The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing

by Sonia Faleiro

By the award-winning writer of Beautiful Thing, a masterly inquest into how the mysterious deaths of two teenage girls shone a light into the darkest corners of a nation.

The girls' names were Padma and Lalli, but they were so inseparable that people in the village called them Padma Lalli. Sixteen-year-old Padma sparked and burned. Fourteen-year-old Lalli was an incorrigible romantic.

They grew up in Katra Sadatganj, an eye-blink of a village in western Uttar Pradesh crammed into less than one square mile of land. It was out in the fields, in the middle of mango season, that the rumors started.

Then one night in the summer of 2014 the girls went missing; and hours later they were found hanging in the orchard. Who they were, and what had happened to them, was already less important than what their disappearance meant to the people left behind.

In the ensuing months, the investigation into their deaths would implode everything that their small community held to be true, and instigate a national conversation about sex and violence. Slipping deftly behind political maneuvering, caste systems and codes of honor in a village in northern India, The Good Girls returns to the scene of Padma and Lalli's short lives and shameful deaths, and dares to ask: what is the human cost of shame?

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, India, Crime, Audiobook, Mystery, Asia

314 pages, Hardcover

First published February 9, 2021

About the author

Sonia Faleiro is the author of Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars and a novella, The Girl. Her new book, The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing will be published in 2021.
The New York Times hailed Beautiful Thing as ‘an intimate and valuable piece of reportage that will break your heart several times over.’ The book was an Observer, Guardian, and Economist Book of the Year, Time Out Subcontinental Book of the Year, CNN Mumbai Book of the Year, and The Sunday Times Travel Book of the Year, 2011. It has been published worldwide and translated into several languages.
She is the co-founder of Deca, a global cooperative of award-winning journalists. Her writing has received support from the Pulitzer Centre and The Investigative Fund, and appears in The New York Times, The Financial Times, Harper's, Granta, 1843, The California Sunday Magazine, and MIT Technology Review.
She lives in London and is represented by The Wylie Agency.

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars: This is one of the saddest stories I have read. “The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing” by Sonia Faleiro tells the story of the horrendous death of two young Indian village girls, aged 16 and 14.

The girls went missing May 27, 2014. They were found hung from a mango tree in an orchard the next day. The response from the local villagers, the government, the media, the family are heartbreaking. What made this incredible, is that the girls’ parents insisted that the bodies remain hung, blowing in the wind. They wanted a scene: witness the bodies and do something about it. The family felt that the government has little interest in villagers. Their lives are not worthy of resources. The deaths occurred in one of India’s poorest states where poverty requires citizens to eat grass. The deaths were photographed and there was a media blitz.

Author Sonia Faleiro visited the village in 2015 to research rape in India. When she studied this case, she found the story layered in secrets and differing interpretations. At one point the authorities felt it was suicide, until someone pointed out that they were hanging too high up for suicide. Perhaps it was caste violence. It could be the parents for an honor killing. Was there a rape? Was it local boys?

Faleiro writes the story in segments, almost short stories. She slowly reveals what was uncovered and the shifting perspectives of the deaths. The story kept changing because the witnesses’ stories kept changing, and politics intervened on interpretations. Even the examining doctors shifted opinions.

I listened to the audio, narrated by the author. Her voice is lyrical and easy to follow. The story is harrowing and important. Yet it is so darned sad. It highlights the complexities in Hindu culture. It showed the shortcomings of the police, medical system, and the caste system.

For a nonfiction story, this was a literary delight.

[Shelleyrae at Book'd Out · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Good Girls is a powerful, heartrending and compelling work of investigative journalism from award winning author Sonia Faleiro.

On May 27th 2014, cousins and best friends 16 year old Padma* and 14 year old Lalli* went into the fields to relieve themselves before bedtime, as was their habit, and never returned. In the early hours of the morning their body’s were found hanging in the mango tree orchard belonging to their families in the tiny Indian village of Katra Sadatgani. And there they would remain for days as their family demanded justice.

* The girls’ names have been changed in accordance with Indian law which requires that the identity of victims of certain crimes remain private.

Drawing on official documents, news reports, and personal interviews, Faleiro attempts to piece together the events that led up to the girl’s deaths, and the extraordinary events that followed. Faleiro does her best to establish a timeline and unravel the often contradictory information that is a hallmark of this investigation. This is a complex case that involves a large number of people, and is forced to take into account issues of family structure, tradition, poverty, caste, religion, and political corruption to explain both its origin and its development.

The Good Girls is not the easiest of reads, from a position of western privilege it’s confronting to learn about the circumstances in which Padma and Lalli lived. This not only includes their immediate environs in a village with no running water, sanitation, or electricity, but also a society that considers them as little more than chattel.

Crimes against women, and girls, are ubiquitous in India, both in public and at home. Despite attempts to lawfully curb the violence (largely as a consequence of the ‘Delhi Bus Rape’ in 2012) when caste, tradition and religion insist that women are little more than the property of men, the law is often ignored, abetted by corrupt politicians and a venal police force who lack the skills, resources or motivation to investigate complaints.

