I’ve always enjoyed Courtney Summers’ books from zombies to troubled youth. I’m the Girl introduces us to sixteen-year-old Georgia Avis whose recently lost her mother, made some bad choices, and discovered the body of a murdered thirteen-year-old girl. Suspense and heartbreak unfold in this coming of age thriller.

Georgia and her brother are getting by after losing their mother. Georgia is angry with her mother. Mostly because she feels her mother held her back. She told her no to certain things without explanation and now Georgia is hellbent on proving her mother wrong. So, of course, she is doing exactly what her mother didn’t want.

The story opens with Georgia in an unsavory situation and receiving a portfolio of modeling photos she hopes will make all of dreams come true. How and where she purchased them will be revealed, but not before they are stolen and she discovers the murdered body of Ashley James. Ashley is the younger sister of Nora and soon she and Georgia will begin investigating her death.

The tale will take us down a dark, twisted path as Georgia gains employment at a private member only club/resort and pushes to make her dreams a reality. We learn about her mother’s past, and the hours leading up to Ashley’s murder. Summers shines a light on the darker aspects of life in this realistic thriller.

Character growth, first love and more are found along the way in this well-paced thriller. Georgia will enter a world of privilege, wealth, and power where she’ll soon discover it’s not the perfect world she has imagined.

While not my favorite Summers story, I enjoyed the twisty vibe of this one and the romance developing between Georgia and Nora. The ending was bitter and heartbreaking. I’m the Girl was a thought-provoking, sometimes depressing and dark tale that highlights the darker side of small-town living and the powerful employer who controls it.

This book is all sorts of a fucked up train wreck in a disgustingly, addicting, haunting way. Courtney is no rookie at writing about darker topics, and I’m the Girl is no exception. It is horrifically brilliant.

“Asterism: a group of stars smaller than a constellation.”

At the start of the book, I’m like okay it’s Mrs. White, in the kitchen, with the revolver. Yet, Every time we derailed with a new detail my thoughts were thrown off track only to then circle back around. I felt so, so bad for all of our characters in this for so many different reasons. Some are mislead, some are losing everything, some are being manipulated, and some are just evil and have completely lost their way.

“…burying her face in her hands, and I don’t know what to do about a girl who has made her pain a fortress.”

I will say with the girl on girl play here, she knocked it out of the park. The relationship between Georgia and Nora is so organic and I loved watching it unfold. Even though both of them are going through such a rocky moment in live, they’re good for each other.

This is not a light read AT ALL. The end doesn’t give you that sugary “well, it all worked out” feeling either. However, it is dark but a read that spotlights some of the horrific things that are and absolutely do go on in our society. I think Courtney stayed right on pace with not shying away from tough topics, and she crushed this one.

I don’t always post trigger warnings because I think they can be spoilery however with this one I’d like to. Trigger Warnings: Murder, rape, scams, prostitution, drugs, underage “photography”.

Gosh this book was wild from start to finish. I listened to the audiobook of it and it was so compelling. Georgia's life is far from an easy one, having lost her mom and her sense of identity after waking up on the side of the road to find a 13 year old's body dumped next to her. After the trauma of that, she gets herself mixed up with some horrible people in an effort to redefine her worth. A story of nightmares brought to life, survival of the strongest (a teenage girl of girl), and shedding guilt over your traumas done to you, Summers wows readers with a harrowing novel in the post #MeToo era. Take your time with this one.

I loved that this was a queer thriller, I have not met a lot of books that focus on that and it made me so excited to read this book! I will say, I did not like this book as much as I like Sadie, but this was still a super fun YA thriller. This book covered so many really difficult topics especially for a YA, but I thought it was done well (grooming, sexual assault, abuse, and so many others). I think this book would have been so good as an audio book, just like Sadie was! This is not a book I would recommend to everyone just based on the content and how raw it felt, it brought tout so many emotions! Please beware of any trigger warnings.

This is one of those books that you’re not sure if you’re supposed to say you enjoyed it. It was filled with gruesome and hard-to-read topics, but the writing and storytelling were phenomenal.

We follow Georgie as she dreams of escaping poverty and wills her beauty to get her there. She dreams of being loved and understood and appreciated. So when she teams up with Nora, the older sister of a recently deceased girl, to try to find the killer, she starts to find the world she’s always dreamed of.

I didn’t love Georgie and I didn’t dislike her entirely, either. She was so naive and I felt so sad for her throughout. I wanted to just reach through the pages and give her a hug. This book is traumatic, it’s ugly, and it’s vicious. It will make you mad as it shows the power of wealth and social standings. Another great novel by Courtney Summers!

I loved "Sadie" and I have been hoping for another book that hit similar from this author. Unfortunately this wasn't it for me. I was well written, and a story that absolutely needs to be told, it just wasn't for me.

