For Your Own Good by Samantha Downing @smariedowning

Hi, Y’all! You have probably seen a few reviews for this exciting popular book by one of our favorite authors Samantha Downing buzzing around, so you all know Teddy is the teacher of the year!! He knows what’s best for his students and is tough on them for their own good!!! We had so much fun reading For Your Own Good Norma, and I are creating a bookish kit to pair with it for our September bookish kit with some discussion questions added in. We have some fun stuff we are including in it and think it one not to miss and will make for a fun discussion here on our blog.  Keep an eye out in Norma’s  Etsy shop for the kit and join in on our fun.

Brenda’s review

For Your Own Good is a playful, witty, clever, comical academic thriller with tremendous sinister characters, and it’s all about entertainment. Samantha Downing creates something wickedly fun and unique here that had me thinking about how she came up with it all. I wonder if there is a little satire added to make that outrageous fun. She takes a fresh spin on those entitled, privileged themes and creates some twisted dynamics between a teacher and his entitled students. 

Have you ever wondered how a teacher not from the same privilege might feel about teaching those entitled and privileged students who attend a prestigious prep school? Well, Samantha has you covered, and Teddy is not holding back on how he feels about his students. He lets us in on his devilish acts towards his students, and he is not going to let anything stop him from letting them get away with benefiting from their privilege. He has made some enemies, and some great tension and suspense is created with who will set a trap for him and how.

“He’s not the enemy. Never was. His goal for her, for all his students, is to transform them from selfish brats into something better.” ~ Teddy

It all comes together not how I expected, with a delicious twist that felt fitting and added to that outrageous fun to the story. I highly recommend it!  

Norma’s review

Disturbing, darkly humorous, and a zippy read!

Let me tell you!! FOR YOUR OWN GOOD by SAMANTHA DOWNING is quite the twisty and wicked thriller.

I immediately knew that this was going to be a fun and entertaining book for me but what I didn’t know was how weird this book was going to make me feel. At times I was having so much fun with it and at other times I just wanted to walk away. Now here’s the thing: it was such a chaotic and diabolical wacky book that I just couldn’t ignore and walk away from. It’s like I was hooked one minute and not the next. It was like a guilty pleasure. You don’t want to like it but you can’t help yourself because well those characters are so cunning and devious that you can’t help but be entertained by them. You just need to stay tuned to see what kind of shenanigans they are going to get themselves into and yup who’s going to be murdered next.

I was laughing out loud, creeped out (milk is NOT my thing), and entertained. I quite enjoyed how this one kept me guessing and how it all wrapped up. This was a cleverly layered story with a great storyline that I won’t soon forget.

Lindsay’s review

Wild, shocking and twisty!

If you’re looking for a fun, creepy, bonkers book to get lost in, this is it! It’s compulsively readable and highly entertaining in the most addictive, silly, crazy and ridiculous way!

This novel revolves around a prep school with devious and conniving staff and students. Every character had a sneaky, deceitful, evil side that kept me shocked and curious to see how they would fit into the twisted tale. I simply cannot pick who was the worst!

I loved the short, tension-filled chapters that were easy to breeze through. This book is one where you can simply sit back and be entertained without having to think too much. The story unfolds through third person narrative which I had trouble connecting with as I felt it kept me at a distance from the storyline. I also have issues with implausible scenarios and this novel had many which kept me from feeling fully invested. However, the characters are so extremely crazy and unlikeable that I just HAD to know what would happen next. Though this wasn’t a huge winner for me, it is well-loved by many early reviewers and I can completely understand why. Give it a try and see what you think – I promise you’ll have fun with it!

We received copies from the publisher!