To be honest I have little faith in the official findings in this case, given the falsehoods, contradictions, and grievous errors that dogged every step of the investigation. I don’t think any conclusion can be reached with confidence, but I appreciate Faleiro’s attempt to shed light on what happened to Padma and Lalli.

The Good Girls is a well written, disturbing yet fascinating narrative that provides insight not only into an individual tragedy, but also into a culture and a country. Incidentally I strongly suggest you don’t Google the case, or if you do be careful which articles you view as many are accompanied by a photo of the two girls hanging from the mango tree.

[Aoife · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

In 2014, two young girls from a village in Utar Pradesh were reported missing. Their bodies were later found hanging from a tree in a nearby orchard and their families refused to move them, proclaiming the girls raped and murdered.

In The Good Girls, Sonia Faleiro takes a look at the case of the girls she names Padma and Lalli and where everything went wrong with their case from the very start, from the moment they took too long to come back from the fields they used for their toilet. The book also acts as a lens into the way sexual assault is viewed in India, and how difficult it still is to fairly investigate and charge culprits for.

What I appreciated about this book is the real look it took into how girls are treated in India, and i particular the poorer villages and families in India. A girl's honor is everything - to the point that when it was deemed Padma and Lalli had most likely died by suicide, people thought to themselves, "well, how could they have LET themselves live" after certain aspects of the case and potential sexual relationships came to light.

"And so, just like that, in less than an hour since they were gone, Padma was no longer the quick-tempered one. Lalli was no longer the faithful partner in crime. Who they were, and what had happened to them, was already less important than what their disappearance meant to the status of the people left behind."

It also is such an eye-opener on how so many people still live today and it's heartbreaking. Truly. There were times I woudl forget these events only took place 6 years ago because the way people lived felt like decades, if not a century ago. The poverty, the lack of education, the stifling and control of young women (for example it's improper for a girl to talk on a mobile phone?!), was just so backward.

I don't think this book was structured as well as it could have been. It felt a bit all over the place for me at times but I do have to point out that the author was dealing with a lot of reports and information - of which there were a lot of contradictory statements (the main eyewitness changed his statement a number of times, and still doesn't really seem to know what he actually saw that night).

There's also a bit in here around the Indian caste system and some Indian politics which is just a minefield, even if you do know a bit about it. So that was something that left my brain feeling jumbled.

I'm honestly not 100% sure if I'd recommend it to everyone to read - I think some people will like and others will be turned off by how all over the place the story and the case is.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

• r e c o m m e n d a t i o n •

I finished reading The Good Girls sometime last week but my mind refused to write a review. My immediate feeling was that of shock. Shock from learning the incompetent manner in which the investigation was carried out. But quickly, it shifted to anger; the kind that threatens to erupt at any given moment. Anger that the girls' dignity was stripped off even in their death. For many Indian families 'honour' becomes more precious than their children. Defying honour will lead to only one thing. Death. And this burdenous thing called honour is placed on the heads of daughters, asking them to never drop it no matter what. But men can do as they please, honour or not.

In 2014, two teenage girls were found hanging from a mango tree in Katra Sadatgani in UP. Perhaps it was eerie setting in which they were found that the incident went viral on social media. Padma* (16) and Lalli*(14) were two peas in a pod, first cousins and often inseparable. The circumstances and controversy surrounding their death drew the attention of the villagers and the orchard in which they were found ultimately became a tourist sight. Faleiro, carefully dissects the events leading up to the death of the girls and provides a detailed analysis of what went wrong. When villagers noticed the two girls on their phones (which itself was a rare vision), gossip ran freely. Caste system plays a significant role even now, to an extent where honour killings are openly carried out. Where caste differences exist, there lies enmity and suspicion. People are accused for the deaths of the girls before the investigation could even begin. With a barely functional police force and a dilapidated hospital, the case was a significant mess. Lies floated around like moats of dust making it impossible for the truth to come out.
The research that has gone into this book is tremendous and it shows. It's crisp and to the point but Faleiro still manages to make it sentimental. She highlights corruption that very much prevails in our justice system and the rate of crimes against women. What happened to Padma and Lalli will forever remain a mystery; like the death of thousands of other girls.

[Caitlin Meaton · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the author’s note at the end, she says she wanted to write a book about rape in India. And that’s exactly what this book is. I didn’t mean to get into quite such heavy material but that’s not the reason for my three stars. The reason is one word- editing! We don’t need to know every single thing that every single person within a 10 mile radius said about every family member. The author clearly did SO much research and tons of interviews and boy, does it show. I think she could have cut about 100 pages of unnecessary detail and background noise. It would have made the girls’ story and all the pertinent social/legal issues clearer and sharper. That being said, it was enlightening and made me feel incredibly fortunate.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the juxtapositions of all the dozens of loyalties, connections, hierarchies alone this should get 5 stars. Sonia Faleiro is brave, exact and also has written a non-fiction account here that does approach 5 star level. Yet, yet! Because of the poverty, base living arrangements and levels of work to sustain daily life here in this tale? Just because of the practical applications and nuance for family honor aspects alone- this is nearly impossible to tell.

