August 7, 2014 / Leslie

Review – Audiobook: The Good Girl by Mary Kubica

The Good Girl
by Mary Kubica

Genre: Psychological Thriller / Mystery
Publisher: Blackstone Audio | July 2014
Format: Audio Download | 10½ hours | Rating: 5 stars
Audio Listening Level: Easy – Intermediate

From the Publisher:

One night, Mia enters a bar to meet her on-again, off-again boyfriend. But when he doesn’t show, she unwisely leaves with an enigmatic stranger. With his smooth moves and modest wit, at first Colin Thatcher seems like a safe one-night stand. But following Colin home will turn out to be the worst mistake of Mia’s life.

An addictively suspenseful and tautly written thriller, The Good Girl is a compulsive debut that reveals how even in the perfect family, nothing is as it seem

My Thoughts:

The story opens with Mia back at home after being kidnapped and ultimately rescued. She has no memory of what happened. Using alternating points of view – Mia, her mother, the police detective and the kidnapper – and moving back and forth in time, before, during and after the kidnapping, the author reconstructs the events.

While this may sound like it would be complex and difficult to follow, the book is so well-written that I never lost perspective on where we were and who was speaking. The events and revelations are expertly woven together into a well-paced, suspenseful novel that keeps the reader wanting just one more chapter.

Part psychological thriller and part mystery, the plot goes in several unexpected directions as family secrets are revealed and we realize things aren’t as they first appear to be. This is a very character-driven novel. As the author lets us into the minds of the kidnapper and Mia’s mother, we see how events both past and present are shaping their actions. The writing had to be excellent for the kidnapper to become a sympathetic character for me, but that’s exactly what happened.

I initially passed on reading this book because I thought it was about a child kidnapping, and I wasn’t in the mood for another one of those books. The title and cover art are deceptive. Mia is not a “girl”, she is a young working woman, an inner-city teacher; eventually the title makes sense, but not until the end. When I learned that the story was based in Chicago, I decided to give it a try. The Chicago and Midwestern references added another layer for me to enjoy, but this is a great book regardless of the setting.

Audio Production:

Narrators: Lindy Nettleton, Johnny Heller, Tom Taylorson, and Andi Arndt. The audio production uses an ensemble cast with a narrator for each point of view. Each chapter begins by giving the name of the character speaking and the point in time, ‘before’ or ‘after’ the kidnapping. After the first few chapters, I had absolutely no trouble following the changes in point of view or jumps back and forth in time. That’s how well-written this book is – it just flows. The narrators did a fine job, but I was fixated on the story.

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Source: Review copy provided by Blackstone Audio through Audiobook Jukebox.
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