Sophia Hepworth has never led the life of a normal teenage. She’s always been on the move, traveling the world with her parents because her dad works for the United States government. Her father has trained her in extreme survival skills and taught her to always be on-guard. So when her parents tell her that their life on the move is over and they want to settle down in a small, rural, Montana town she has a little trouble adjusting. Is there really someone following her or has she just been scarred by recent events? Nothing makes her want to believe her new reality can last more than meeting Aksel, a good looking guy who always seems come across her when she’s in need of help. The closer she gets to Aksel though the more certain she is he is hiding something from her. As the walls start crumbling on her new reality, Sophia will learn Aksel is not the only one with something hidden in his past. Who will she be able to trust when it seems like everyone is lying?

VERDICT is that this book had a really intriguing plot line that ultimately ended up falling a little flat for me. I am always down for a YA novel with a fierce female lead, but there was something about Sophia’s story line that felt a little too contrived for me. For such a strong female (with some pretty kick ass survival skills) she found herself in one too many predicaments where Aksel came to her rescue. She was set up to be strong and independent but it fell a little flat for me in the end.

I really enjoyed parts of this book but the action scenes near the end were way too long and unbelievable. It just fell a little short for me.

In large part, this is a pretty standard thriller. Think of it like an entire family of Jason Bourne. While it starts out as a fish out of water story, a girl used to political intrigue and globe trotting learning to adjust to "normal life" in the United States while coping with trauma in her past. When their past interferes in their present, the plot abandons all of those early themes. In fact, the idea that she needs to learn to relax, to not be constantly on her guard, is what puts the family in danger. What we learn from it, then, is that one can never truly relax. It takes a sharp turn from contemplative to standard thriller, with a central focus on physical threats and old feuds. The characters, while interesting, are not convincing as real teens. A solid beach read, but I don't imagine it would hold up to close scrutiny.

This book had a lot going on, and left me confused for parts of it. The premise was exciting and Sophia’s life was definitely not boring, but the relatable aspect of it was lacking. A couple times I caught myself going “what on earth doesn’t this girl do??”. Her friendships and romance felt a little too rushed and that created some plot holes for me. Overall, I liked it but it didn’t blow my mind either. If you want just an action packed YA, with a little fluff, for your escape. This is the book for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a spy thriller about a young woman from a secretive family who has never really lived anywhere. When she's dropped into ordinary American life in Montana, she can't shake the feeling that the mysterious boy she meets in the woods knows something about her.
I really liked Sophia, though she doesn't really seem to have character traits beyond being a beautiful genius. I definitely was judging her parents the entire book- I don't care how secretive your job is, your kid needs therapy and she has PTSD. If you just let your child suffer through flashbacks, you're bad parent.
This book is kind of all over the place, but an enjoyable reading experience nonetheless. I kind of wish the end was clearer- it isn't the kind of book served by an opaque ending, and that's kind of what we get. Sophia might be a good intelligence operative, but is it what she wants? I'm not sure if she's going to chose that life to be with the boy she loves, or try to have a normal one.