She did a great job, despite it being out of order and jagged overall to the sequences and misfits. Not to speak of the incompetence and authority double dealing at any one of either town's inclination- or of the officials who showed up later. Uttar Pradesh with no electricity, running water let alone no air conditioning. And the density of the people to the spaces!

If you want to read a book about how humans live daily (the great majority and not a few of higher caste or familial foundations) - far northwestern province India, then I highly recommend this book.

Beyond sad. It's not only the Muslim, Hindu divisions. It's the language group division. It's the caste group division. It's the parsing for politico party of your particular caste applications for the current days' loyalties. And you still just go squat in the fields to defecate or urinate. Regardless of any or all of the above delicate particulars for your own or your family's behaviors. And as a girl- you are of little consequence after all of those portions of "concern" as long as the first part listings of this paragraph are fulfilled to dot the i and cross the t, anyway.

It's difficult to read for the entire senselessness of the hierarchies. All of them. Not just for the girls who are caught at 14 years old in the middle. Everyone of these people are close to mad in psychological identity from it.

Lots of lies. Lots of stories. Lots of grief beyond telling- just sheer sobbing and staring at a wall inside screaming. All of that times 10 is in this book. And lie detector test on people who do not read, nor write, nor know what a blood pressure cuff or sensory appliance put on a chest could begin to "measure" in their own cognitions.

The photo in my mind of those two girls hanging from that tree. By their draped clothing, scarves. And their shoes neatly lined up in pairs at the base of the tree? Do kidnappers and rapists do that?

I very much doubt they committed suicide. Nor that they were kidnapped and raped. Look who changed their stories the most. The Dads and the Uncles and the Cousins. Honor killing, I'm about 75% sure.

Can you imagine having the "sweeper" of the back storeroom doing the autopsies! Or that he had never even worked in a medical setting or been witness to one with a doctor performing it. Or that all of the police involved in the beginnings of search were drunk and/or abusive to anyone who deemed to knock on their gate? Or the level of criminal corruption in daily view too- like the sand mafia. Oh, so many people know what happened but aren't telling and never will. That's just about the only feature that is completely obvious.

But that photo in my mind of those mothers and grandmother sitting under that mango tree and not letting them take the dead bodies down for all that time in that HEAT! Protest yes and purposeful yet. BUT! Also protecting others. Always. The ones of "more concern".

[MacWithBooksonMountains Marcus · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is the cost of shame when confronting unyielding social inflexibilities?
The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing by Sonia Faleiro is about the case of two teenaged girls from Uttar Pradesh, India that were found dead shortly after they went missing. The author, herself from India, provides us with shocking insights on the course of events that took place. Shocking, because to our western sensitivities, the cast-oriented beliefs and structures of the villagers, the modus operandi of the police and overall, their indifference, the botched postmortem examinations, in a word the circumstances are simply incomprehensible.
The 2014 Uttar Pradesh killing has completely gone by me but after browsing the net I was quickly confronted with pictures of two girls dressed in colorful sarongs hanging from a tree. Needless to say, my initial reaction was sadness, then an all-consuming anger for in the aftermath of the New Delhi bus rape, suspicion pointed to something similar horrendous. However, as I read on and the narrative progresses this becomes increasingly unlikely.
In the end, the exact circumstances of the tragic deaths remain a mystery. Be that as it may, by the author’s careful analysis of situation and event progression, the reader is able to infer a terrible truth unspoken; the tacit truth of a crime perpetrated not by a score of criminals but by a whole nation and its cultural history conspiring against two innocent girls on the cusp of adulthood.
Sonia Faleiro describes the characters objectively but with great subjective insight. Naturally, the girls’ family is in the limelight of her literary scrutiny. We get to know all the necessary information to comprehend how family members, neighbors and village elders relate to each other in rural India.
In addition, the author, known for several other non-fiction books of quality about her native land India, has perfected an amalgam of great true crime prose with clever literary techniques and devices that make the reader think, reflect and ultimately come to his/her own conclusions.
Reading this book, your beliefs and perceptions of progress and human development flip like a pancake at the International Pancake House – if you allow it that is. And you certainly should, for the ability to confront yourself with perceptions and points of views foreign to your own is the precursor not only to change but also to empathy.
This work of non-fiction goes beyond the terrible deaths of the two teenagers; it is also a portrait of village life in rural India with the complexities of the Hindu society in mind written straight from “the horse’s mouth.”
In the West we only now start to understand the cost of freedom without strength.
But what if you don’t have any freedom at all – like these two poor girls from whom an obsolete, encrusted and most of all callously unfair society extracted the ultimate price. Heartrending and infinitely sad.

