I told the story again. And again. Same story. Different faces watched, different ears listened. I told them everything. Beautiful, pure things make me feel ugly. Tarnished. I remember asking you when I was three, maybe four, where I came from. I waited for you to sweep me up, rub our noses together in an Eskimo kiss and reply, you came for me, you belong with me, I love you. But you didn't respond, you walked out of the kitchen left me standing there alone" A gripping, psychological rollercoaster, Good Me Bad Me is an unputdownable read that will leave readers wondering just how much control they have over their own fate.” John, like all of us, was born into a family and social-cultural milieu. It was a ready-made context in which his caregivers lived and had become a couple. They, like John, had developed an identity and personality over time under the influence of their significant others. As a couple, his parents formed their own identity as a nuclear family, much of it influenced by norms and values they shared with a well-educated, middle-class majority population on the East Coast of the United States.

Good Me, Bad Me Summary | SuperSummary

Interpersonal theory asserts that each of us continually exudes a force field that pushes others to respond to us with constricted classes of control and affiliation actions; thereby we pull from others complementary responses designed to affirm and validate our chosen style of living and being. Donald Kiesler (1996)An intensely creepy novel about a young teenage girl Milly, who was unfortunate enough to grow up with a sadistic mother. Now in foster care, she is doing her best to fit in and enjoy what family life is supposed to be like....normal. If indeed there truly is such a thing. As her mother's trial gets ever nearer, Milly is given preparation for the questioning that she will face in court. Sleep continues to evade her as her mother invades her dreams turning them into nightmares, and even during waking hours she senses her presence all around her.

Good Me Bad Me by Ali Land: Summary and reviews - BookBrowse Good Me Bad Me by Ali Land: Summary and reviews - BookBrowse

Part of the fun of reading a book like Ali Land’s Good Me Bad Me is the anticipation of what’s to come... Fortunately, Land delivers on all accounts… Land expertly captures the angst and trauma of teenage adolescence through Milly’s compelling narrative voice. The result is a starkly realized and haunting thriller.” Finally, Milly makes a friend at school called Morgan, a reserved girl who doesn’t have any other friends. She doesn’t have an easy home life, and Milly sympathizes with her. Milly wishes she could tell Morgan the truth about her past and what happened to her, but it’s too risky. She doesn’t want Morgan to think that she’s bad or monstrous. How far does the apple really fall from the tree when the daughter of a serial killer is placed with a new, normal foster family? Room meets Dexter in this dark, voice-driven psychological suspense. The question is WHO is the daughter of the famous Peter Pan killer? Does she follow in Peter Pan's footsteps or can she embrace her "normal" life of Milly?Mike has a big part to play in the work to be done. A treatment plan drawn up between him and the unit staff detailed a weekly therapy session with me in the run‑up to the trial. An opportunity for me to discuss any concerns or worries with him. Yesterday he suggested Wednesdays, midway through each week. I said yes, not because I wanted to. But because he wanted me to, he thinks it will help. When it comes to courtroom drama, this one is right up there with the best. The tension is indescribable as Milly prepares to go into the witness box. She will be behind a screen while she gives evidence but her mother’s poisonous, powerful influence could penetrate a shield of solid lead. I will say that Land is a good writer. The book was written clearly, the characters' personalities were well defined albeit stereotypical. Milly’s new foster parents, the Newmonts, are specially chosen to give Milly the best possible support. Her foster father, Mike, is a psychologist. He has never worked with someone as damaged as Milly, but he is well placed to help her adjust to life without her mother, and he knows what warning signs to look for if she’s struggling.

Good Me Bad Me - Penguin Books UK

His parents differentiated their approach to life within this majority, especially as it pertains to values of education, social justice, and respect for differences, cultural and individual differences. It was a large family, including John, one of two children they conceived, and two children they had adopted. Each was encouraged to seek their own path. Of course, neither they nor any of us can escape the experience of being evaluated by those with whom we interact, can we? On 31st December 1999, ten-year-old Amy Archer went missing from her local playground. Her body was never found and the lives of her parents, Beth and Brian, were torn apart. Annie's name is changed to Milly to help protect her and Milly is trying hard to not let the bad overtake the good within her, she doesn't want to be like her mother.SLVIA . . . decades ago, an AI program escaped the NSA Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, and has never been re-captured . . . true story. I’ve always been interested in children who are different. When I was thirteen I wanted to know why the two ten-year-old boys in the Bulger case killed a toddler; when I was fifteen both Lord of the Flies and The Wasp Factory had a profound effect on me; as a student at university I did a degree in children’s mental health. Later, in my career as a qualified nurse, I looked after a fifteen-year-old girl who no longer wanted to live because she believed that no matter what she did, she would end up being bad like her mother who had been involved in the serious harm of young children. I expand on this in a longer piece about the inspiration for Good Me Bad Me at the end of this book, but the burden this girl carried, together with other children I looked after who came from violent, dysfunctional homes or who existed with parental legacies of evil, left me feeling haunted. I wanted to know if, like me, other people could forgive a child like Milly, as she asks the reader to do, both in the opening and closing lines of this book. It was from this experience that the novel was born. After graduating from university with a degree in Mental Health, Ali Land spent a decade working as a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Nurse in both hospitals and schools in the UK and Australia. Ali is now a full-time writer and lives in West London. Many thanks to the wonderful folks at Flatiron Books for sending me an advance copy. This review reflects my true opinion. Milly wants to be loved, and find a home, but there’s a maze of obstacles in her way – Phoebe gets the mean girls at school to bully her; she hears mom’s voice in her head, taunting her into accepting her destiny to become a serial killer herself; and Milly’s nagging suspicions that maybe she did inherit mom’s tendencies.