This book is a debut novel, which means there is a lot of room for author Tiffany Rosenhan to grow. Unfortunately, this first one did not hit the mark.
I love the idea of a thriller aimed at a YA audience. It seems like there are not enough of those, and there were some interesting concepts toward the end of the book. It was also a relatively fast read.
However, there were a number of problems. First, the book had a hard time striking the tone of thriller. The action could be messy and the pacing was off, making it less thrilling than it could have been. The YA teen romance elements often did not mesh well with the intrigue, spy adventuring.
The characterization was also lacking. The main character's personality seemed to be mainly that she has lived many places. She frequently corrected people and talked excessively about herself, which would be fine if that was a character point. However, everyone around her acted as if this was charming rather than frustrating in the way it when people act like this. Unfortunately, it felt like the book was unaware of the character's problems and people around her treated her like she was absolutely the best person. The character also was written as if someone as well educated and traveled as her would have no idea about the most basic American concepts. For example, a scene where she doesn't understand eating hamburgers even though those are wildly available throughout Europe as well.
The main problem though is that this book tackles some heavy topics, terrorism, gun usage, and PTSD specifically. Both of them were not handled with the care necessary. It is challenging to write an effective plot about international terrorism, however, this read at times as offensive. To make the villains in her story one dimensional Islamic extremists is problematic. The author's choice to use a real terrorist organization, but just never mention that they are Islamic extremists does not make it read as less problematic (it just made a lot of the choices read as dog whistles). I am not suggesting this was the author's intention. I do not know the authors intention, but writing a book like this means having to carefully think through the optics of one's choices. This book did not do that. Instead, it settled for a fairly basic anti-terrorism plot that read like something from the 80s without the nuance something like this requires.
The book is also explicitly glorifying violence and gun use in a way that always reads poorly for me, but especially in a novel where the protagonists are teenagers.
Finally, the PTSD depiction was wildly inconsistent. Early in the book everything about all of Europe was a trigger. That kind of generalization of PTSD trigger is not something we see in the mental health field and made her read as xenophobic at times. However, it was inconsistent, because other times she loved everything European.
Overall, I do not think the author did not have bad intentions, but a lot of these things felt like they were not thought out.

4.5 Stars

If you’re in the mood for a suspense-filled novel that will have you white-knuckling it from cover to cover, look no further than Tiffany Rosenhan’s Girl from Nowhere.

Sophia Hepworth is basically a teenage Sydney Bristow (Alias). She’s smart, has always been a good girl but there’s a spark just beneath the surface, and she’s prepared for anything. Well… almost anything.

Just like Sydney, Sophia has always believed what her parents have told her, but it turns out, they’ve been keeping her in the dark.

Sophia has spent her life moving from country to country — 94 to be exact. She can speak 14 languages and can assemble her gun in 20 seconds. The official story is that her dad’s a diplomat, but there’s always been more to the story.

When her father retires and moves the family to a small Montana town, Sophia finally has the chance to live like an American teenager. A normal life. Friends. A boyfriend. It’s a nice dream. If only…

Girl from Nowhere plays out like a movie. Author Tiffany Rosenhan’s prose and pacing are as cinematic as it gets. As her bold and adventurous spy story unfolds, you can’t help but be impressed by the scope. I can only imagine the sticky note map she must have had to keep everything straight. There were a few minor plot holes and elements that seem a touch too convenient, but nothing that gets in the way.

Girl from Nowhere is the bold book I needed right now. It’s fast. It’s engrossing. And it jolts you from your quarantined funk. This is Rosenhan’s debut novel, and I can’t wait to see what she writes next.

**2.5 Stars**

If you can cast aside realty, the Girl From Nowhere isn't a half-bad story. I think the main thing bringing this story down is the high school setting. If the characters had been in their early twenties, versus 16/17/18, a lot of the plot points wouldn't have felt so incredibly unrealistic. Sophia was a likable main character with a very complicated life and for the most part I could get behind her struggles and her battle with PTSD, but there were some plot holes—ones that were used to give length to the story, when all they did instead was discredit her skill and history—that were rather blaring. Rosenhan can write, and she does action quite well, but I think what this story set out to do was a bit over the head of what the characters could carry. As an adult political thriller? That's where this should've been. As it is, I still finished it—and that's saying something since I am a heavy DNFer—and enjoyed the twists it had to offer, but the believability remained a constant struggle.

Sophia and her parents go into hiding in Montana after some unspecified traumatic incident in Instanbul. (Sophia's parents have dangerous jobs in some governmental agency.) Sophia enrolls in a local school, where she meets a mysterious and enigmatic guy and quickly falls in love with him.

Sophia is just your average teenager. You know, one who speaks a dozen languages, is an expert markswoman, triple black diamond skier, effortlessly smart, and trained in hand to hand combat. When a school dance rolls around she suddenly has trunks full of couture gowns that magically fit all her friends, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants-style. I did find her a little hard to relate to, though her PTSD helped make her more sympathetic.

