I don't think any other Courtney Summers book will top Sadie for me as my favourite. I found this book abrupt at the beginning, throwing you immediately into the mystery of a teen girl's murder and how our main character, Georgia, discovered her body. Georgia teams up with the dead girl's sister to try to solve her murder while she also works at a mysterious lodge that her mother worked at when she was alive.

Georgia was an interesting character because she has this need to be admired; she loves when people tell her she should be a model/actress. This book had interesting plot twists that made the story go by quicker. But I definitely struggle with the ambiguity of Courtney Summers' writing at times. I don't love having to interpret what's going on, sometimes I just want to be told for sure what happened.

This definitely gave me some gritty Nancy Drew vibes so I would recommend it if you like Courtney Summers' writing and want a new sapphic mystery.

This was dark and honestly difficult to read at times, given the content--there's a lot of underage girls being taken advantage of, from literally page one. I enjoyed the creepy vibe, and the writing, and the mystery Georgia is kind of trying to solve of who killed Ashley James (she says she's trying, but really she's just trying to get her dream job.) I saw the final twist coming about a mile away, but I did like how the ending was handled. *
This handles some really dark material in a really great way. Georgia refuses to believe she's a victim even though it's incredibly clear she is (again from page one, this isn't a spoiler). A lot of that felt very real and I wish there'd been a little more character growth to address that. 
*
I would have liked this more if Georgia wasn't just so unbelievably naive. In addition to trusting all the wrong people, her life mission at 16 is to get a job at the Aspera resort, which she does but she's upset because her job is real, as opposed to being an "Aspera girl". I really thought I was misunderstanding what an Aspera girl was, but...it's basically what it sounds like and this girl is 16! I mean, I guess that's part of her character, but it was hard to root for her when I just wanted to shake her. *
 There's a clear message about predators that really was very powerful. All in all, I did really like this book, and was completely engrossed in the story.

This book does a great job exploring gender and sexuality as one young woman discovers the dead body of another and teams up with her sister to bring a killer to justice. Perfect for fans of Ashley Winstead's The last housewife and great on audio. This book will keep you on your toes and enrage you about the injustices of violence against young women. Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

4 stars. This novel dealt with very disturbing matters and it was difficult to read at times. Despite this I could not put it down! Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press Wednesday Books for the ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy. Unfortunately, I really cannot recommend this book. The plot had enormous holes, the main character made stupid decisions throughout the entire book, and although the book isn’t long, it just dragged. I really enjoyed Sadie, but this one was just a mess.

I could not get into this book. It felt shocking and I just was not in the right place for it. I loved Sadie by Summers but I didn't love The Project. I think maybe I'll steer clear of this writer from now on.

Compelling plot, but the characters were thinly written and felt distanced from the reader. Still suspenseful and gripping in a farfetched way.

Courtney Summers does what Courtney Summers does best in her forthcoming queer thriller, I'M THE GIRL: she shakes you out of your stagnant complacency whether you wanted to be or not. To borrow a line from her acclaimed previous novel SADIE, "this story begins how most stories do: with a dead girl."

I'M THE GIRL is not a nice book. It will take a toll and exact a cost from each reader it touches. Much like how life exacts a skin price from young women moving and growing in this world.

Juxtaposing a grisly murder of a 13-year-old with the elusive, private, and exclusive world of the Aspera Resort, Summers contrasts the glimmering gold of luxury with the rot lurking just beneath the thin veneer our society permits.to maintain plausible deniability when it comes to power, privilege, and the abuse of girls.

Georgia, our protagonist, is not a nice girl. She is not likable, and many readers will struggle to find a redeeming quality between the pages. However, to me, this is Georgia's best quality: she is unapologetically and unequivocally herself. She is surviving in the only way she knows how----consequences and your opinions be damned.

Georgia, for me, is the best and worst part of this story: she is what a beautiful girl without means has to do to survive, to claw her way out. She is the refracted mirror image glaring back at us, asking us if we accept the way things are, and if we do, how can we possibly pass judgment on her?

If you like stories where poor underage girls are groomed and taken advantage of then this story is for you. I did not enjoy this one at all. I did not like the abusive of power and how it felt like there was so resolution. I didn't mind that with Sadie but I needed closure for this one.

