Goodnight Beautiful: A Review

 A big shout out to Netgalley for the chance to review Aimee Malloy's new thriller, Goodnight Beautiful set to be released on October 13th 2020. 

Also, the song Hello Beautiful  by the iconic Jonas Brothers was stuck in my head when reading this because of this thriller's title being so similar so that's a thing. 

This book was perfect to start off "spooky month", a month in October dedicated to reading all things thriller and creepy. I originally heard about this book at BookCon and NEEDED it, so when I was approved to read it I was so happy!

The book follows our main character Sam, who is a well-known therapist. He goes missing one day and his wife Annie is determined to put the pieces together to find out what really happened, especially when things are not as they seem.

This book started off pretty slow and it wasn't until almost 40% of the way through did I get into it. It is told in three parts with three different POV's. You do not realize who one of the POV's is until part two and I was very surprised by it and how the author hid their identity, while also showing it in plain sight. She does that with another character in the book and when their identity is revealed, I was thoroughly impressed. That's when it really began to pick up for me.

This is a true psychological thriller and man, the mental health in this book is real! One of the characters who has to do with Sam's disappearance is portrayed so well and so creepy, that I was actually freaked out by him as if he were a real person out to get me. I loved that! It made the story that much better of an experience!

I did like the changing POV's and the book being split into three parts. The chapters were fairly short and the book is just a little over 300 pages. My biggest complaint is that the beginning was very slow and felt like some parts were really unnecessary and nonsense that the author just put in to kill time. It did give information on the background, but I think it gave more than what was necessary. I did like how determined Annie was to find Sam, even when the police told her he had run off because he was in so much debt, that he was hiding from her. It makes me hope that if I were ever kidnapped, that one of my friends, family, or partner would fight to find me too. 

I also didn't really care for the author talking about how Sam was in high school and his reputation. I felt like that was really not needed. I mean sure, it gives some background but it had nothing to do with the story. It felt off-topic and made me annoyed every time that it was mentioned. Like we get it, Sam was a player, now move on and stop repeating that several different ways. 

Overall this was a solid psychological thriller that I would recommend and give 3.5 stars.