[Liz Barnsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first thing that hit me when I was a little way into this insightful and compelling piece of investigative journalism was how little I knew about the intricacies of Indian culture and social attitudes. I was dazzled initially by the sheer number of people involved in this small community tragedy, their relationships to each other and standing in social terms, but luckily for me Sonia Faleiro writes with an intelligent, informative style that is also hugely compelling.

Padma and Lalli (not their real names) go missing one evening and are later found hanged in a tree. What ensues is a complicated, intensely disturbing tale of poor investigation, political agenda and hidden secrets, a story of social media spotlight and scrutiny, playing into the wider, incredibly complex issues that face women in India every single day.

I could write a long review encompassing all my thoughts and emotions about the events covered here but that I think that I can’t do it justice so the best thing I can do is encourage you to read it yourself. The author takes you through every aspect of what happened here, often including other cases to weave a web of higher understanding and never once losing sight of the important people here, two girls who never had the chance to grow up.

The wider themes of poverty, misogyny, sexism and corruption are all brought home here and it is breathtaking and melancholy. The final decisions in this case are disturbing and just felt so wrong in context.

Sonia Faleiro has given me so much to think about. Unpalatable truths about women in the wider world facing a huge mountain to climb to get to a place I take for granted. The danger they face every day. I will leave you with this quote from the author’s own notes and once again encourage you to read this book. I highly recommend it.

“The story of Padma and Lalli revealed something more terrible still – That an Indian woman’s first challenge was surviving her own home”

[Erin Entrada Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an incredible book about a truly tragic case. Meticulously researched, well written.

[Kimba Tichenor · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 2014, two young Indian girls were discovered hanging from a mango tree not far from their village in Uttar Pradesh. The women of the family refused to allow the bodies to be taken down, knowing that the only way to get justice for their girls was to create a media storm. If the media did not arrive, the two deceased girls, like so many dead girls before them, would be forgotten -- lost in India's complex and corrupt criminal justice system that places little value on the lives of girls. Ultimately their deaths did not prove to be a case of kidnapping and rape, as first supposed and as is so common in India. But the events that informed their death were no less disturbing, as they suggest that poor girls in India are no more safe at home than they are out in the world. The year that Padma and Lalli went missing, 12, 361 people were kidnapped in Uttar Pradesh and across the country a child went missing every 8 minutes.

Author and journalist Sonia Faleiro painstakingly interweaves the various threads of this complex story about what it means to be female and poor in India -- a country that has rapidly modernized but where the lives of its poorest citizens are largely unchanged. In villages, such as Katra where the two girls resided, women have some education but are forbidden from working. Their behavior and their lives remain determined by unwritten codes of honor. People have cell phones, but still do not have indoor plumbing, instead squatting out in the fields. It is world where despite economic transformation in the cities, caste rules are still followed in the villages and where people have no reason to trust the police, who are as likely to abuse them as to help them. It is also a place where protecting the family honor outweighs the welfare of young girls or the discovery of truth.

While at times the author's attention to detail may be overwhelming, especially for the reader unfamiliar with Indian culture or politics, it is a remarkable piece of investigative journalism that shows the impact of honor codes, political maneuverings, systemic corruption, caste rules, and poverty at the most intimate level -- cutting short the lives of two young girls.

I would like to thank the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

[Areeb Ahmad (Bankrupt_Bookworm) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"What made the difference, then, was the highly emotive image of the girls hanging in the tree. Urban Indians first saw it on social media, the place where they went to read the news and debate it. They wanted something to latch on to, to vent their personal frustrations over India's inability to change quickly enough, and the picture was it. Padma and Lalli could have been anyone's children. They were, obviously, blameless."

I hazily remember the Summer, 2014. It was May and I was in Class X, avoiding studying for my Boards. Social media was where it initially spread and soon news channels and papers were discussing it too. Two girls had disappeared from a small village, Katra Sadatganj in Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh. They had stepped out to relieve themselves at night & never returned. After hours of frenzied searching, their bodies were found hanging from a tree early morning the next day. The horrific 2012 Delhi Bus Rape Case was still fresh in people's minds so this new case captured the collective consciousness. Faleiro, living in London at the time, got to know of it on Twitter. She had been planning a book on rape in India & adopted this as the centerpiece.

She approaches the subject with astounding sensitivity and care, ensuring that she is representative of all viewpoints. Structured as a quasi-thriller with short named chapters, the book is never not gripping and quite easy to read. Using the case, she comments on hetero-patriarchy, access to toilets, lack of good education, poverty, political callousness, class divides, ideas of honour and shame that plague rural as well as urban spaces. From Mathura to Bhanwari Devi to Jyoti Singh, she tries to showcase what women in this country have been facing daily for decades. Moving from the anecdotal to facts and figures, Faleiro presents a moving instance of investigative journalism, drawing attention to the chillingly mundane nature of such tragic incidents. At its heart lies a fervent demand for change, the right to hopes and dreams.




