The Good Girl (review)

That good girl is Lindsey, the school’s sophomore ambassador and the engine of domesticity at home; her father is a shell since the death of Lindsey’s older brother and the subsequent departure of Lindsey’s mother, leaving Lindsey and her rebellious younger sister on their own. Desperate for her own suffering to be noticed, Lindsey begins to steal, lifting money from her father and items from classmates’ lockers, while at the same time she’s sorting out her feelings about a “bad boy” new classmate, the kind that a good girl could never date. Hoffmann is a smooth stylist; Lindsey’s narration is sympathetic in its plaintive need, and there’s perceptive analysis of the good girl who’s finding her role more of a trap than a virtue. The emotional realities are vastly oversimplified, though, with a programmatic “I steal for attention” message overtly stated over and over by a narrator who’s implausibly aware of everybody’s psychological motivations; the characterization of her bad boy also wavers, with his overdrawn snottiness in the beginning converting conveniently to somebody who’s actually pretty much a good boy, despite the label to the contrary. It’s still a poignant tale, though, and kids feeling overlooked themselves will relate to Lindsey’s dilemma.