Nice Girls
I’m so sorry ya’ll, but I just did not connect with this one and disliked the main character.
Synopsis: What did you do?
Growing up in Liberty Lake, Minnesota, Mary was chubby, awkward, and smart. Earning a scholarship to an Ivy League school was her ticket out; she was going to do great things and never look back. Three years later, “Ivy League Mary” is back—a thinner, cynical, and restless failure. Kicked out of Cornell at the beginning of senior year, she won’t tell anyone why. Working at the local grocery store, she sees familiar faces from high school and tries to make sense of the past and her life.
When beautiful, magnetic Olivia Willand, a rising social media star, goes missing, Mary—like the rest of Liberty Lake—becomes obsessed. Best friends in childhood, Mary and Olivia haven’t spoken in years. Everyone admired Olivia, but Mary knows better than anyone that behind the Instagram persona hid a willful, manipulative girl with sharp edges. As the world worries for perfect, lovely Olivia, Mary can’t help but hate her. She also believes that her disappearance is tied to another missing person—a nineteen-year-old girl named DeMaria Jackson whose disappearance has gone under the radar.
Who was the true Olivia Willand, and where did she go? What happened to DeMaria? As Mary delves deeper into the lives of the two missing girls, old wounds bleed fresh and painful secrets threaten to destroy everything.
Maybe no one is really a nice girl, after all.
What appealed to you the most in this story?
The potential was here for a really deep look into policing disparities between race, class, and social status. And the author does make an attempt to connect those dots, but then it just goes off the rails in a bizarre way and she lost me and the actual criminal's motivations and actions made no sense to me.
What did you think of the main character?
Mary is self-absorbed and looks down on others while at the same time is filled with self-loathing. She is just an unlikeable and unreliable character. There are so many parts of this book that did not make sense to me and so many incidents that were just not believable. I kept thinking - your life isn't over, just transfer to a state school and finish your degree! And when she is fired from her job due to her "criminal record" she just goes berserk rather than dealing with the situation calmly and maturely explaining what happened and that the boss was mistaken.
How was the pace?
This starts out as a slow burn but then picks up pace.
Do you recommend this book?
Overall, I found this book to not live up to my expectations, but please do not let that deter you. There really are excellent reviews that rave about this book, so definitely read those too!
