You can cut the tension with a knife in Ali Land’s edge-of-your-seat, psychological thriller about the child of a serial killer.
Teenager, Annie – now known as Milly – is in temporary foster care, having finally reported her mother to the police after a lifetime of abuse. Her mother liked to play games with her own children as she moulded them into her own image but Annie’s brother had escaped a long time ago, leaving Annie to become the single focus of her mother’s disturbed home life.
As the world now waits for the trial, Annie undergoes therapy by the foster father who has taken her into his home. He’s one of the few people who knows her true identity, but even he doesn’t know what’s going on inside her head.
Good Me Bad Me is told in first person from Annie’s perspective. It’s a nightmarish glimpse into the mind of a traumatised child whose mother never leaves her head. As bullying and peer pressure mount at school and home, the news is filled with vicious coverage of her true family. Gossip abounds in overheard whispers and lawyers push Annie to take the stand against her own mother. It is only a matter of time until something snaps.
Ali Land’s is a former child and adolescent mental health nurse and her experience shows in her expert handling of the central character. The novel is an uncomfortable, compulsive read from the start and she never lets up on the tension. It’s a chilling ride into the darkness of someone who longs to belong, aches for normality and is encompassed by good intentions, yet can’t escape her past. No matter what thoughts pass through her mind, Land ensures that we feel for Annie and ache for her happiness as much as the character herself does.
Good Me Bad Me is a haunting, memorable read, highly recommended for anyone brave enough to go inside the mind of a killer’s progeny.
Reviewed by Rod Lewis
Twitter: @StrtegicRetweet
Rating out of 10: 9
Released by: Penguin Australia
Release Date: January 2017
RRP: $32.99 trade paperback, $39.99 hardback, $12.99 ebook
More News
