My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Title: The Favorite Girl
Author: Monica Arya
Format: eBook (NetGalley)
Pages: 284
Publication Date: 11/10/26
Publisher: Simon Maverick
Categories: Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Horror, Dark Thriller
Disclaimer: **I received this book free from Simon Maverick in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**
Thank you to Simon Maverick for giving me a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review!
A twisting, riveting psychological thriller about a young woman who lands the job of her dreams, only to become trapped in a nightmare of dangerous secrets, perfect for fans of Freida McFadden, Jeneva Rose, Ruth Ware, and Mary Kubica.
What do you do when your dream job turns into a nightmare?
Every family has secrets. Dark secrets. Twisted secrets. The secrets they hide behind closed doors…
The Ivory family is no different. From the outside of their gated estate, one might see a beautiful, wealthy family, perfect in every way. But beneath that veneer lies something much darker…
Demi Rao has spent years trying to run from her past and start a new life. Her life finally seems to have changed when she comes across an employment ad from the Ivory family, looking for someone to help maintain their elaborate estate. Landing this job would mean the chance to start over. It could change everything for Demi. But something about the ad is very…off…
There are eerie house rules for the employee to wear all white. To wear no makeup. And to only speak quietly. But Demi has no other options, so she applies. And when she lands the job, she’s sure things are only going to get better. But she couldn’t be more wrong. Because Demi quickly realizes she’s not there to clean. She’s there for a reason. They picked her. They chose her. They’ve always known her. The Ivory family has picked their favorite girl. And it just might cost Demi her life.
Content Warning: so many triggers in this book – please check out trigger list on author website; violence, death, rape, sexual assault, self harm, abuse, experimenting on women, trafficking, blood, gore, body horror
+ I wasn’t sure what to expected with this book. It’s a very quick read, it’s just under 300 pages, but the story moves quickly and is basically very unhinged! It’s triggering, disturbing, horrifying and yet I wanted to see if Demi could get out of it.
+ Demi left a bad situation and thinks she has found salvation with a job to be a maid at Dr. Ivory’s home. But when she gets the job she realizes she’s walked into a trap, a house of horrors where girls are being trained to be the perfect wife – quiet, obedient and look a certain way. There are so many atrocious events that take place in this book that I really felt like my jaw was open in disbelief half the time as I was reading this book. It was one crazy thing after the other, up until the end!
+ The story explores some themes like purity culture and racism. The girls the Ivory’s get from trafficking are girls who no one will miss – those hooked on drugs, those sold by their parents, it’s a sad and scary situation all around and when Demi learns of her own situation it’s eye opening. She was never safe as a young girl, not even safe from her parents. The girls at the house all have a similar story to Demi’s and it’s wild to think that a whole network of people, people in power and with money, did this to multiple girls. In a way, this isn’t so farfetched if you just watch the news! So that’s what makes this story more scary…that even though it sounds preposterous, you know something similar is happening or can happen in real life. So Demi trying to fight and get out of the situation is something I was invested in.
+~ It’s a quick read because the chapters are short, meaning, the story speeds through a lot of situations…in a way I’m glad it didn’t linger on some of these triggering events because it was making me squeamish. But she speeds through a potential romance (yeah, how can romance grow in a story like this?!), I can see why though. Also because the story is rushing through so many things, there isn’t time to make the characters more fleshed out. I would have liked a little background on some things, but I know the mystery is to keep us in suspense. There is a lot of violence towards women. The Ivory family is one of the sickest fictional families I’ve read about in awhile. But I think because the writing feels surface level, I could tolerate the depravity enough to get to the end. It’s a very dark story from start to finish.
Final Thoughts:
If you want an over-the-top, wild ride of a dark psychological thriller then you might enjoy this one. You have to suspend your belief a lot but it was a quick read and I was rooting for Demi to escape this house of horrors. Sometimes I like a little crazy in the books I read but not all the time so this was different from what I usually read. There is a lot of disturbing things that happen in this book so definitely check out the trigger warnings before delving into this one, because at times it was a little too much for me.
Read if you like:
- dark thriller – so many trigger warnings
- house of horrors
Book Links:
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