Milly has ongoing conversations with her mother inside her head which gives us insight into the toxic environment Annie/Milly grew up in. Her mother "training" her since an early age. This book is a work of twisted genius. It is going to be HUGE. Watch out for Ali Land' Bryony Gordon All I'll say is if you enjoy reading psychological/suspense thrillers then you have to read this book. It's another one of those books where the least you know about it, the better. I know people say that all the time, but it really is. Phoebe is the fifteen year old daughter of Mike and Saskia. She is resentful of Millie and takes against her in a major way. At the same school as Phoebe, Millie's life is made difficult and she is bullied. It soon becomes apparent that the foster family is dysfunctional in its own way and Mike may not be as altruistic as first thought. On top of everything, a psychologically damaged Millie is under pressure as she is being prepared for the court case. The case is getting intense media coverage where her mother is referred to as 'The Peter Pan Killer'. Millie is having nightmares and sleepless nights. She has feelings of guilt as to her role in her mother's actions. She invites sympathy and compassion but then terrifies the hell out of you. It is not so easy to leave her old life behind. The burdens of her past and trying to keep it all secret is a lot to ask anyone to handle. Most adults would struggle to cope with the particulars of Millie's life. She wants to be good, but is it a feasible possibility? Interpersonal theory asserts that each of us continually exudes a force field that pushes others to respond to us with constricted classes of control and affiliation actions; thereby we pull from others complementary responses designed to affirm and validate our chosen style of living and being. Donald Kiesler (1996)

The best crime debut I've read in ages. Creepy, edgy and addictively twisted. I loved it' Sarah HilaryI read this book in one compulsive gulp over two days and absolutely loved it. It's raw, superbly controlled and it chills to the bone' Richard Skinner AWARDED HEAT'S UNMISSABLE, BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR. 'It's rare to come across a book you can't stop thinking about, talking about and pushing it into the hands of everyone you know.' Heat This was a suspenseful, unsettling and creepy story revolving around the daughter of a serial killer. I was glad I had Norma, Brenda and Kaceey to read along with me as I was a little hesitant when starting this uncomfortable and alarming story. Good Me, Bad Me is the debut novel by Ali Land which has found a following of admirers here on Goodreads. However, I am not one of them. Let me explain why.

I listed on my Complaint Board that the characters were unlikeable. I LIKE unlikeable characters if they are far out, quirky, and super smart or funny. Here, Milly is a whiny cold fish (did I actually say that about a poor kid whose mom is a serial killer???), and she seemed one-dimensional. Except for a kind dad, who is wooden (masking his kindness), and a kid who Milly befriends, everyone else in the book is horrid, especially daughter Phoebe and her gang. Many thanks to the wonderful folks at Flatiron Books for sending me an advance copy. This review reflects my true opinion.

I think this is a very good debut novel and I am already looking forward to reading more from Ali Land. The family live in Notting Hill Gate and it is here that the teenager is coached on her role as star witness at her mother’s trial, on multiple charges of torturing and murdering nine children. Beautiful, pure things make me feel ugly. Tarnished. I remember asking you when I was three, maybe four, where I came from. I waited for you to sweep me up, rub our noses together in an Eskimo kiss and reply, you came for me, you belong with me, I love you. But you didn't respond, you walked out of the kitchen left me standing there alone" With this insight, we’re able to deliberately approach rather than avoid feelings and behaviors that had been excluded from John’s experiential field, and which constricted his freedom. We start with low-risk approach situations; it’s called a “graduated exposure” strategy. And we augment this with skill-building exercises and homework, which promotes self-efficacy and further develops one’s self-structure. I am going to be in the minority on this one. This book just didn’t work for me. I wish I could pin-point why, but I find myself struggling with specifics. A majority of the book felt like a drawn-out episode of mean girls. The bullying was almost too much. Was it the child abuse, the dysfunctional families...? Well it’s not like I don’t read these themes in books...because I consistently do. There was just something about this book I found unsettling.

The story is based around Annie who has changed her name to Milly and is now living a new life with a new family after her mother goes on trial for murdering young children. All the newspapers are covering her mother's story and Milly is desperate not to be like her mother and be good, but she is the daughter of a murderess. As her mother's trial looms, the secrets of her past won't let Annie sleep, even with a new foster family and her new name Milly she is struggling to conform. Can she realise the fresh start she wants and be good or is her serial killer mother going to make her bad.

The teddy bear on the front peppered red with blood. I could have brought more, so many to choose from. She never knew I kept them. Thank you to Netgalley & Penguin UK Michael Joseph for my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review*

I struggled with the style of writing too at first. That’s when I started thinking, Oh no, this is young adult fiction, not the controversial adult psychological suspense I was hoping for. I did get used to the writing style eventually, and the last 30% of the book was more interesting, despite being predictable, so I did still enjoy reading it, even if there were no real surprises. His hand—I noticed a slight tremor as it reached for the telephone. Come now, he said. You need to hear this. The silent waiting for his superior to arrive. Bearable for me. Less so for him. A hundred questions beat a drum in his head. Is she telling the truth? Can’t be. That many? Dead? Surely not. The fifteen-year-old narrator of Ali Land’s Good Me Bad Me has a lot in common with Lisbeth Salander… This remarkable debut...will grip you to the very end. Good Me Bad Me is a strong, assured, very special psychological thriller.” It never crossed my mind to make the killer male. It’s an uncomfortable thought, I know, that a woman – the giver of life, the nurturer – could cause grievous harm against children, but in my experience as a nurse I witnessed not necessarily physical, but certainly psychological violence existing between mothers and daughters. Milly’s mother is a powerful force in the book, but the story is Milly’s: her daily struggle to be good, the Siamese twins inside her at war. Readers often comment on the fact that I never name the mother, which I do, only once, but most people miss it because their focus is on Milly, as it should be. The notion lives on that bad women are somehow worse than bad men, but writing this story, for me, wasn’t about what Milly’s mother did. It was about how that affected her daughter and although an unsettling topic, it’s important that there are no boundaries to what we explore within the realms of fiction.

Media Reviews

Good me Bad me is the debut novel by Ali Land, but I'm sure we're going to be reading much more from her in the future. Whenever I read anything that predicts a book is predicted to be the next biggest novel of the year, I tend to not raise my expectations too much. After the last few years of hearing that every new psychological thriller is the "new gone girl", I became fed up of having my hopes constantly dashed.