Nice Girls audiobook

“Didn’t we almost have it all?”Just like Whitney Houston belted in the 80’s, Mary also almost had it all.Growing up and sprouting from a lonely girl with one friend to a budding Ivy League University student with a scholarship, Mary’s promising future dissipates in the blink of an eye after an unfortunate incident with her and a Freshman student.Now, “Ivy League Mary” has been expelled from Cornell and is back home living with her dad, and working in the local grocery store. Dejected and depressed, she is ashamed of what she’s done and can’t stand the thought of others knowing why she returned to Liberty Lake, Minnesota.Mary and her dad barely talk, but he actually speaks to her one day to let her know that her former childhood friend, Olivia, has disappeared. Olivia is a social media starling, rapidly gaining followers, and has an affluent family. Of course, it’s all over the news. Mary can’t help but be intrigued with what could’ve happened to Olivia, a friend she used to love and ended up hating. Then, Mary discovers there was a previous missing person in town only a few months prior...19-year old DeMaria Jackson. The disappearance was under-reported and mainly swept under the rug. Could the two situations be connected? Mary is determined to find out. Nice Girls is an intriguing and engrossing mystery. It slowly builds suspense and introduces us to characters who may or not be malicious, made me question the reliability of the narrator, and generally held my interest. It delves into themes of anxiety, depression, mental health, and racial inequality. Also, this is not a standard “mean girls” type of story. I really enjoyed this, but do have to say the last third seems a bit implausible as Mary gets herself deeper into the weeds while digging for information. The denouement, albeit entertaining, might take some suspension of disbelief, but it is overall satisfying. This is the debut novel of Catherine Dang (a former legal assistant), and I predict great things to come if this book is any indication. 3.5 stars rounded up. Sincere thank you to William Morrow for sending me a physical ARC in exchange for an honest review. Expected publication date: 9/7/21. Review also posted at: https://bonkersforthebooks.wordpress.com

When I first picked this book up I was a bit apprehensive, as I had seen mixed reviews. Fortunately as soon as I started reading Nice Girls I was quickly hooked and could not turn those pages fast enough!!As this novel begins, Mary and her father are quickly packing up her belongings and moving her out of her college dorm room and back to her small hometown of Liberty Lake, Minnesota. Almost immediately it's evident there is tension between the two, and even more so that this move is not a happy occasion. You get the feeling that Mary, who is almost immediately unlikable, is begrudgingly moving back home, with her tail tucked between her legs. It's never explained why, so very early on there is an element of mystery to Mary's return home. Once home, Mary reluctantly takes a job at the local grocer, and discovers she's not the only recent graduate back home, bumping into former football star and current assistant manager, Wayne. As the days drag by, she seems to accept her situation and even befriends Wayne, who would have never even noticed her years earlier while in high school. Back when she was nothing but a pudgy nice girl. Now, years later, she's lost the weight and is not longer a push over. She's Ivey-league Mary now.When two local girls suddenly go missing, one from the wrong side of the tracks as well as a woman of color, and another raised in privilege and a upcoming social media influencer, authorities focus all their attention on the latter. Mary takes it upon herself to investigate both disappearances, discovering a connection between the two, and numerous shocking, dark secrets in the process. Secrets someone does not want her privy to. Regardless, she is steadfast in her mission to give voices to the two victims, regardless of their station in life. But when her efforts are noticed and suddenly the tables are turned, she realizes she might in fact be the next target!! Could it be there is a serial killer in Liberty Lake?? Or is Mary just bored, and off her meds and making something out of nothing?The characters throughout this novel were incredibly human, making them incredibly authentic to me, and I discovered I was really rooting for Mary to in some way, shape or form pull her life together towards the end, so she definitely grew on me, which is a great indication of some great character development! Without giving too much more away, I really enjoyed the pacing, atmosphere and mystery element in this novel, and even found myself empathizing a bit for Mary, at times. I, at no point predicted whodunnit, and why, which was incredibly refreshing and equally horrifying! Before reading this, I will caution it's important to know that there are many triggers within this novel, and at times this read more like a horror story on account of the brutality of the deaths involved. If you can stomach it, I think you will really enjoy this read - I know I did!!To read that this was Dang's debut novel really impressed me and needless to say, I'm definitely a new fan of hers!

