I found this book a little hard to get into at first because I was a bit confused, but once the story hit the ground running I was in.

I will say that I came to this book NOT having read Sadie, though Sadie has been on my radar and my TBR. Therefore, I had no expectations for comparing this to Summer's other work. I was here for the vibes: murder, terrible people, and explorations of the seedy underbelly at the intersection of priviledge and gender. When I learned that this particular story was based on Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell I knew I had to read it.

Overall, it delivered. The main character, Georgia, is a complex character with a complex history. She wants to be a model. She want to be bigger than she is expected to be. In her town, the ticket to this lifestyle is becoming a Aspera girl -- the girls who work at the local resort that caters to people with extreme wealth and priviledge. Aspera girls are beautiful and get to spend time with powerful people, potentially giving them connections to fame and money. However, Georgia discovers the dead body of 13-year-old Ashely with connections to the Aspera world and suddenly Georgia is thrust into a world of wealth, secrets, and some pretty disturbing practices.

Georgia is invited to work at Aspera, which is her dream come true. Simultaneously she is investigating Ashley's murder with Ashley's sister, Nora, as the two girls try to figure out what series of events would result in such a young girl being found beaten to death on the side of the road.

Be aware that pretty much everything in Georgia's journey, both in her work at Aspera and in her murder investigation, is FULL of trigger warnings: sexual assault, grooming, rape, suicide, substance abuse -- the list goes on and on. My main complaint about this novel, and what keeps it from being 5 stars, is that the story focuses on the shocking content over fully developing the murder mystery. Teens will love the grittiness of this and won't notice, but the mystery plotline does lack some finesse. I was confused at points, especially in the beginning, and felt like some of the subplots suffered from strange pacing issues. But don't get me wrong -- this is still an excellent read and one I will recommend to students and mystery/thriller fans of all ages. Summers' story has an edge and believability that many YA thrillers are missing (and that is SO HARD to pull off in YA!) and I can see why her stories get so much buzz.

ALSO, and I hate that this is so tacked on to the end here, but do note that this is a QUEER story! I personally love when we get a queer story in genres outside of contemporary/romance, so I will always note with a thriller or mystery has a little bit of WLW swooning on the side. Georgia is queer and explores that side of herself in this novel, and this plotline is juxatposed against the exploitative and abusive sexual power dynamics found in Georgia's dealings at Aspera. I thought this element of the story was particularly well done.

I rated this book 4/5 stars and recommend it to folks who love reading complex character with complete motives, queer stories, and who can handle reading about some of the darkest parts of society. The content here is not for the faint of heart and will make people angry, as it should.

I, unfortunately, did not finish this book. I was very confused about what was going on in it. I loved Summers' last book and I thought this one would be along the same lines as it. It started off fine but then all of a sudden I was like "what is going on?" I seemed like the book started off with one story and then kind of forgot about it and went into another one. It seemed disjointed to me and wasn't intriguing enough for me to continue.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book. I tried to get into it but could not finish. The writing was choppy and the story did not grab me.

This book took forever to get through due to the intense, and disturbing subject matter. Trigger warnings for sexual assault. The story was well written. It was difficult to read at times and I found myself stopping frequently to get some air from the subject.

Georgie is a 16 year old girl who comes from poor surroundings and the key to freedom and the lifestyle she dreams of is her beauty. She accidentally comes across the dead body of a young girl. From that moment on her life drastically changes.

This was a heavy read but it was well done. Ultimately I have mixed feelings about it. I’m curious to know what other people think.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

What a disturbing read.

In some places, it really aggravated the anxiety I was already feeling but I also felt so confused throughout the book about some general stuff. Like there are things that are still not super clear to me even though I have finished the book and I wish there was more clarity so I could fully understand some of them, while others took quite the time for me to realise what was going on.

Another thing is, this story did not feel as gripping as Sadie by the same author so my inattention might have contributed to the confusion I was experiencing. I was just breezing through the story without really being interested in where things were going, and that took away my appreciation significantly.

Overall it was great but I guess having experienced Sadie, I know that the author could do much better and this story obviously has so much potential, but it didn't quite meet expectations and left me somewhat disappointed on the front of how well I connected with the book.

Wow! What a great and provoking book. This book kept me on my toes and made me think and wonder. I couldn't believe the ending. Solid 4 star read!