The first part of the book is all romance and vague hints that Sophia might be in danger. The plot kicks more into gear during the book's second half, which is one action scene after another and moved a little fast for me to follow. I do love thrillers but to me the pacing felt off in the one, with the first part of the book feeling a little slow-paced and the second moving at breakneck speed.

On the plus side, this is very different from the typical YA, so if you do enjoy political thrillers, give it a try!

My favorite part about GIRL FROM NOWHERE is the pacing. All the way through, it has this tense, cliff’s edge feeling to it. I needed to know what was going to happen to her. I loved her struggle between her instincts for protection and her desire to be a normal girl in a small American town.

The toughest part of the book, for me, is that I found it hard to buy into the idea that she’d be as knowledgeable and trained as she is and only be a teenager. Being fluent in the number of languages she was, and on top of that being an expert on weapons, combat, wilderness survival, etc. It seemed like she would have had to be older to have expertise in ALL those things. Aksel seemed like he should have been older, too.

For the most part, though, I was happy to give into a willing suspension of disbelief and follow the wild ride of the story through all its twists and turns. I think fans of GENUINE FRAUD by E. Lockhart or FLOW LIKE WATER by Mark Burley will enjoy this world-crossing, intense book.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

CW: PTSD, gun violence, terrorists, death of a parent

READ. THIS. BOOK. I seriously read 93% of it in one day and the only reason I didn't finish the last 7% is because it was past my (very early) bedtime. The whole story was super engaging and I could hardly put it down. I honestly can't believe this is a debut novel because it is so well done. I loved the characters, the storyline was WILD, and there were so many unexpected twists and turns.

Pure escapism. Like a female Alex Rider. Sophia has spent her whole life being trained to be a secret agent. She has remarkable powers of observation, speaks 14 languages, can shoot a gun, thinks clearly in moments of duress AND she looks really good in a designer evening gown. My students will love this book!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me the opportunity to read this early!

Sophia is a teenager finally settling in Montana with her past in the past. Or so she thinks. Eventually, it catches up with her. Not before finding love, and friends, and the normalcy she so desperately craves. Her life has been anything but normal.

This book was full of a bit of love, lots of suspense, and unknowns. It was the perfect mix of action and teenage life.

I loved this debut. This is one author that I look forward to reading more books from. She has a clear voice that draws you in and characters that stick with you. Engaging and entertaining this is one debut book you should definitely check out. Happy reading!

I couldn't get into this one. It seemed way too far-fetched of a storyline. Plus, it was more of an action story than a romance or girl adjusting to a new school story.

Girl from Nowhere starts quite fast – we’re thrown headfirst into Sophia’s new life. She and her diplomat parents have just moved to Montana after years of traveling abroad. We get to watch Sophia (struggle to) adapt to the life of a “normal” teenager. I enjoyed the beginning and discovering more about Sophia’s past as she drops details when talking to new friends and through flashbacks.

But then we meet Aksel, Sophia’s love interest and that’s where things start to go a little downhill.

I just didn’t find Aksel interesting as a character – he was a little too perfect. And Sophia and Aksel’s romance was not as good as advertised. It felt a bit like insta-love but less believable. Come on, where’s the chemistry, the fun banter, the awkward interactions? It went from 0 to 100 pretty quickly.

Not to mention, I was honestly quite confused while reading Girl from Nowhere and left a bit confused after I finished. And in this case, “confused” is not a synonym for “intrigued” or “curious”. It is straight up, head-scratching, “huh???” confusion.

One of the causes for all the confusion is all the info dumps that occur. Throughout the first half of the book, bits and pieces of Sophia’s past and her parent’s work are sprinkled into the story. That strategy works well at first to create genuine intrigue and mystery. But then instead of getting crumbs of information, huge wedding cake size parts start falling into the plot. Seriously, there’s an entire chapter of dialogue purely dedicated to Sophia’s backstory. Not only are the info dumps a bit awkward, but they also add confusion and more questions. Instead of helping me connect some dots, I’m stuck trying to figure out how the new details fit in with everything else.