Absolutely adored this extremely huanting and dark sapphic story about the true power money and men have and all the dark and twisted things they can get away with

Unfortunately, this didn't work for me. I've loved Courtney Summers in the past, but perhaps I've grown out of YA. Which is fine, that doesn't at all mean this is a bad book. It just means it's not the right book for me personally

This book was so frustrating but in a good way. The main character made bad decisions. I wanted to shake her so bad. However, you sympathize with her and understand why she makes those decisions. This book tackles a lot of complex and serious issues: beauty, power, femininity, feminism, sex, sexual assault, grooming, sex trafficking, etc. It covered a lot, so much so that I think it could have been slightly longer OR written for an adult audience.

Courtney Summers is definitely an auto- read author for me.

16-year old Georgia is hit by a car and then stumbles upon the dead body of the 13-year old daughter, Ashley, of the town police chief. Luckily she is rescued by the owner of the elite Aspera, which helps Georgia pursue her dreams of becoming an Asperan Girl. Against her brother's wishes, she takes a job at Aspera and joins forces with Ashley's sister. Nora. Georgia sets out to find out what happened. But the deeper she digs, the more dangerous the secrets become.

I really enjoyed this book and flew through it in one day. I loved the building of the story and all the twists and turns. I also thought the spotlights on wealth divide were accurate. I did however, find some elements of the writing style to be confusing. For the most part I thought the characters were believable. but one thing that really confused me was Georgia's desperation to be found attractive by men when she was a lesbian. I know teens can be confused, but there was a lot of story built on her desperations to be seen as attractive by all kinds of men (not just attractive or powerful ones). I found the ending to be depressing due to the lack of resolution, but I respect it because it is unfortunately the most realistic ending.

Thank you NetGalley for an arc of this book in exchange for my honest review. I will absolutely read more by this author.

I was really excited to read I’m the Girl because I loved Sadie so very much. I truly, truly did.

Unfortunately, I didn’t love this one nearly as much.

I spent the first half of the book (other than the very, very beginning) thinking, “I just don’t care about you and Aspera.” I just didn’t. It was not relatable nor was it interesting.

The second half was a bit more exciting, but I still was just was not invested at all.

There were way too many gratuitous sex scenes (yes, I understand it was to show that these young girls are being sexualized at a young age, but not all of the sex had to do with that).

The plot was extremely predictable.

Some of it just didn’t flow well. I found myself re-reading passages because it made no sense with what just happened. I thought maybe George was drugged out for part of it, but she wasn’t. At least not that we know.

I hate to say it, but this story is weird and just not that enjoyable.

after a couple days of dragging myself through the convoluted slop of a plot i am so sad to rate this 2.5 stars
but the plot is just so weird and hard to follow
the characters are never really allowed moments to breathe or grow
and boy oh boy i needed georgia to breathe for several moments because this girl was acting so stupid and for what like WAKE UP!! GIRL STAND UP!!
her character motivations are so bad through the whole novel and not a lot of mystery solving ever actually happens
the way summers writes also left me very confused as she would jump time and place between chapters and it would feel super odd
there isn’t any grand moral that can be made w this book: it states some very shallow, obvious things about hierarchies of power and women being objects but never truly says anything of value
the queerness in this book also felt like tokenization?? why is georgia so obsessed w male attention if she’s a lesbian and why is her queerness used as an explanation/excuse for others actions i don’t get it

(4.5 stars)
Wow.

I've read and enjoyed Courtney Summers' writing before and I continue to enjoy it with this book. The two other books I've read had the same dark vibe but this one just took it to a whole other level. I'm the Girl is hard to read at times, actually a lot of the times. Summers' writing is gritty and dark. The beginning was a little hard for me to get into, plot wise, because I found it to be a bit slow and a bit confusing. Once things become a little clearer, I couldn't put it down. I thought it was almost like if Gillian Flynn wrote YA. The themes and messages of this book with grooming and predation of young women are tough to read but are necessary to read.