Just finished the ARC of this book by Courtney Summers, set to publish on September 13th, and I'm a bit conflicted about my feelings on this read. On the positive side, Summers' writing itself is articulate & passionate, deeply atmospheric at times, and yet, the arc and pacing of the story, especially the ending, left much to be desired. This felt like an unfinished early draft rather than a book that's going to be out in the world in less than three weeks, and while I appreciated where Summers seemed to be leading us with this latest novel, ultimately I didn't feel that she took us there in a satisfying way.

*Thank you to NetGalley & Wednesday Books for this ARC.*

This book honestly creeped me out and not in a good thriller way. Telling a girl she has the power to stop a man from raping her is just disgusting. I obviously don't know if the author explains that this female character's view is WRONG later, but that's what got me to just stop with this book. What I read of it just left me feeling gross.

I loved Sadie! But this book was just terrible. The MC was highly unlikeable. I think you were supposed to feel sorry for her, but honestly, I didn't really. She just seemed like an entitled poor person. who thought she deserved better because she was attractive, WTF. As someone without a lot of money, I'd never assume, "well, if I were more attractive... I'd be rich!". Just because you're attractive does not translate into an entitlement to be rich. NO ONE has the entitlement to have money. Some people are lucky enough to be born with money or have an easy or harder path to wealth, but most people will still be around where they were born.

I did like Nora and Tyler. But they couldn't make up for Georgia.

Also, Georgia's entitlement overruled any thought of the "thriller" element, which was mostly ignored for Georgia's attempts at social climbing.

This book is hard to review - incredibly powerful but also incredibly uncomfortable, which was the point.

Strong TW for grooming and SA.

Georgia discovers the body of 13-year-old Ashley on the road. Ashley's older sister, Nora, is determined to find her killer. As she and Georgia strike up a friendship and try to discover what happened to Ashley, Georgia begins to pursue a job working at the glittering Aspera, the highly exclusive, members-only resort that looms over their small town. She's willing to give up anything to escape her small town, but beauty and glamor come at a price.

To be clear, there is a mystery, and there is some sapphic relationship, but this is a dark thriller that primarily examines poverty, predators, and power.

Having also read Courtney Summers' book Sadie, Summers clearly knows how to write nuanced, complicated, and realistic teenage girls. Georgia isn't always likeable, and she doesn't always make good decisions, all of which makes her painfully 16. The author captures the vulnerability of being a young female on the cusp of adulthood, feeling almost grown while still being a child - still needing protection while not wanting it. Georgia's narration is simultaneously filled with both razor-sharp observation and naivety. She wants certain things so badly that she can't focus on anything else.

Although not explicitly mentioned, this book pulls on real world news as an inspiration. It's as disturbing in fiction as it is in real life because the truth is that the events of this story can and do happen. This is an unsettling book because it's about unsettling things, and Courtney Summers doesn't shy away from that. Powerful, visceral, and gritty, this is the sort of book that you still think about even after you walk away.

This is the way the world is. Do you accept it?

Sixteen-year-old Georgia Avis wants everything out of life, but poverty and hardship has kept her from the things she knows she deserves. After stumbling upon the dead body of thirteen-year-old girl, Georgia teams up with Ashley's older sister Nora, to find the killer before he strikes again -- bringing her into a world of wealth, prestige and danger.

I had a really hard time evaluating this book. I was hooked from the beginning, which kept me intrigued for a majority of the book, but then the ending felt so disappointing. Knowing that this book is geared towards 13- to 18-year-olds made me that much more upset. If sex, assault, murder, trauma, etc. are going to be key topics in a novel, give the audience some closure and justice. Because of the ending, my rating declined dramatically.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Publishing Group for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

This book really help solidify that i think men should go extinct! This was a wild ride of a book. I couldn’t put it down. I need like ten more follow up books! A great read!

“There’s a chasm between knowing something and saying it out loud, and I’ve lived in the silence of myself for so long.”


TW: Murder (corpse description), Physical Abuse (on page), Emotional Manipulation (on page), Sexual Abuse (on page)

Thank you to Courtney Summers, Wednesday Books, and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this e-ARC for an honest review.