Another cause of confusion is basically everything that went down in the second half of the novel. Girl from Nowhere really starts picking up then, and we go from something Gallagher Girls-esque (think teen spy school) to something out of the Bourne movies (action-thriller movies about a CIA assassin).

I’m kind of confused on how we made that transition, but okay, whatever, it’s fun. I like a bit of adventure. For the most part, I enjoyed reading about all the action that went down, but the more action sequences I read, the more things didn’t add up. Even my overactive imagination and spy/thriller/mystery-loving brain had trouble making sense of things.

GIRL FROM NOWHERE requires a suspension of disbelief that I just couldn’t muster. The action was outlandish, the plot had too many gratuitous twists, and the romance was unrealistically fast and deep. I couldn’t get myself to like any of the characters, because their personalities were overwhelmed by the ridiculous circumstances surrounding them. The only reason this gets two stars instead of one from me is that I’m sure that there are readers who would enjoy the pace and the drama. But it was much, much too far-fetched for me to enjoy.

Girl from Nowhere is billed as an action/romance; this is true, but in a very delineated way. The first half of the book focuses on establishing the romance and the second half of the book is almost exclusively action.

The romance is a bit of a struggle from the reader's perspective with weak dialogue, the protagonist's early odd and combative interactions with Aksel (the male lead), and an excessive focus on the attractive physical features of Aksel. A sense of real chemistry never really is achieved, which is odd because there are reasons these two characters would be attracted to each other. Perhaps it is the characterization of Sophia in the first part of the book. Although she is recovering from a trauma, it is incongruent that such a well-traveled, trained individual would have such a motor mouth and drop so much information randomly and behave so erratically. In fact, the competent Sophia in the last part of the book seems almost like a different person. Perhaps the author was trying to show Sophia achieving a turning-point in her recovery, but it just seemed too different without a sufficient transformation bridge and added to the feeling of two books and two different characters. A few other aspects and inconsistencies in the first half of the book added to a stilted cadence.

However, the action section of the book flies by in a Bourne Identity or Mission Impossible-style barrage of events, encounters, and escapes (cue the motorcycle chase). The author's writing is stronger and fluid in this arena, and there are some satisfying and surprising little twists in the plot. Even when Sophia takes some impulsive action, it feels authentic given the tensity of the situations and the emotional wringer she has been put through in a short period of time. Most questions are answered and only a few minor holes are left unfilled; this book doesn't feel like a set-up for a sequel, but it ended in a way such that a sequel could be an option.

This novel definitely requires the reader to suspend their disbelief on page one, but it is easy, escapist fiction and a don't-take-me-too-seriously beach read that is a quick read perfect for checking out of reality for a bit.

Review of a Digital Advance Reading Copy

Thank you to @tiffany_Rosenhan and @netgalley for this digital e-arc. I received this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Plot:
Sophia has lived quite an exciting life. Since her mother and father are US Diplomats, she has moved around to countless countries and speaks multiple languages fluently. When her family moves to Waterford, Montana, she thinks everything is “over”. Her mother and father tell her there is nothing to worry about and that they have “retired”. However, her past continues to haunt her as she tries to acclimate to life in a small town. As she tries to fit in, she finds a group of a couple friends, and starts dating the mysterious senior named Aksel. Their spark is immediate as they both have skills that most teenagers would not. However, things from her past seemingly start to creep up. Sophia tries to push them out of her mind and away, but eventually she is forced to question everything she has ever known.

Personal Opinion:
This novel gripped me from the FIRST PAGE! I actually told my husband that it feels like I am reading/living in a Jason Statham action movie. This book is action packed with quite a few corkscrews thrown in! I honestly LOVED it! It has action, a little romance, and definitely some thrilling, edge of your seat moments! It is perfect for students grades 7 and up! Highly recommend! It is out next tuesday, July 21st, 2020, so go pre-order today!

An adreline rush from start to finish. This book is an epic roller coaster ride with great characters, locations, and plotting. It reads like a movie and I wish I could watch it!