through and after all of the years together her mother can never truly leave her. She is always there, inside her head, mocking her for not acting sooner.

Given a new name and a new chance, Annie, now known as Milly, goes to live with a temporary foster family. Mike and Saskia seem perfect, even though Mike is a Psychologist who is determined to help Milly through her therapy, even if she doesn't feel she wants it. But their teenage daughter Phoebe is another matter. She resents Milly's presence in their home and seems determined to make her life at school as unbearable as possible, knowing that it is only a matter of time before Milly will be sent away again. With only Morgan, a young girl from a neighbouring estate, as a friend, can Milly find any kind of peace with her new family or is she destined to always be haunted by the ghosts of her past?

…

Good Me, Bad Me by Ali Land is an intriguing read and probably one of the truest psychological thrillers I have read in some time. Billed as one of the biggest books of 2017, I can see why that may well be the case. The protagonist, Milly, inside whose head most of the action takes place or is recounted, is a very disturbed young girl. And who wouldn't be having been forced to live with and endure the whims of a psychopath like her mother. However, for me... Well I'm just not so sure. I wasn't when I read the book and I'm still not now. I'm kind of on the fence and for me it's a very uncomfortable place to be.

This is a very well written book. The language matches the mood and I can really picture what it must be like to be Annie/Milly, struggling to adjust to a normal life and always haunted by the things she was forced to witness. As a reader I felt both a mixture of sympathy for and also wariness of her and Ali Land has made a perfect balance in this. We are never subjected to the full gory details of what happened in her family home. There are just hints, dropped here and there, although it is clear that both Annie and her brother, who was taken from the home many years before, had been subjected to both physical and sexual abuse. The symbolism that Land uses in describing this, the imagery of the snake slithering towards Annie/Milly, is very effective. Both hypnotic and repulsive or fearsome at the same time.

The people surrounding Milly in her new life are very well established. Mike seems to have the utmost concern for her and tries hard to engage Milly and help her settle. Saskia is a woman with her own secrets, a bit of a wet lettuce who Milly soon gets the measure of, and her case worker, June, is only really on the periphery but we sense her genuine concern for Milly. Morgan is a bright young girl, rough at the edges and Milly's only real friend. She is a little feral in some respects but looks up to Milly and the friendship provides safe haven when everything starts to get too much. It is Phoebe however who has the most involvement in and impact upon Milly.

Phoebe is someone who can only really be described as vile. Perhaps you could argue that she is just an insecure teenager who is struggling with all the waifs and strays that her parents bring to her home, seemingly giving them more attention than they do her. Her relationship with Saskia is beyond tense, a complete lack of respect for her mother, and there were many times that I felt she needed some real discipline instilling as nothing she did seemed to have any repercussions. She is horrid to Milly from day one and goes out of her way to make her life miserable becoming the ring leader in a succession of increasingly cruel bullying campaigns art school. There doesn't seem to be one redeeming quality in her character and I found it difficult to care anything for what befell her.

The story is disturbing in parts, not necessarily from what is said, more from what is implied and left to the readers imagination. This is a well used tool as to describe the horror would have pushed far too many readers right out of the story. However, it also kind of didn't work for me and I think that this is why I am still so undecided on this book. For all the build up, the mental struggles that Milly went through in the build up to the trial, the bullying, the nightmares, I was somewhat underwhelmed and not entirely surprised by what came to pass. True, Milly has a very dark mind, but as I said before, what else do you expect? Nature or nurture? In truth, what is it that shapes the mind of a young child? Maybe both. In which case the end is surely inevitable? Whatever the truth, I was just left wanting more.

Another issue I had was with the way in which the story was recounted. There was some limited dialogue, but a lot of conversations were told through Milly's thoughts and memories which I found a little confusing. If she was there, present in the conversation, why was it not told as such. Lack of speech marks was something used to wonderful effect in 'The Bird Tribunal' but in that book the entire story was told this way, giving it an almost ethereal quality, taking the reader from start to finish in a dream like state. It just didn't work for me here. Perhaps it is meant to signify an element of Milly's detachment from reality, particularly when Mike is trying to provide therapy. Perhaps this is meant to be Milly's cocoon, her way to compartmentalising things she doesn't want to truly be a part of. I don't really know, but it just felt odd.

I usually avoid books that tell me they're the next big thing, or the next this or that because I hate hype and being told what I absolutely must love. Perhaps because this book has been so heavily hyped I was expecting something, I don't know, huge. For me, this wasn't it. It was still extremely well written with well developed characters and I think will appeal to many fans of true psychological thrillers and as such it gets a solid 4 stars from me.

‘Good Me Bad Me’ by Ali Land is a difficult book to review without giving anything away. It is compulsive, difficult reading, and though I raced through it I can’t honestly say I enjoyed it.
Teenager Annie is living with a foster family whilst waiting to give evidence at her mother’s trial. Her mother is accused of being a serial killer of children, Annie turned her in to the police. As she waits for the trial, Annie [now called Milly] is coached by her foster father on how to handle being in court and giving evidence under cross-examination. For Milly, there is no escaping her horrible childhood. As Mike tells her, the only way out is through. But Milly isn’t telling Mike everything.
Milly’s identity is secret, her name false, her reason for being fostered is fabricated. In this world of officially-approved lies, Milly must face her memories of what happened: what is real, and not-real. What did her mother really do? What did Milly do? At times of stress – and there are many as she fits into a foster family with an unwelcoming teenage daughter – Milly hears the voice of her mother in her head, encouraging her to be controlling, to be nasty. This is the ‘good me, bad me’ of the title. Of course every person is a mixture of light and dark, what matters is the decisions we make. Will Milly be able to let go of her past and make a new life?
Covering the few tense weeks in the run-up to the trial, ‘Good Me Bad Me’ is a turbulent emotional read. One minute I thought ‘please don’t do that, Milly’, the next I was indignant on Milly’s behalf at some of her foul treatment at the hands of school friends. The picture of teenagers, girls selfish and taunting, boys over-sexualised, is not an easy-read. You will make up your own mind whether to like Milly and whether to believe her.
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