This book was interesting and very well-written. I would likely want to read more from this author and will recommend this to friends.

Courtney Summers broke my heart again. I’m the Girl is a beautiful, sad, furious and important novel. I’m glad I read it, and now I need about a dozen romcoms to clear my brain.

I’m the Girl is billed as a young adult thriller, though I’m not sure how I feel about the “thriller” label. It’s the story of Georgia Avis, a 16-year-old girl who is invited to work for Aspera, a private members club for famous and influential men. She also discovers the body of Ashley, a 13-year-old girl, on the road from her town to Aspera.

The book is partly a mystery as Georgia and Ashley’s sister Nora investigate Ashley’s murder. But really it’s also a literary novel that looks at abuse, grooming, consent, power, and wealth.

Georgia is such a well-written character, someone difficult to like but so easy to understand. As an adult reading this book, I can see every awful piece of manipulation from the adults around her, even as Summers writes the novel from Georgia’s own perspective. It’s incredible and disturbing.

This book is so beautifully written that even with the dark subject matter, it’s a pleasure to read (and I appreciated the romance between Georgia and Nora to give some brightness to the story). And I hope that I’m the Girl opens conversations with teen readers about consent and dealing with similar situations.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for my review copy of this book.

3.50 Stars. Super impressed by the writing but I wasn’t as wowed by the story as I was hoping to be. Ever since the book Sadie came out, I have been keeping my eye out for a Courtney Summers book to read. I’m not normally big on reading books that have a bunch of trigger warnings, but when a book in some ways mirrors the Jeffrey Epstein case, I’m not surprised it has tough to read subjects like sexual assault, grooming, and physical abuse. In this case I was up for the tough read because not only do I love YA, but because this book was promoted as a ‘queer thriller’ and I’ll say yes to those two words being together just about any time.

I found Summers’ writing style to be pretty unique and I loved it. I don’t know how to explain it any better but to say that she would go from almost explaining a scene, to putting you right into the scene with the characters. I don’t know if there is a technical term for her type of writing, but it’s different and I thought it was great. It took me a minute to get used to it but once I did, I was hooked and it made the book so easy to read even getting passed the awful parts.

While the trigger warnings were not as bad as I expected, they were still tough. One really bothered me and when it started I should have skimmed/skipped and I’m kicking myself that I didn’t. I don’t think Summers’ needed to add as much detail as a little less would have made the point. Anyway, I’m going to mention it encase people want to be able to skim/skip it so just skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to know. The main character, who is only 16 and also queer and not interested in guys, is manipulated by the powerful older man character into sex. It was the worst part of the book for me to read, and I think it was supposed to be. But the tough scenes do not end there, I just think because of the details it was the worst. This is YA, but if it can turn my 40 year-old stomach, I would suggest this more for high school age teens or for a younger audience maybe this is the kind of book parents should read/discuss with them.

I don’t know if you would call it a romance, but there is a sapphic relationship between the main character and one of the main-secondary characters, which was one of my favorite parts of the book. Both of these characters have a lot of baggage and wounds that need healing and these common circumstances bring them together. While I would not call it enemies to lovers but more like dislike to like, but watching nothing turn into friendships, that turns into feelings, that turns into something even stronger, I thought was one of the most powerful parts of the book. Eventually, they went beyond a teenage romance because these two need each other to really keep going.

While I talked about what I liked, and some of the tougher parts, that is where it kind of ends for me. As I mentioned above, the words ‘queer thriller’ was a big reason why I read this book. While I was happy about the queer part, the thriller part was really lacking. While there were one or two scenes that had a tiny bit of excitement, that is really it and to say I got any ‘thrills’ would just be a lie. The mystery part had so much potential that I was following it and I had my suspects lined up, but then that just kind of fizzed out. For a book that is so beautifully written, I found the mystery wrap-up to be oddly convoluted and unfortunately a letdown. And to be completely honest, I don’t know if the whole plot of the book every really went anywhere. I don’t know if I really got the whole point of the book except for some scenes that mirror famous rapists like Harvey and Epstein. Had this book come out before #MeToo, I think it would have shocked me to me core (in a good way), but after reading books like She Said and hearing the real accounts of Harvey’s survivors, I don’t think this book gave me the emotional punch I needed to wow me.

TLDR: In the end it was Courtney Summers’ writing that I fell in love with more than the book’s content. I can’t wait to read Sadie as I just want more of her unique and beautiful writing style. While this is a tough book to read trigger warning wise, that was not what didn’t work as well for me. I was prepared for a hard read, it was more that I was missing the thrills that I expected from a thriller and I thought the mystery plot was too convoluted in the end. I did really enjoy the sapphic relationship between the main character and a main- secondary one. It was a dislike to like, friends to something more, and it was so nice to watch something sweet develop in a book that was pretty depressing at times. This was not the wow book I was hoping for, but boy can Courtney Summers write!