(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)

[Smriti · Rating 4 out of 5]

A more detailed review is up on my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/akivu0fLzpc

In the summer of 2014, in the Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh, just a few hours away from the nation’s capital, two girls were reported missing. In the morning, their bodies were found hanging from a tree. The image of the two young girls hanging from a tree is seared into a lot of people’s memories. We may not remember it as often, but it is hard to forget.

Two young girls - renamed Padma and Lalli, 16 and 14 years of age, had gone to defecate in the fields and never returned. A search party was sent out and it was said that a young boy by the name of Pappu had kidnapped them. However, as day broke, the two bodies of the girls were found hanging from a tree in an orchard.

The book itself reads like an actual crime thriller with it chronologically telling us the story with a lot of reveals and twists in the tale. And trust me there were A LOT! With the shoddy job by the police, the unreliable and contrasting witness statements, there was just a lot happening in this case. (in a good way for us readers, in a not so good way for the people dealing with it)

I also really appreciated how this book not only told us just about the crime but also about cases relevant to the ongoing procedures of the crime and more. It also gave you an insight to society - especially the way things work in rural Uttar Pradesh and their thoughts in terms of women, politics, etc. So in the end, you learnt not only about the case itself but of so many other things that shape our nation.

I found the book to be super educational and informative. I also found it to be fast paced and extremely well written - the writing was simple and it kept you hooked. Definitely recommend it. I gave the book 4.5 stars. ✨

I was given this book in exchange for an honest review by the publisher.

[Christine Valdez · Rating 1 out of 5]

I CANNOT stand this book and I will not finish it. I cannot get into it. It’s driving me fn batty... all over the place...

I appreciate the author doing research and dealing with a ton of information, reports, pictures, media, contradictions, politics, etc. it’s probably the best she could put together. But F. It’s all over the place. There are too many alleged facts and stats. I feel like she’s trying to make a case for India and prove her point rather than tell the story of these girls.

A sad story ruined for me by this authors agenda.

[Rosh ~catching up slowly~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

In May 2014, at a remote hamlet named Katra in the Badaun district of western Uttar Pradesh, two young girls were found hanging from a mango tree in a neighbour's orchard. This incident is infamous in recent history as the 2014 Badaun rape.

The two girls, given pseudonyms of Padma and Lalli in this book to cater to government rules of not naming victims of sexual assaults, were 16 and 14 years old. The elder girl had been taken out of school after the 8th grade and her family was looking out for a suitable match for her when they incident occurred. After the bodies were found hanging, the family opted for an unexpected method of seeking relief: they refused to allow the bodies to be brought down until justice was served.

With the information I've given you so far, assuming you have no detailed memory of the actual case, you would have reached your own conclusions about the girls' deaths. I did too when the book started. And I was proven wrong, again and again.

You must have read thrillers with unreliable narrators. Now imagine a true life story with unreliable narrators who seem to have their own private agenda behind everything they publicly claim. Who/what do you believe?

This book doesn't offer you an insight into sexual assaults against women or caste rivalries or political manipulations or police mishandling of cases or the medical bungling in the hinterland, though all of these are included to varying degrees. What it gives you is a detailed timeline of what happened on May 27th 2014 up to a few months later. You feel like you are a part of the ongoing investigation and the happenings around you are spinning out of control. You won't understand whom to trust, you won't know whom to point fingers at, you won't understand where to hit your head in frustration. You would assume that two girls disappearing in the middle of the night would unify everyone in the quest to locate them. But no, there are still so many things to consider first: the family name, the girls' reputation, the fear of police, the caste of the possible kidnappers... You just keep taking in fact after fact, hoping to make sense of the situation. But you won't be able to. Because whatever happened is utterly, shamefully senseless and your urban mind simply won't be able to digest the ridiculous thinking that passes in the name of honour in this country.

I couldn't read the book at a stretch though I found it difficult to keep aside. I kept needing breathers to calm myself down because some of the scenes were simply too aggravating. Even something that I take for granted in my life - a mobile phone - took on a very different meaning when viewed from the eyes of these villagers.

The author has done a lot of research and it shows. I don't know how far this book will work for a non-Indian reader. The casteist mentality is something only we will understand (to whatever extent it can be justifiably understood.) Though the author has a tendency to include too much information at times, I felt it was necessary so that even those without an understanding of how rural India functions will be able to get the situation as it unfolded. She doesn't hesitate in calling a spade a spade. I admire her for going to the heartland of the case and interviewing all the people involved, in spite of knowing their mentality about women. That was brave! There are some grammatical errors in the book but I kept those aside willingly; this is one instance where the content is more important than the language.

Don't read this to know what girls go through in this country; you already know that. Read it to understand the psyche of people in rural India, especially of men when it comes to the women in their lives. You must have heard the term "comedy of errors" many times. This book will give you an example of a "tragedy of errors."

As regards Padma and Lalli, they will forever be enshrined as "the good girls"; you will know the significance of my statement only if you read the book.


Thank you, NetGalley and Grove Atlantic, for the Advanced Review Copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.