Highly encourage looking at trigger warnings prior to reading. Read at your own comfort level.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This was my first Courtney Summers novel and it was a *doozy*. The voice of the characters were so distinct. She really masters the deep inner voice & narrative we tell ourselves when we are young and traumatized to get through the moment....it was triggering AF tbh. Summers gave a beautiful content warning at the beginning of the book but I wasn't fully ready for how spot on it was.

This is a dark story with quite a few horrible encounters and situations. But it's so good at showing a really dark side of the world. Georgia is a young girl, 16, and is just really discovering the power she has with her beauty. Right away, the story starts with a disjointed accident and Georgia getting up from laying on a road and finding a dead body of a girl she knew.

From there, the story unfolds to show you the dark underside of a small town with a lovely rich man's Lodge and country club just up the road. The whole town wants to get in there because it's for the rich and famous, the "special" people. It's easy to see how kids would grow up hoping for the day they coul get to go in there.

It's hard to read Georgia's story at times. She just so young. And she just doesn't seem to realize or fully grasp what is going on but the reader can. We can see the warning signs, we can see the things her brother sees and keeps trying to warn her about. We can see the actual power structure and see the danger everywhere. It's a good, eye-opening story, but it's dark.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

I'm the Girl is a very dark book. The darkness works - or doesn't - to varying degrees of success, but it also meant that this wasn't exactly an enjoyable read.

For starters, the list of trigger warnings that should probably accompany this book is about a mile long. Courtney Summers pretty much jams every sort of terrible thing into the plot. As I said, sometimes the moments pack a punch, while at other points, they seemed forced in, more trauma for the protagonist for the sake of trauma. In a sense, all the terribleness builds to a pretty predictable conclusion: the ultra-wealthy are bad, actually. To be honest, I probably didn't need to slog through a story of murders and rapes and suicides and child porn to figure that out.

George, the main character and narrator, was similarly hit or miss in my opinion. At times, she's insightful and her frustrating complexity does ring true for a teenage girl hoping to trade on her looks to get out of a shitty small town. But she also came across as infuriatingly naive and even stupid at moments. Her poor choices pushed the boundaries of what was actually realistic, and her obsession with Aspera always felt a little hollow to me. The narrative choices of only revealing bits at a time meant that I had a tough time feeling any sort of connection with George, and never quite managed to immerse myself in her world. Without that, I struggled to feel any sort of sympathy for her when her poor choices led her down a predictably treacherous path.

In the end, despite my high hopes after loving Sadie, I'm the Girl just didn't land as well for me, and I was mostly just thankful to walk away from it when I finished reading.

3/5

I am a die-hard Courtney Summers fan. So it kills me to say that within the first few pages, I was questioning whether the book was going to be for me. I’m the Girl was loosely inspired by the Epstein scandal, and I’ll admit this was the first time I’ve hesitated before picking up a Summers book. But that’s what I search for - writing that doesn’t shy away from the gritty hard truths, and I’m the Girl is anything but shy.

When things were good, they were really, really good. The murder storyline was solid. The dynamic between George and Nora, electric. I also loved George’s relationship with her brother. Basically everything that took place outside of Aspera, I deeply enjoyed.

But once she steps through those gates… I had a really, really hard time with some of the character choices and I think that ruined the entire vibe for me. I’ll be the first to argue that YA books can be enjoyed at any age, my own experience proving that you can relate to the characters having been there once yourself. But I really struggled putting myself in George’s shoes. I just could not wrap my head around her obsession with Aspera. It’s easy to ignore at the start, I was young and wide eyed and dumb once too. But after what happened there early in the book, and what keeps happening, she just… keeps going back. There are reasons for this in the book, but I just… couldn’t.

The other glaring thing about this was, her brother knew things. Important things that went on at that place and he didn’t tell her until the very end. Yeah, he promised his mom, but I think she would have understood breaking that promise if it kept George from that terrible place!

Books like this are written to make the reader mad. To open their eyes. I get that. I love that. But this… seemed too gratuitous. Like it only existed to provoke that anger, and as someone who is already almost always angry, it didn’t hit the mark for me.

One thing the book did get right is the overall question of whether we accept the fact that wealthy people — usually men — can do whatever they want without consequences. We see it. It happens. And if, even after #metoo, there are people still not questioning it, still not speaking out against it, well, hopefully this book opens someone’s eyes.