First of all, thank you to William Morrow and Catherine Dang for my ARC of this book that comes out on September 7, 2021. Is anyone really a nice girl? Mary doesn’t think so. After years of being the fat, awkward, forgettable girl from Liberty Lake Minnesota, she wants to change her town’s perspective of her. She works hard and now she’s known as “Ivy League Mary”- the girl who got out and attended the prestigious Cornell University. Now she’s back in Liberty Lake after being kicked out her senior year. No one knows why she’s back, but she is almost unrecognizable.Soon after Mary’s return, the beautiful and popular Olivia Willand goes missing from Liberty Lake. Mary was childhood friends with Olivia, but after a falling out Mary knows Olivia’s dark side. She can’t help but obsess about the case, and starts looking into her disappearance along with another girl who also went missing from Liberty Lake. As she starts to dig in to Olivia’s life, Mary begins to bring up the past and everything that comes with it.Nice Girls talks about the pressure girls have to be the best version of themselves. High school can be a hard time for girls specifically, and this book showed how that pressure is not always a good thing. The book also pointed out how friendships are not always born of connection, but sometimes of convenience. The story slowly builds tension and I think Catherine Dang is an asset to the woman’s suspense genre. She layers the story so it builds and slowly lets the reader in. I felt for Mary without completely trusting her, always wondering if there was something going on beneath the surface. It was hard to put down and easy to imagine myself in the dark and gritty setting, with two specific parts of town.Nice Girls talks about anxiety, depression, and the importance of mental health. It points out racism in the police force and the media, and inequality in the way crimes are investigated. It brought up many important points while also being an exciting and mysterious read. I recommend this debut to lovers of All The Missing Girls and Luckiest Girl Alive. 4-stars!

3.5 starsDecent and quick read. I feel like every part of the story needed go deeper to really build that suspenseful "I can't wait to see what happens" feeling. 3.5 stars. It probably deserves more to be rounded down to a 3, but I'm going up to 4 because I enjoyed it. I think this author will definitely grow with her writing in the books to come.

Review to come

Review published in: https://diagnosisbookaholic.blogspot....3,5 ⭐️“Ivy League Mary” could not see the moment to leave her hometown behind, but after three years away at college she gets expelled after an incident and is forced to get back. With a tense relationship with her father and a not so bright future she gets invested in a old childhood friend’s disappearance. When another girl’s arm is recovered from a lake she’s determined to prove both cases are connected at the same time she must face some old wounds.I think Nice Girls was a good debut and Ms. Dang’s future in the writing world really promising. 
I got drawn into the story pretty quickly. The writing was solid and even when things didn’t seem to move forward it was good enough to hold my interest.Mary was not a really likable character but you could empathize with her to a point. The incident that motivated her expulsion was a bit out of proportion. I don’t know, I guess I was expecting something more…spectacular?Her role as “amateur sleuth” was not really substantiated either. Why so much interest in those girls? She didn’t know one of them and the other one was just an old acquaintance! What I liked was how it touched upon racial injustice and the different way the disappearances were treated depending on the victim’s race both by the police and the press. It is disgraceful that this is still happening today!.The mystery kept throwing around red-herrings that kept me changing theories about the killer and its motivations, although I had my eye on one character that turned out to be the correct one. Things got a bit OTT as the end got near and the actual ending left me with some unanswered questions.I listened to the audiobook version and the narrator did a really good job portraying all the different characters.A pretty decent debut so I will definitely keep my eye out for Ms. Dang’s next release.

Mary spent most of her adolescence as a chunky awkward girl that never fit in with her peers. Going away to college helped her shed that old persona but when she gets kicked out of college she returns to her hometown with a sense of shame and embarrassment. Not long after Mary returns home, a girl, Olivia, goes missing, and it is a girl that Mary had a close connection with; they were once best friends until Olivia ditched Mary for the prettier more popular girls. As Mary begins to settle in with familiar friends and acquaintances, she draws a parallel between Olivia and another missing girl. Could the two be connected?Mary is a fairly unlikeable character; she is thorny and blunt – to the point of rudeness but it works for the story – she’s like a toasted marshmallow, a little soft on the inside if you don’t hold it over the fire too long. The mystery and the twists are there, definitely, but the big takeaway for me is the inequality between race and class when it came to investigating two young women’s murders. Ms. Dang really shines a light on the dissimilarity in both media coverage and interest between the two missing girls, one white and wealthy and the other working class and black. Definitely give 𝘕𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘎𝘪𝘳𝘭𝘴 a read if you like a dark twisty thriller with a side of malicious! My thanks to @WilliamMorrowBooks for this #Gifted copy of 𝘕𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘎𝘪𝘳𝘭𝘴!