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[Dna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Holy God, 15% into this and I cannot keep track of everyone and their place in the “social hierarchy.” How about you just tell the goddamn story? Infuriating!

Should I skimmish this?

[Vivek Tejuja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Faleiro had heard about the Badaun killings on Twitter, in the year 2014, as did most of us. It shook her to this extent that she decided to go the village of Katra in the Badaun district in Uttar Pradesh where the death of two teenage girls, who were also cousins, took place. The picture that circulated on social media was that of them hanging from a mango tree, whose memory is etched in so many minds and hearts. Though momentarily forgotten perhaps, it can be conjured in an instant. Between 2014 and 2019, Faleiro interviewed everyone connected with the deaths to produce a story in which there are different perspectives – each struggling to make themselves heard, each hustling for credibility.

Whether it is a cousin who claimed to have seen the girls getting kidnapped by Pappu Yadav, a 19-year old from the neighbouring village. Or whether it was someone else who had claimed to have spotted Pappu with the girls (who are known as Padma and Lalli in the book). Or whether it was the parents and relatives of these girls who didn’t act soon enough, scared that their honour will be at stake. Well, at the end of the day, the truth is that the girls were dead.

The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing by Sonia Faleiro is not just an investigative book or a “non-fiction novel” as some would seem it to be. It is a chronicle of what women go through in the country on a daily basis, and this isn’t just restricted to one region or is a function of being educated or not. The brutal rape and murder of Jyoti Singh in 2012 is a testament of that fact. The Good Girls is a book that holds no judgement. It is about the facts, and yet Faleiro’s writing is so strong and insightful that you cannot help but feel overwhelmed in most places while reading. The idea that two teenage girls – children really, died before their time. The idea that they could not lead full lives. The idea that we give so much importance to factors such as caste, honour, about how a girl should be and should not be, that we forget to consider life – the very basic essence of life and living.

Sonia Faleiro’s book is about the India that is still struggling with so much – patriarchy, lack of education for women and girls, poverty being the biggest issue (which most , maybe even all politicians turn a blind eye to or very conveniently use it to their advantage), about lack of faith not only in the judiciary system but also in the workings of the police and safety that cannot be trusted, and about the way we treat our women and men at the same time.

The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing – just the very title says so much. Something that is so chilling, and yet only so ordinary that it could take place on an almost daily basis (and maybe does) and yet apathy is supreme. Sonia Faleiro also without taking any side goes to the heart of that apathy and indifference through this work that chronicles the brutality, that takes place more on a mental and emotional level. Faleiro’s writing is to the point. All facts and suppositions (that sprung from various narratives) are laid out for the reader. Everything is in plain sight. The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing never lets us forget that at the heart of it – of all that occurred, two teenage girls, two children really, with so much life, and possibility and a future, lost their lives to patriarchy and its machinations.

[Alice Lowy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh man... I just did not enjoy reading this book at all. The main storyline is interwoven with lots of other examples, politics, culture, but then from time to time the narrative seemingly changes and uses descriptive language in what feels like strange or inappropriate places - feels super disjointed. It reads like a textbook, not an enjoyable read.

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 4 out of 5]

People called them Padma Lalli like they were one person.’

On 27 May 2014, in the village of Katra Sadatgani in Uttar Pradesh, India, two teenaged girls went into the fields to relieve themselves before bed. They did not return. In the early hours of the following morning, their bodies were found hanging from a mango tree in the orchard tended by their families. Their bodies were to remain in that tree for some time.

We know those two girls as sixteen-year-old Padma* and fourteen-year-old Lalli*. They were cousins and best friends. *We do not know their real names as there is an Indian law which requires that the identity of the victims of certain crimes is kept private. The irony: a law which affords victims more privacy in death than they were ever accorded in life.

In this book, Ms Faleiro draws on official documents, interviews, and news reports to try to establish a timeline of events within the context of the environment in which the girls lived. Ms Faleiro describes the physical setting: a poor village, with no running water or sanitation (which is why the girls had to relieve themselves in the field); a rigid family structure, shaped by caste, custom and religion; and mistrust of (often corrupt) authorities.

This is a confronting and uncomfortable read. The girls are left hanging in the mango tree because their families believe that this is necessary in order to obtain justice. And once the girls are removed from the tree, inept handling and forensic processes mean mistakes are made, and erroneous conclusions are reached. Contradictory information is given by those interviewed; assumptions are made. The death of the girls is devastating for those left behind. But at every step the investigation is hampered. Honour becomes more important than truth.

What really happened to Padma and Lalli? I doubt that we will ever know.

In writing about this case, Ms Faleiro illustrates the complexity of life in India, the prevalence of crimes against women, the impact of tradition, and how mistrust shapes both investigation and witness accounts.

I finished this book wondering whether the situation has improved since Padma and Lalli died. This is not an easy book to read both because of the content and the amount of detail provided. The detail is necessary but can feel overwhelming.

‘Finally, while this is a story about the marginalisation and subjugation of women in India, it is also about what it means to be poor.’

