ARC Review--Good Girls Don't Die by Christina Henry

 

A sharp-edged, supremely twisty thriller about three women who find themselves trapped inside stories they know aren’t their own, from the author of Alice and Near the Bone.

Celia wakes up in a house that’s supposed to be hers. There’s a little girl who claims to be her daughter and a man who claims to be her husband, but Celia knows this family—and this life—is not hers…

Allie is supposed to be on a fun weekend trip—but then her friend’s boyfriend unexpectedly invites the group to a remote cabin in the woods. No one else believes Allie, but she is sure that something about this trip is very, very wrong…

Maggie just wants to be home with her daughter, but she’s in a dangerous situation and she doesn’t know who put her there or why. She’ll have to fight with everything she has to survive…

Three women. Three stories. Only one way out. This captivating novel will keep readers guessing until the very end.

 

I received this ARC from the author in exchange for an honest and voluntary review. I was in no way compensated for this review.

 

Christina Henry is back with yet another chilling tale of horror with Good Girls Don't Die! Henry writes horror in a way that is not typical of the genre. I guess you could say they're thrillers? Regardless of what you want to call these chilling tales of dread they are absolutely pageturners that will have you reading long into the night! I devoured this one in no time flat!

Right away, we know we're going to get three stories about three different women who are in direly dangerous situations and that somehow, they are all going to connect to form a larger picture. But first we must meet each woman and learn what horror she is facing!

Celia is our first heroine who wakes to find herself in a home that she doesn't recognize, a devoted husband she doesn't remember marrying, and a ten-year-old daughter she certainly doesn't remember having. But the memories are somewhat fleeting, coming in and out and Celia isn't sure who to trust, let alone what memories to trust. Then as she's trying to adjust to her new life with a family and business to run, she discovers a dead body in the back alley of her restaurant. Her life is starting to feel like one of the cozy mysteries she loves to read, but this is real life...isn't it?

Then we meet Allie, a college girl who just wanted to celebrate her twenty-first birthday with her best friends at the beach but their trip is hijacked by her friends' boyfriends who decide to turn the girls-only weekend into  group camping trip. Allie hates camping and doesn't want to go at all, especially since she'll be a fifth wheel, but her friends convince her to come anyway. But when they get to the cabin in the woods, things seem off. The cabin looks suspiciously new and then in the middle of the night, just when Allie is contemplating walking to town in the morning to leave, they hear a noise. A scratching noise against the cabin walls and strange spooky things start happening and then one of them disappears! It becomes clear that someone or something is out in the woods and isn't about to let the college kids leave.

The final woman we meet is Maggie, a single mother who was just getting out of a bad divorce from a hotshot lawyer husband to turned to drugs. She won sole custody of their daughter and this infuriated her ex. She's a lover of YA dystopian novels and, you might have guessed it, she wakes to find herself in what feels like a cross between The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner. She's with a group of other women and they are forced to work against each other or possibly together to get through a maze laid with deadly traps in twelve hours...or else! Maggie didn't want to be a leader but somehow finds herself leading with half the group of women while the other half is led by a hot-headed woman who will do whatever it takes to survive...even turning against her own.

Three different women all trapped in something that is straight out of fiction, be it a book or movie! This made for an incredibly fast paced novel! I could not put this book down! I was just so eager to find out what was going on and why these strange things were happening in their worlds. Things are definitely not as they appear and while there were some hints along the way, the exact answer was never quite clear until the end! 

This book was the puzzle I did not know I was needing because holy cow! Just the twists and turns of the story! I LOVED the references to other books and movies Henry made because I was legit thinking of them in the moments before their "appearance." I will say that the grand finale did leave me a bit baffled. I guess because it was really as simple and trite as it was. That is not at all to say that it was a bad thing to have such an "easy" answer. Because the way in which it was easy came off as completely believable to the story at large! This book was just freaking incredible! If you're wanting a book that is about female empowerment and never messing with a woman scorned then this will be the book for you!

The characters were all awesome! Each heroine felt real and true and I found myself finding similarities with them on some level--reading for sure, although I can say I absolutely loathe horror movies, sorry Allie, but I still agree with you on everything else! Lol! That these three different women eventually have stories that connect together was the ultimate kind of ending! The ending in and of itself was also beyond amazing! I loved it! While I felt like we didn't have all the answers in the end...some of that felt right too. It's one of those things that's hard to explain but once you're reading it, you get it! That kind of feeling, you know? Lol. Of course as readers we know that there are things we can't quite say to get our meaning across that won't lead down the road of spoilers, so I feel like you probably know what I mean!

In the end, Good Girls Don't Die was an incredibly thrilling read! It was just the right kind of blend of spooky and mysterious! It was chilling and cutting edge, really just about any book by Christina Henry is perfect for spooky season and this is one that you will definitely want to add to your TBR piles!

Overall Rating 5/5 stars

Good Girls Don't Die releases November 14, 2023