Good Me Bad Me

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The story is told through the eyes of fifteen- year old Milly, who has just turned her own mother, a serial killer, over to the authorities. Start reading on a Saturday afternoon and you might as well cancel any plans you had for going out, 'cause you ain't going' nowhere!

I tend to take these predictions now and publicity hype with a pinch of salt as really it can't be predicted. There is a lot going on within this story and many topics touched on here that for us overshadowed the creepiness and distracted us from the struggles going on in Milly’s mind.The questioning she undergoes in court is astonishingly brought home how a child brought up with overbearing, mind turning parents can have an effect on your psychological mind when she is listening out behind a screen for just the breathing sounds of her mother. For our Twisted Sister, Norma this book definitely worked for her and she was satisfied with the ending but for the rest of us not so much. If Milly thinks her life will change for the better then she hasn't bargained for Phoebe, the teenage daughter of the family, who hates Milly on sight. Her foster dad, Mike, is a psychologist prepping Milly for her day in court to testify against her mother.

Where Good Me, Bad Me works best for me is where Annie/Milly tells us about what it was like living with her mother and the new life she has with her foster family while she waits to testify at the upcoming trial.

Suspenseful, without all the blood and gore, just plain, solid, good writing to create the atmosphere. Annie becomes Millie, and is fostered into the care of Mike, a trained therapist and his wife, Saskia. Her reasoning of her current situation and past and the mental manoeuvres she undertakes to function and keep her mother’s voice at bay were interesting and, of course, you’re never entirely sure how much to trust her or her version of people or events. Here, Milly is a whiny cold fish (did I actually say that about a poor kid whose mom is a serial killer?

Milly knows she has 'good and bad' inside her, but she'd rather be good unless someone feeds the wolf within! Ali Land’s psychological thriller, Good Me, Bad Me (2017), follows a young girl who finds out that her mother is probably a serial killer and that she must testify against her mother at trial. An intensely creepy novel about a young teenage girl Milly, who was unfortunate enough to grow up with a sadistic mother.As her mother’s trial looms, with Milly as the star witness, Milly starts to wonder how much of her is nature, how much of her is nurture, and whether she is doomed to turn out like her mother after all. All Milly wanted was to fit in somewhere but soon she realizes that foster care isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. With doctor patient confidentiality, I just can’t get my head around a teenage girl opening up to her psychologist who also happens to be her foster dad. It might not be for everyone, but upon much reflection, I think the story is more troubling that it appears on the surface, which is weighty enough, but it also opens up a plethora of questions and endless ‘what if’ scenarios, that kept my brain buzzing deep into the night.

As her mother's trial gets ever nearer, Milly is given preparation for the questioning that she will face in court. The victim's real mother was a monster who passed on these traits through her abuse and more and then there was the foster sister who was the stereotypical bully with bully friends. Milly’s mother, a female serial killer, whose voice is always running in Milly’s mind, planting seeds of doubt, is absolutely chilling. I dislike mean girls so much and it’s so sad that with Milly’s ugly past, she still have to deal with mean girls.This young teen, who had so much to forget, had already been through so much, witnessed something beyond terrible, who now just wanted to be normal, and in a home where people cared about her in a healthy way.