[REVIEW] Nice Girls

title: Nice Girls
author: Catherine Dang  
genre: adult, mystery, thriller
published: September 7th 2021 by William Morrow
my copy: eGalley, 320 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 3 / 5 stars
goodreads

A pulse-pounding and deviously dark debut, written with the psychological acuity and emotional punch of Luckiest Girl Alive and All the Missing Girls, that explores the hungry, angry, dark side of girlhood and dares to ask what is most dangerous to a woman: showing the world what it wants to see, or who she really is? 

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.

started strong, tried to do more.

I'm definitely the type to try out every mystery/thriller because why not. They may all feel the same but who knows, maybe there's some aspect I'll like. Sometimes I do wonder what I really, really look for in a mystery/thriller that I just pick up most that I can get my hands on. Nice Girls has a very typical-ish plot when you read that synopsis. and somehow, yeah... it is..

Nice Girls follows Mary, or Ivy League Mary as they call her, who comes home to her small town after an unfortunate event that got her expelled from Cornell University. When Mary's childhood bestfriend, Olivia was reported missing, the entire town started searching for her neglecting the possible  connection to another missing girl report than Mary believes to be related. Mary decides to find out more and delve into the lives of both Olivia and DeMaria. How far will Mary go to find out the truth?

This started quite strong for me. I was genuinely intrigued by Mary and the disappearances. Why did she go home? What happened to Olivia? What is the town's star football player doing home? Is he related to Olivia's disappearance? Despite Mary's past with Kevin, is he a reliable policeman? You can just come up with so much things that could make this interesting. And somehow, all of those parts moved. And they're all moving at the same time, it felt overwhelming. Are they really connected? Are they all important? And that's what felt off for me. I think that this was trying too much. It's trying to put too much twist into this (or more like forcing it, I guess. or it just made me feel like it). It's trying to put too much issues or things to think about (aside from the mystery itself) into it that at the end, I'm not sure if I'm okay with it. I mean, yeah, of course tackling all those things are good but sometimes, maybe it's better to stick to one and focus on that for more emphasis (?).

As usual, I'm not delving much into the story especially since this is a mystery/thriller. Just a few things of note: (1) Mary was a fat girl in high school and she absolutely hates it (if you don't like characters with that kind of mentality, skip this!!). She goes on and on about it in this book and how much she's supposed to show people in her small town how much weight she lost and how successful she's supposed to become by going to an Ivy League school; (2) They touched racism and social standing (?). There's so much talk about the police shrugging DeMaria's missing person case because she's not white and they're not well off. They didn't give as much effort to her as they did to Olivia because she's black and they're not well off unlike Olivia;  (3) The police force isn't always gonna out that much effort in finding out the truth. Like most police procedural novels, Nice Girls shows a police officer willing to go against their bosses just to find out the truth and there would be those who'd just go around catching someone that works for their interests; (4) People you met in high school aren't the same people once you all get out of there. You'll realize that there's a lot more going on in other people than what they've shown throughout those four short years of their life. It's not a news flash but there really is a lot of parts in here where there will be comparison of they were then and who they are now. People change so much every year.

OVERALL, Nice Girls is started strong for me. It's a missing girl mystery and a few more things in tow. It feels slow, dragging at times even (especially the confrontation part, I don't know it just feels like it too forever for me), and it feels like it wants tackle more things. The mystery did got me thinking but there's a part of me that thinks that somehow it's one of those that just didn't have enough foreshadowing (or it could just be me missing all of them early on or the author misleading me, someone tell me if you've read this already).  The ending also didn't feel strong me. Just not what I want, I guess. 

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