The Good Ones by Polly Stewart (Review by Sara D’Onofrio)

Rating: 3.5/5

`This book was a solid 4, maybe a little above that for the whole book, but the ending… oh that ending. This book gave me Gone Girl vibes from the very beginning, and I really enjoyed trying to figure out what was happening and “who done it” so to speak. However, I wish that a little bit more time would have been devoted to the actual mystery and investigation of Lauren’s disappearance and not so much time just telling us story after story of what a horrible person she was.

About half way through the book, I found myself getting kind of bored because it just felt like the same old thing chapter after chapter. I found the relationship between Warren and Nicola happened very quickly, but I enjoyed their story line and wished there would have been more in depth chapters about it!

I loved how the author slowly revealed new things about the night Lauren disappeared, because just when you thought you knew what happened, another small piece of evidence would be revealed and then you would start questioning what you thought! However, once that ending hit, it completely took a dive for me. I didn’t have any issue with what actually happened to Lauren, or learning the truth, but it was HOW it was revealed. The chapters and writing felt so disjointed from the rest of the book. You’ve waiting all this time for the reveal, and it feels just nonchalantly dropped in your lap in the last 20 pages. At one point, the new chapter felt so random from the ending of the chapter before that I actually was convinced I had accidentally skipped a page/chapter, or that it was printed incorrectly.

I think this book/story has A LOT of potential, but in my opinion, the ending ruins the opinion on the rest of the book!

Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC!