Karly's Reviews > All Good People Here

** spoiler alert ** My Rating System: 1.5 ⭐️ rounded down to 1⭐️ ticked no boxes COMPLETE FAIL!!!

Wakarusa, Indiana is a small town full of people who love to gossip and judge all the other townsfolk. So when January Jones is found murdered it is literally the talk of the town. January was found dead in a ditch taken from her family home.

Margot Davies was January’s best friend and 6 at the time of her BFFs disappearance and it shook her to her core. Believing in the real life boogey man her whole life since that fateful night. Twenty years later, and Margot is now all grown up and a hot shot crime journalist. January’s cold case has always haunted her and now in a neighbouring town another little girl goes missing under suspiciously similar circumstances.

Margot has moved home to Wakarusa to care for her uncle who has been struck down with early onset dementia. She is closer to the story than ever and she is determined to find out what really happened to January no matter the cost. There is someone in town who doesn’t want her there and is desperate to scare her off, can Margot find out the truth before her nightmares come true.

Look, I struggled even writing the blurb having now read the book. There are so many inconsistencies in this book and I know once again I am an outlier and have down rated this wildly popular novel. Also apparently Ashley Flowers is a hot shot Podcaster - well I have never listened to a podcast so I had no idea about this going in. 🤷‍♀️

The fact that the author is a podcaster doesn’t help this book, there are plot holes all over the place. AND can I just ask why does every story about a small town murder get reinvestigated 20 years later and result in the person investigating moving back for some family reason. It’s an old and tired concept and frankly I am bored by it. 🥱

The January Jones case is awfully similar to the Jon Benet Ramsey case in so many ways that even the super fans were disappointed by it. I wont go into it… but the parallels are glaringly obvious. 🙄

Also, all these so called ‘similar’ cases I have to say that is a super stretch - clearly Margot is used to jamming a round peg into a square hole because while I was reading the details of the cases the only similarity was that they had their heads bashed in (and I use the same language that the author uses to describe blunt force trauma to the little girls heads). I don’t think the cases were similar to January’s case at all - but maybe that was the point I don’t know. Chasing ghosts and all that. 👻

Another bug bear for me in this novel was the sheer amount of times that Margot felt guilty over leaving her uncle with his condition. Or after an episode. Seriously for starters just say he has dementia or early onset dementia stop referring to it as his condition. AND we get it you felt guilty as you stare longingly at your uncle who looks so different these days as you take off investigating a cold case that you really have no business being part of in the first place. If you felt so guilty you wouldn’t be roaming the countryside looking for a killer. Just get on with it… feel guilty but accept it stop meandering over the point. 🥴

Let’s take a look at what I did like - well it was a debut novel so I did think it would get better so I was willing to stay the course and there were some bits that I thought oh here we go something is brewing… but I was left disappointed for the majority of the time… ok so this is more about what else I didn’t like… honestly there were some good storyline’s that could have been explored better. I did like the alternative POVs from Krissy (January’s mum - back from when January was killed) and Margot (in the present day). I did like the fact that we got drip fed some info bit by bit to paint the picture but there were so many plot holes that I felt like you could fall down one and never come back up. 🕳

Now, rather than keep ranting I am going to finish with the ending… my god that ending. Trash is all I can say. It was suppose to create suspense and have us wondering and hoping… but it just leaves the reader hanging with no resolution - but then the epilogue gives a play by play of another part of the book which took hand holding to the maximum. It was complete rubbish I hated the ending. It completely ruined the entire book and any parts that could have been good for me. 😡

Initially when I started this review I was going to give it 2 stars but in good faith I cannot - clearly there were too many things I disliked - I am going to downgrade to a 1.5 rounded down to 1. Sorry, I really wanted to like this one, it was my first NetGalley read for a while and I was pretty pumped - completely let down though. 😪

Thank you to Harper Collins UK, NetGalley and the author for an advanced copy for my honest opinion.