Review: The Thirteenth Girl - Sarah Goodwin

Review: The 13th Girl - Sarah Goodwin - June 2022

I had been looking forward to reading this book as it sounded intriguing, the thirteenth girl to escape and it had to do with cults, which I tend to enjoy. The book starts with a girl who disappeared at a birthday party and was taken to a cult and introduced to a new family. The book then jumps to the present time and we meet Lucy who is getting ready for dinner with her husband Marshall's family. On that night, Lucy discovers she is pregnant -how can this be when she is religious about taking her pill as she never wanted children. We learn then that Lucy has been going to therapy and suffered a tragedy, a fire when she was seven years old and was placed in foster care and went from home to home. During this time, Lucy heads to work like a normal day, but it won't be normal as somehow her past and true identity as Lucia Green has come to light and the newspapers are running stories about the cult that Lucy grew up in and was rescued from when she was seven. As Marshall's parents are upper-class UK and both Marshall and his Dad are MPs and in parliament, the news starts affecting and looking like a scandal. I have to admit, this is where the story went downhill for me as I hated both characters from Marshall being an arrogant prick and blaming Lucy for her past - it's like Hello, she not only had the memories repressed but she was a child and it happened before she was 7 years old. She didn't need to tell you and here you are making it all about yourself and Lucy- grow some balls and yes it is your past, so grab it by the horns and run with it- turn the narrative to yourself and uncover the truth and then that freaking ending like WTF, I understand why she did what she did but in my mind, it makes her just as bad as her mother as now she has done the same to her child as her mother did to her. Overall, this was an average UK fiction mystery/thriller past/present read.

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3XePJ4K