Oh poor Ivy League Mary, as she was called in her small town of Liberty Lake, for being the smart chubby kid to get accepted into Cornell. Mary once in Cornell thought she would transform herself and became thin and thought she was going to go places. However, she was kicked out of Cornell her senior year and nobody knows the real story what happened, but she is back in Liberty Lake working at the local grocery store. Olivia, her once long ago BFF, now social media star has gone missing. Mary tries to help uncover answers, but she is reminded that nobody is nice in this town not even herself! For me the first half was great, but by the end it became dismal. 3.5 starsThanks to William Morrow for the gifted copy in exchange for my honest opinion!

I am pretty much left speechless after concluding Nice Girls. This may be Catherine Dang's debut novel but she is sure to break the internet with this one. This book is DARK. How many of us women felt judged as a child? Trying to fit in with what we thought were the cool girls? This book is just so much more than just another great read. It hits on topics like segregation, race, and social class. Everything you say, everything you wear, every reaction you make, you are being judged by those around you. Mary was the ugly duckling. Having grown up in a small town, Mary was pushed aside. Chubby, poor and not very attractive. But Mary catches a break. Not being current in social status allowed her to focus on getting into a Ivy League School. Not only was she accepted but she received a full scholarship. Now Mary is back in Minnesota, having been expelled from college, she is now working a minimum wage job at the local grocery store. Can her life get any worse? Then a strange disappearance happens. Mary's childhood best friend has gone missing. Olivia was all of the things Mary was not and yet they bonded. Mary needs to know what has happened to Olivia and is determined to get to the bottom of it . The character development of this novel made this book all the more "real" . I felt as though I personally knew each one of them. Don't get me wrong, each character had their flaws but it made them that much better. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel from start to finish. Nice Girls, had me questioning the way I treat people and the judgment we engage in without even recognizing it. I highly recommend this 5 star read!

4.5/5 stars rounded up to 5 for Goodreads! I actually really enjoyed this one! Many of the characters were unlikeable but I was really sucked in to the mystery.

this was maddening and pure freaking chaos. SPED through this.

After a disgraceful expulsion from Cornell University, Ivy League Mary (as she was dubbed by her hometown) returns to the Midwest to pick up the pieces of her life. Having changed dramatically from the girl she was in high school, she is initially better received by her former peers. But when a local girl Mary harbors resentment towards goes missing, she connects the dots between this case and that of another missing girl, begins her own investigation, and burns several bridges along the way. To enjoy the story, you have to be willing to accept amateur sleuthing that sometimes feels highly implausible. You also need to be okay with unlikable characters. Mary will give the reader good reason to believe she isn’t a nice girl. I was able to muster sympathy for her, despite this. She didn’t come across as horrible to me, just young, troubled, and impetuous. But if you need your stories to embrace logic and provide a likable cast, this one might not work for you.I thought Nice Girls was well-plotted and a definite page turner. The climax proved tense and immersive, so much so that I could barely catch my breath. This was a very good mystery with fantastic pacing. I especially appreciated the social commentary in this, specifically the way the police responded to two missing girl cases in very different ways, making statements on race and class, and the way that society responded to two different girls, based on their appearances. I think Dang made some sad but important points and parallels. I didn’t quite understand some of the final decisions made by Mary and her father as the story concluded. This didn’t ruin the book for me, but I did feel it diminished a bit of the novel’s power. Other than that, I’ve no complaints. Nice Girls is a well-written, carefully crafted debut. Catherine Dang is a talented writer and I’m looking forward to seeing what else she brings to the thriller genre in the future. I am immensely grateful to William Morrow for my review copy. All opinions are my own. Nice Girls will be out September 14.

Mary has just been kicked out of her Ivy League University and is back home. But she refused to talk about it or tell anyone what happened. But in the same day she arrives back in her home town, her best friend from elementary school goes missing. When Mary finds out that another girl who went missing a few months ago has been totally ignored, her instinct is that the disappearances are related and she starts looking into them. I quickly consumed this fantastic, edge-of-your-seat suspense story! I just had to know what happened. It made me feel uneasy in the best possible way.