The Good Girls

Reviews / Votes

Sonia Faleiro 's meticulously researched investigation results in a powerful, unflinching account of misogyny, female shame and the notion of honour * Observer * Faleiro's pithy, cliffhanging chapters fuse true crime with big-picture analysis, blending data with interviews and detail ... A powerful indictment of a society failing its most vulnerable members * Economist * At once shocking and mundane, quiet and loud, understated and savage * Times Literary Supplement * Transfixing; it has the pacing and mood of a whodunit, but no clear reveal * New York Times * A puzzle with a surprise at the end ... A riveting, terrible tale, one all too common, but Faleiro's gorgeous prose makes it bearable * New York Times Book Review * A desperate reflection on the status of women ... Faleiro has taken exceptional pains to recreate the events as they unfolded * Spectator * Traces the tragic mystery surrounding the deaths of two teenagers found hanging in an Indian mango orchard * New York Times, Recommended Reads * A compelling whodunnit ... Faleiro writes sensitively about her subjects' actions and motivations, while the investigation reaches its final devastating revelation * Financial Times * An insightful work of reportage that highlights how gender intersects with class and caste in Indian society. It's a page-turner, a feminist text, and an essential read that is deeply empathetic towards its two main subjects who no longer have a voice -- Deepa Anappara, author of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line A compassionate, timely and necessary book that explores the issues of sex, violence, shame, honour and what it is to be a girl growing up in modern India * Literary Review * Searing ... A riveting - sometimes astonishing - work of forensic journalism that chronicles the girls' lives as well as the circumstances of their death * Wall Street Journal * A major piece of reportage ... Makes for tough but necessary reading * Cosmopolitan Online, 69 books by Black and POC authors out in 2021 * A stunning look at an investigation that was more about caste culture, poverty and the oppression of women than justice * People * Narrative reportage at its best. Just extraordinary -- Fatima Bhutto In this true story of the mysterious death of two girls, Sonia Faleiro confronts us with what it means to be young, poor, powerless and most importantly, female, in much of today's India ... The Good Girls left me shattered -- Abhijit Banerjee, Nobel Prize winner Praise for Sonia Faleiro: 'A tour de force of reportage, whose depth, insight and resonance make it the equal of the best fiction * SUNDAY TIMES * A small masterpiece of observation ... Opens up a hidden world with startling insight and intimacy -- WILLIAM DALRYMPLE Faleiro brings a novelist's eye for detail and a depth of empathy to her work. A magnificent book of reportage that is also endowed with all the terror and beauty of art -- KIRAN DESAI Does what every good piece of reportage ought to: took me to a place I couldn't have gone by myself -- HARI KUNZRU A tour de force of heartrending reportage ... which blends rigorous journalistic research with the narrative skills of a novelist * INDEPENDENT * [An] intimate and valuable book of literary reportage that will break your heart several times over -- DWIGHT GARNER * NEW YORK TIMES * It is useless to describe the pathos and singular power of this book * SPECTATOR * So compelling that it invites from us the question of exactly what might constitute genius in non-fiction * THE NATIONAL * Brilliant ... It's most outstanding quality to my eye is the window it offers on the widespread sexual repression that exists in India today, and the murky middle-class morality that rules it * GUARDIAN * She manages to evoke shock, rage, and laughter ... A moving testament * LITERARY REVIEW *