An ARC was given to me for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

While the situations in this book are not fun to read about, I thought this was really well done. I am in awe of how blunt and raw this story actually is. Behind the words of this story lies the painful reality for too many women and girls. This is one of those stories that demands to be told.

One thing I think was done really well was the portrayl of sexual coercion. The situation we witness shows how sneakily someone can be coerced. In the book there are no outbursts of rage or pleading, he just talks his way around the situation to make it almost look like he is doing her a favor.

Overall, was it perfect? No it wasn't. But I do recommend this book for anyone who is looking for an dark thriller that will engage their mind and hurt their heart.

I have really enjoyed Courtney Summers' past books but really did not care for this one. It is extremely disheartening, dismal, depressing, and lacks any positivity. It is quite dark for a YA as well.

Georgie is a sixteen year old girl who is coming into her own and has a chance to live what she thinks is her dream. Of being wanted, being given attention, and being recognized for her looks. Then she finds a body in the woods, a girl who is three years younger and someone whose older sister Georgie is in love with. I don’t want to say much more other than this is a heartbreaking read. I remember being that age and wanting the power of being wanted or being able to get someone’s attention. This book takes it a few steps further with some very heavy topics. I saw someone say this is a bold, depressing book, and that is exactly what it is. Courtney Summers knows how to take a tragic, uncomfortable topic and turn it into a page turning tale where you just don’t want to stop reading. I will forever read novels by this author because of this.

Please check trigger warnings before reading.

Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for the opportunity to read this in exchange for my honest opinion.

Man, Courtney Summers really knows how to write a good book and strong female character!!

Georgia Avis hasn’t had the easiest life and that doesn’t change when she takes a job working for the wealthiest couple in town at Aspera. After befriending Nora, the sister of a slain girl she’s stumbled upon, they set out to find her killer. And what she finds while working at Aspera makes everything too crystal clear to fathom.

I loved Georgia s character. Although she was a teenager, she was strong and very head smart. She stood up for herself and even though she found herself in a few precarious situations, she used them to her advantage and made herself a stronger person for it.

Courtney Summers is well-known for her bleak and gritty YA novels that handle difficult, taboo topics and I’m The Girl is no different. With a plethora of unsettling content warnings and a philosophy best summed up as Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here, this isn’t a book that will suit all readers. Brace yourself to feel uncomfortable, shocked and sickened at the situations depicted within.

The author’s last two releases Sadie and The Project were both focused on a girl desperately trying to uncover the truth behind her sister’s disappearance, and I’m The Girl is a variation on the same theme. This is the tale of troubled teenager Georgia Avis, an underprivileged white girl in the care of her older brother after their mother passed away. While he does his best to provide and care for her, Georgia has that feeling of invincibility that teen girls often do and winds up in one compromising situation after another, displaying zero sense of self-preservation in her unswerving ambition to work at the nearby exclusive and remote resort Aspera. This is against her brother and her late mother’s wishes, but fuelled by the need to prove herself worthy of being an ‘Aspera girl’, Georgia stubbornly pursues it nonetheless by stealing over four grand from Tyler to fund an explicit photoshoot and heading to Aspera in the hopes of securing a position there.

On the way, Georgia is struck by a car and as she struggles to make it to Aspera while injured, she is sidetracked by the discovery of 13-year old Ashley’s broken, violated body in a ditch. The prevailing presumption is that the killer knocked Georgia off her bike after abandoning Ashley’s body, which brings her older sister Nora into Georgia’s orbit. From the blurb, my expectation was that this would be a murder mystery with the two girls investigating Ashley’s death, however that turns out to be a side-plot with minimal focus so it would be a good idea to adjust your expectations accordingly to avoid disappointment. Georgia never really shows a strong desire to work with Nora to unmask the killer, it comes off as more an excuse to spend time with her crush; the couple clues she finds are either by chance without any intention on her part to find a hint to the killer’s identity or she wilfully blinds herself to the warning sirens and withholds evidence.

The real heart of the story is Georgia’s quest to make it as an Aspera girl, which she sees as the ultimate pinnacle of achievement, again without heeding any warnings that suggest a sordid underbelly to that role at Aspera. Georgia is hardly naïve or sheltered, her ignorance appears to be deliberately self-inflicted based on the unfortunate belief that she can wield her beauty as a tool to manipulate men without realising that the worldly older men in positions of power over her are the only ones who win when she uses her body to influence them. There is a vast gaping chasm between Georgia’s perception of the abusive situations she ends up in compared to the reader’s horrified identification of the many ways in which the men (and a female accomplice) around her groom and take advantage of her.

