THE FIRST GIRL by Claire McGowan

4* Slow to start and to engage with the narrator, but it drew me in and I didn't see the reveals, or the finale, coming.

The narrator of the tale, Karen, who's turned author, isn't at all a likeable person, or one that I could engage with. She came across as self-serving, including a green-card marriage to be able to stay in the US, and via the extracts of her book that're included, it became very clear that 18yo her hadn't been truthful about events that led to 'The Bagman' and another guy being incarcerated. At the very end, what she actually did that came to light? Wow, it made me despise her. How do you get so evil at that age? Especially where it concerns your alleged best friend? I'm not going to spoiler the tale but who needs friends like Karen? 

The tale also made it sound like she hated and felt too good for the northern England town she came from; her mother; her past; the cards life dealt her, and yet right at the end, there's an about face that didn't compite, it felt. I couldn't see it believe it. 

But, the tale had something murky and engrossing about it, that a serial killer tale needs, and that's what caught my attention and made me push on with it. Maybe the author was deliberately trying to make Karen out as not particularly nice, because she owed certain people something? I was hoping she'd get what she deserved, and sadly, she didn't. Not even a guilty conscience that 37yo present-day Karen deserved. She was far too not lily-white and just got away with stuff that she didn't deserve to get away with. I suspect a POC might not have, but that's not a criticism of the book or the author, buy Karen herself. 

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer, for my reading pleasure. 

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