The Good Girls: Uncovering an Extraordinary Crime

Shruti: I don’t know how i came across this book but i am glad i did. It’s on a rape case quite known across the city. At least to the people it’s still a rape case as it was to me till I haven’t read the book.
Starting with the good aspects the writer is thorough with the case. The other good aspects are the storytelling its very compelling also the notation of the other rape cases and how they impacted the society and brought change in law. The data is very thorough and well researched.
Things that could have been better after a certain time it didn’t kept me glued as it was stretched after the story telling it would have been good if there was a chapter on state of women in india which she has given in scattered way in each chapter but a full blown epilogue or chapter would have been good.
Overall a nice book.

India on Dec 23, 2023

Michele Ferenz: Brings alive through meticulous research and compelling prose a tragedy in a small village that speaks volumes about the India that is left behind.

United States on May 27, 2023

Jackie Drummond: I was interested in reading more about this case. The book was well documented and well written.

Australia on Aug 25, 2022

Peejau: *Spoiler Alert*The two fathers in this book learned from the infamous rape case on a Delhi bus that media attention and public outrage could be used to bring justice to victims of sexual violence. So the fathers used the lurid spectacle of their hanging daughters to blame people of another caste, with no real evidence, of raping and killing them. Their refusal to cut down the girls' bodies causes a frenzy that illustrates the limitations of the Indian police, the Indian medical system, the Indian media, and Indian elites themselves. But the whole fiasco was based on a lie, which at least one of the fathers knew.

Did the Dehli rape victim and the girls from Uttar Pradesh all live in a profoundly misogynist society? Yes, definitely. And yes, the girls in this book were young and naive, but surely they were aware their male relatives would kill them if they found out what they had been doing. And given that, why did one of them decide to have sex with a random kid of another caste in the middle of her family fields while her cousin served as a lookout? When their families inevitably found out, the girls reacted by hanging themselves to avoid being killed. Did...

United States on Aug 23, 2021

BooklyMatters: This is a devastating book. All the more so, because the horrifying facts it lays out are all true, meticulously researched and painstakingly delivered, end to end, to build a picture you absolutely won’t want to acknowledge, because it’s just so awful, but you can’t simply look away - because if you do, then aren’t we also somehow also partly accountable?

There is no other way to describe it than, in the authors words “a systemic social failure.”

Starting and ending with:

“An Indian woman’s first challenge is surviving her own home.”

As we learn in the pages of this book, there is no other culture, not even war-torn Syria, that has as deeply entrenched a history of violence, rape and subrogation of women as India. In this nation of 1.4 billion people, fully half of its citizens don’t count for much at all. They exist to bring a good dowry, bear children, toil to serve their husbands, and most importantly, honour (or at least, not dishonour) the family name (by socially unacceptable actions including owning or talking on a cell phone, or “wandering” too far from home). (Yes, this is a current day...

United States on Apr 18, 2021

Judith: This was a confusing story and could the author have pruned it to make it more accessible to readers unfamiliar with the situation. However, it was moving and gave important insights into the life of women in rural India.

United States on Mar 30, 2021

eims: Not an easy read, but very thorough account, blessed to see someone shining an honest and well researched light on such a tragic and difficult subject.

United Kingdom on Mar 22, 2021

Chad Alessi: This is a sad story about two young girls, but a bigger story about women's struggle to survive in India.

United States on Mar 15, 2021

Elisabeth Dodds: With great skill and compassion, the author seamlessly weaves the unfolding story of the tragic death of two young girls in a village in Uttar Pradesh within a broader context of gender, politics, caste and poverty. Extremely well-researched, it is brimming with fascinating (and deeply troubling) information, but what particularly appealed to me as a reader was its beautiful writing and narrative pace. Each brief chapter builds suspense as the reader is guided through encounters with the byzantine cast of characters involved in the events surrounding the girls' death. I found it totally immersive, and devastatingly effective. Highly recommended.

United Kingdom on Feb 26, 2021

Gasper D'SouzaGasper D'Souza: Just finished The Good Girls by Sonia Faleiro after reading straight over two days. A page turner you will not want to put down. All the more so because it's a true story.

Sonia, weaves the narrative of what transpired in the hamlet of Katra in the bad lands of Uttar Pradesh in North India with the larger picture of an India simultaneously aspiring and depressing.

Her writing appears simple but holds much power:
"Even the news trucks went, but she had to stay behind." (of the mother of one of the girls at the funeral) or:
"Everything was here. Everything happened here. And so naturally it was here in the fields that the rumour started."

Thus she keeps us gripped and yet manages to convey background information as well as the story of India within the microcosm of Padma and Lalli's shocking story.

Sonia's journalistic ethics match her strong determination to view a story from every possible angle. I had the good fortune to watch her work in the field up close, when I accompanied her on another story on the kidnappings of 14 children from a village in UP bordering Nepal. I witnessed as she did her best to visit the locations of the...

India on Feb 25, 2021