book reviews with mimi ep. 3: All Good People Here 🔎

I’m going to start off this review by saying this book starts off slow, but towards the end picks up tremendously; it really was a “trust the process” type of book. The first half of the book provides us with background information about the characters. This story is centered around the murder of January Jacobs, the beloved child star of Wakarusa. When January is mysteriously killed in her small town, the town squanders to find her killer with no success. 25 years later, Margot, January’s then-best friend, returns to her hometown to watch after her uncle Luke. Soon after her return, another little girl is found dead, in a way similar to her friend January all those years ago. Margot, now a reporter, follows her instincts to try to find out who killed her friend, and who is killing young girls now.

Each chapter was titled with a character and the year the chapter takes place. It was interesting to receive so many perspectives, to change timelines, and to be filled with suspense and curiosity after the end of each chapter. As I stated, the beginning is a bit slow and hard to read, but I adapted to her writing style and quickly realized a large chunk of the beginning was context, which later revealed to be crucial to understanding the end of the novel. While each chapter was dedicated to a character’s point of view, the story was told in the third person, and I would have liked to hear the story from the first-person point of view. However, despite the third-person point of view, the story was told wonderfully. In the present time, we follow Margot as she allows her reporter instincts to lead her to a huge story. In the past, we revisit the horrific event sequence following the death of January Jacobs. Without spoiling too much, you will love this book if you’re interested in crime and mystery. Similar to an investigation, you need patience to collect the evidence (the context) and solve the crime; it can only get more interesting. This book had a satisfying build-up and an ending that left me wondering what I had just read. This book was a rollercoaster to read and similarly put my emotions through a loop! If you watch the podcast Crime Junkie, the lead owner Ashley Flowers wrote this novel, and if you listen, you already know her way with words. This book, in Ashley’s words, is for the crime junkies <33.