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Grove Press for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

[Natalie "Curling up with a Coffee and a Kindle" Laird · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could not get into this book. I was so intrigued by the blurb as I love true crime but this was way too heavy for me to follow. I was intimidated by the amount of people in the cast list at the start which is always challenging when you're reading on a kindle, and I feel like the plot should have gripped me at the start and the research about the lifestyle could have been woven through it to keep me engaged.

[Jyotsna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Triggering but eye opening.

But I wish the narration was much much better.

[Bhavsi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading The Good Girls by Sonia Faleiro is a harrowing experience. It is a tremendous feat of literary and investigative journalism.

The Good Girls investigates the real story behind the shocking discovery of two deceased teenage girls hanging from a mango tree in their village in Uttar Pradesh, India in 2014. Their story is told through the experiences and reports of their family members, neighbours, the government authorities, investigators and even power-hungry politicians.

The Shakya cousins’ story is not singular nor uncommon, however their story is widespread because their families refused to let their bodies be taken down from the mango tree where they were discovered until higher powers in India got involved. The families’ defiance shook their village and the rest of India, then the world as images of their dutiful daughters in their sinister state were shared on social media forcing vast media coverage.

Claims of gang-rape similar to the abhorrent Delhi bus rape case of 2012 and murder circulated. Witness statements were fabricated only to be withdrawn then fabricated again. Confusion, class wars and inappropriate handling of the case by unqualified and corrupted individuals created chaos in solving the case.

Sonia Faleiro covers all of the facts of the case as well as the lives of Padma and Lalli, the victims. She provides a detailed account of India’s political, economic and social landscape in relation to rural India and past, widely-known crimes against women specifically of the sexual nature. Her writing forces the reader to face the facts while simultaneously holding onto the hope of resolve only to be slammed with India’s warped justice system.

This non-fiction reads like a whodunit and pulls the reader in. This book is devastating and deeply distressing. But I am obligated to state that this is one story out of millions. It is unbearable to imagine the millions of girls who have heinous things done to them every day.

This book reminded me of why I read. I read to understand the stories that feel so alien to my own lived experience and yet they happen in my own homeland.

Women in our world, (developed or otherwise) must first survive that which should support them only to face a world that denies them basic human rights hindering their ability to dream. Or hope.

What kind of a life would you have without hope?

One of the best 2021 releases I’ve read.

The Good Girls is available in Canada on February 23rd, 2021. Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Random House Canada and Sonia Faleiro for this advance review copy.

[Deepa · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is the shame worth?
This the question that kept nagging me a day and night after I turned the last page of this book.
The image is chilling - that of two teenaged girls hanging dead by a tree branch in an open field. What could have caused this? Who must have lead to this? How did things come to this? These are the questions @sonia.faleiro sets out to answer in her book ‘The Good Girls.’ She tries to be the objective journalist looking for answers, but how “objective” can one be when such two young girls have been found hanging dead in a field. The girls had gone off to the field as their homes did not have proper sanitation facilities. Taken out of school the girls were expected to be married off soon. When they went missing their family feared more for their honour than for their safety. The police chowki was habitually incompetent and arrogant owing to the prevailing caste dynamics. But still, what could have caused this catastrophe where little girls had been unsafe in their own household?
Every few pages the book kept introducing me to a rural India I wasn’t prepared for. One where not only did women amount to nothing, but men of caste had their own daily headaches. Caste and gender had morally, ethically and financially corrupted our system and the rot was now out in the open.
In 2014, two teenagers, cousins, in Katra Sadatganj go missing one night. The next day they are found hanging by a tree in an open field. The imagery of this goes viral provoking the collective conscience of a people who had risen for Nirbhaya just two years back. However, all the “wokeness” had fallen short of preventing this incident and an incompetent system kept failing these girls time and again.
It is nearly impossible to not be enraged for Padma and Lalli after reading this. And so, I urge all of you to please please please be enraged for them, for us and for more to come because we deserve better!

[Mona Garg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you, Edelweiss, for my e-ARC.

I requested this book because it is set in India, my country of birth. I can relate to the culture...somewhat.

Based on the 2014 Katra case, the true story of the disappearance and death of two young girls, the first few pages consist of maps and a list of characters(so MANY characters that it often became difficult to keep track of them). Also, the excessive statistics made for dry reading.  However, I did enjoy the vivid descriptions of the characters and setting.

Although the case itself was disturbing, compelling and a story that needed to be told, its shock value was reduced by the inordinate amount of information.

[Lina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heard about this via NPR's Fresh Air. The author clearly put a huge amount of research into the book, which I'm sure must have been an arduous task given all of the conflicting reports over the course of the case, but the huge cast of characters made this overwhelming at times. There are some thoughtful insights about structural issues about investigations, policing, and the status of women in modern day India.

[Kaitlyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admire the reporting and telling of this important story that highlights inequality and violence against women in India as well as the idea of honor and purity. It’s a heartbreaking story that led to important conversations and policy changes within India.