I’m The Girl functions as an effective cautionary tale, showing how girls who are exploring their sexuality and think they’re in control can quickly get in over their head when surrounded by the immoral and depraved elite who believe they can take what they want without consequences. But it’s a very dark and depressing read that doesn’t offer much hope or any sort of silver lining; this book depicts a vulnerable overconfident teenage girl suffering one traumatic event after another without offering much in the way of insightful social commentary or a fresh deconstruction of rape culture and the patriarchy that might provide a meaningful message.

Raw, brutal and emotional, this book is recommended for readers who aren’t looking for an escapist story to block out the real world, but those who are willing to be bluntly confronted with all the ugliness and horrors that our world can inflict on young innocent girls. Read it and weep.

The vibe of this book is very much patriarchal sex slavery cult meets Lolita. I wouldn’t have been nearly as uncomfortable with the story if the girls weren’t teenagers. I imagine this is a little like how Jeffry Epstein and Ghisaline Maxwell operated. I wouldn’t really classify this as a YA book because of how ambiguous the lines were when it came to grooming. I know most teens are naive about the subtlety and complexities of grooming and I feel like the relationships in these books could be easily romanticized by young people.

this one wasn’t my cup of tea, and I think it had to do with the genre.

it’s advertised as a YA mystery, but it definitely reads in terms of plot line as a NA more adult side of a thriller. however, the writing style didn’t match and felt like a beginning YA author. it was a very mix and match scenario when I was reading and it made me not want to continue.

however, I really enjoyed the story and how all of the disappearances and murders were connected to the mysterious aspera. this definitely had true crime elements added to it, and the enjoyment of following a teenager along to solve a crime was thrilling … but a little far-fetched and misguided.

I would definitely read books by this author in the future, but this one wasn’t for me and my style.

rating: 2 stars
wine pairing: napa valley chardonnay

I found this to be a bit of a frustrating read. My main frustration came from main character Georgia, who somehow loses her mother, discovers the body of a raped and murdered child, and is hit by a car but also remains tremendously, hopelessly, constantly naive; I know that characters in a book shouldn't generally act like they know what genre they're in, but Georgia doesn't even really act like an average human, instead telling whatever gut instinct she has to go screw itself as she traipses through empty parking garages (calling out the classic horror movie, "Hello?") and wanders through her boss's private spaces like she couldn't possibly get in trouble for it. More than anything, she felt like a vehicle for the Themes and Issues that the book was discussing rather than an actual person. I was also somewhat let down by the lack of actual investigation/mystery (perhaps if love interest Nora had been the main character, things might have been different) and by the way the world didn't really seem fully rendered - the only characters were essentially the ones who appeared on the page, and it made the whole thing feel a bit empty and underdeveloped. The pacing seemed quite off, most of the narrative following a slow build but then with a lot of revelations packed very quickly together toward the end, and a very nebulous and unsatisfying conclusion to show for it. Extra frustrating that it was well-written, but these other factors kept it from truly engaging me. Older teens or those who like darker fiction or true crime might enjoy.

3.5 stars!
Georgia finds the body of 13 year old Ashley, the daughter of a local police officer, on the side of the road. She is hit by a car upon her discovery and ends up in the hospital. As she recovers, Nora, Ashley’s sister, reaches out and Georgia decides to help her figure out what happened to Ashley. Georgia also gets a job at a resort that is for the extremely rich and elite called Aspera. She soon realises being an Aspera Girl isn’t everything she thought it would be.

Summers can definitely write a gritty YA book. I know she gets criticisms for the graphic nature of her scenes, but her books are real. There is definitely a trigger warning here for sexual assault as it comes up several times. The initial setup really seemed promising but the story just wasn’t that cohesive. There were many floating parts and some never fully connected to the plot. Georgia was part of the LGBTQ+ community which I always love to see.

WOW. Stunning and unique, this one will shock you. “Disturbing” would be putting it lightly. This one is going to haunt me and stick with me - a book hangover that requires a light palette cleanser after for sure. This reads more like a “novel about a young adult” than a “young adult novel” in terms of content and themes. 4.5 stars, rounded up. Thank you to Wednesday Books and Courtney Summers for the Advance Review Copy in exchange for my free and honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

I am a big Courtney Summers fan. I love her writing. I love her ideas. I love her characters and how she does not give a fuck if people find them unlikeable. She knows how to tell a story and it sucks me in every single time. I'm the Girl is no exception. It is gripping and intense. Heartbreaking and frustrating. I don't know if this will make sense but as sucked in as I was, it was still a really hard read.

Will you feel uncomfortable reading this? Maybe. I did, more than once. But the uncomfortableness is worth it. At least it was for me.

As always, I can't wait to see what Courtney Summers writes next.