I do think the organization of this story was a bit all over the place. There’s no much information presented in this book (which is great), but with how it was organized, it became hard to follow at times.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a tale of true crime with multiple themes and manifold players. Faleiro has done well to tame it into absorbable short sections, backed by facts about corruption, caste and culture that paint a fuller picture. There were times though I still felt frazzled by the vast field of facts.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to come.

[olga · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 bardzo dobra

[Vansa · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 2014, the (fairly hysterical and sensationalist ) Indian media started reporting on the deaths of 2 girls in Badaun, a district in Uttar Pradesh, that's a 6 hours drive from Delhi. There were constant replays of the extremely disturbing images of the girls' bodies, and it was reported as a gang-rape, with talking heads giving us their 2 cents worth day and night for about a month. Then, as usual, it was completely forgotten about. A year later, the CBI reported the results of their investigation and declared their deaths as suicides, and in the typical halfhearted manner of most reporting in India, we weren't told anything more. In a country where nearly 30 suicides are reported every day, the loss of these lives was added to those horrifying statistics. Sonia Faleiro, in the afterword to this book, writes of how this book started off as a book on sexual assault on women in India, when this happened, and you couldn't escape the coverage. She then decided to ground her research in this incident in Badaun, and travelled to India, spoke to as many people as she could, got access to as many records as were available. This book is the result of all those years of meticulous research, and it traces the incident in Badaun, from when it occurred, to the police investigation and the subsequent handover to the CBI. Through this, the author masterfully gives you an insight into how India truly functions, the long shadows of the caste system, over all aspects of life, from daily interactions to local governments to policing, and even forensics. I found this book a landmark in true crime-since it started off as a macroscopic work on sexual assault, the author shows you the very specific societal context that all led to this tragedy happening, and most importantly, how all of those affect policing, and can even lead to a perversion of justice. Her effective use of statistics drives the horror of it home, that this might be one devastating tragedy, but it will be repeated, when the social constructs that drove this remain the same. At no instance, however, does the reader lose sight of all the humans at the heart of this, their actions, and the fallout- the arrests made on the basis of caste, the disproportionate effect on women-restrictions on even the slightest of freedoms enjoyed by the women in the district, the need for some families to move fearing violent reprisals for a crime that didn't happen. Patriarchy and misogyny are so firmly entrenched that access to modern technology is firstly restricted mostly to men, and perverted to serve their needs. The benefits of wider access to new ways of thinking are completely ignored, because why would you want a world where your power was supposedly diminished by women no longer being under your thumb? The proximity of Badaun to the national capital hasn't made the slightest difference to centuries of social conditioning and the valorisation of "tradition" in Bollywood movies really hasn't helped either. Class and caste privilege could literally mean the difference between life and death.

As I type out this review ( from my position of privilege), there are news reports of a girl killed by her family because she married someone from a different caste. It's deeply distressing to read, more young lives lost because women are trying to assert their agency, and it's a tragedy that's considered the crime, and not murder. This is the true heart of darkness- modes of thinking that lead to the deaths of so many young people. this is a vitally important book.

Thanks a lot, NetGalley!

[Sonali Ekka · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 2014, I had heard about the Badaun case when news reports had hogged TV channels for days: first they said it was rape, then honor killing, then suicide. As always, the incident was covered endlessly & suddenly it all stopped. I didn’t even know the final verdict. Later, many other such incidents would be covered in vulgar details for weeks & stop abruptly. All that remained in my memory were: reported sexual crimes against women, UP, casteism, corruption & powerplay.

This book is an eye opener for those like me, who are drowned with a barrage of news about such incidents but don’t really learn the truth. Sonia Faleiro writes the story of the Badaun case. She writes in great detail about the two sisters & their families, their lives, and the exact sequence of events that happened. But this isn’t a whodunnit because the case was never simple to begin with. Sonia writes about the various factors which made this case complicated & practically difficult to solve: the extreme suppression of women; the prevalent societal norms & customs; the difficult rural life made worse due to poverty, illiteracy, unemployment & poor infrastructure; corrupt and ineffective leaders; underfunded police force, hospitals & investigative agencies; casteism; irresponsible news media.

Only the deceased sisters are the true victims in Sonia’s story, the only good people, the good girls. Everyone else is flawed to an extent, if not directly guilty of the murder/suicide.

This book is perfectly composed. It runs in sequence as the incidents occurred, but it digresses a little to cover related topics like the Nirbhaya case, or relevant subplots of other characters. Her narration style takes the reader straight to where the incidents happened. This is one of the most unbiased narratives of any true crime, that I have ever read. For every party involved, even the cops & the accused, Sonia has presented the good & the bad. This is also one of the most well researched book I’ve ever read. Sonia took 4 years on this book. Every chapter has a list of references in the end.

The sisters died in the dead of the night, but their bodies were left hanging long enough to become a public spectacle, as photos of their bodies were circulated online. It’s only fair that their stories get publicized too, so that at least Indians are aware of how women in their country live.

A highly recommended book.