When I first started this book the writing style was unfamiliar to me, and it took me a couple of chapters to get used to. I had some trouble following it. However, this is some of the most beautiful writing I’ve ever read. Once I got used to the cadence and style, it was easy to read and almost lyrical. The story pulled me in quickly. The beginning is intriguing and left a lot of questions to be answered with they desire to keep reading to find them.

The further I got into this book, I found myself emotionally torn over enjoying the friendship/romance aspect and the sick feeling of the murder, how Georgia is treated by other characters, and unease over the other characters’ intentions. This book is an incredible representation for the reader of what it’s like to doubt yourself, to miss red flags, and even to feel confident and trusting in certain relationships. Additionally, it’s a perfect representation of how complicated those feelings are and how easily we can find ourselves in terrifying circumstances. I read a quote the author shared on her Instagram from another reader that talked about how the book never blames Georgia for what’s happening to her but rather shares as it is and allows the reader to have their own thoughts and feelings about it. I’m sure it can be tempting to take a certain stance or guide the reader to conclusions, and I loved how Courtney Summers wrote about awful things, that were clearly inexcusable, but without forcing the reader’s perspective on the character herself.

This book was unsettling but so necessary to read. If you can tolerate the topics this book covers, it is one of the most realistic and heartbreaking representations of what those experiences are often like, which I find gets missed both in the written word and in our societal assumptions. My job puts me right in the thick of these topics with survivors, and I know acutely how familiar this will be to many readers. I applaud Courtney for going beyond sensationalism and extremes, which is frequently how we hear about these topics. That can lead many to believe that their less extreme, but no less categorically traumatizing, experiences do not fall into those categories.

As I read back over quotes I saved, I have a dissonance about them. What was meaningful and seemingly empowering in the moment feels disgusting and manipulative at the end. And out of the context of the story, they remain empowering. This goes to show how the meaning we assign to concepts or words can be so easily manipulated, or even our perspective simply altered, based on context and our own beliefs about them.

One last aspect of this book that I found to be particularly astute and accurate was the representation of how a child’s mind interprets the parent/child relationship. For many, a protective parent can seem like the opposition. Children can become so vulnerable when that divide comes about.

If you enjoyed A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder or Firekeeper’s Daughter, I think you will enjoy this book. It has a lot to say and is one of the most meaningful stories I’ve had the honor of reading. This story will stay with me for a long time.

1.5 stars.

Brutal, I know, but this reading experience was brutal for me (and not in a good, thought-provoking way). I read Sadie way back when, and I really enjoyed it. Reading this new one made me second-guess my recollection of liking Sadie.

In Sadie, the main character was suitably flawed and unlikeable, and Summers did not shy away from dark topics. However, the nuance with which this was done is completely lacking in I’m the Girl. this is supposed to be a book criticizing the patriarchy and giving power back to its female characters. Yet, Georgia spent the whole book having horrible things happen to her, pointlessly. They didn’t contribute to her character growth (not that she had any anyway), and they didn’t add to the plot. Rather, it really seemed like these scenes were included for shock value, or so that this could be described as “edgy”.

The writing and plot felt really disjointed and vague, and I literally couldn’t care less about the mystery in this, because it was so, just, uninteresting. Also, the queer ‘romance’ in this was poorly done.

All in all, this was a huge bummer.

Georgia finds a girl dead on the side of the road before she herself is hit by a car. After reading sadie, I had such high hopes for this book. But honestly, very disappointed. The main character is not that likeable and her growth is sparse. Trigger earnings abound. This is an uncomfortable book, and I did not like how it dealt with the main character's realization of the actions that took place. The first half is very thrilling but the second half is really dark.

Tw: assault, rape, murder of a child

This book was so disturbing. A teenage girl almost gets killed, stumbles upon a dead body, and basically joins a cult. She’s also sexually assaulted multiple times.

It’s weird because I loved the book Sadie by this same author but this one, I truly did not like. It made me sick to my stomach, and this teen girl is just being manipulated by everyone around her.

There is nothing redeeming about this story.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sixteen-year-old Georgia Avis discovers the dead body of thirteen-year-old Ashley James. Her memory of the tragedy is shaky, partially due to trauma partially due to immediately being hit by a car, assumingly being driven by the very person that killed Ashely.
This was such a hard book to read, an impossible book to enjoy, but I did not put it down. I found myself sitting, hands in heads, nauseous listening to this audiobook. I don't know how to rate it because I hated reading it, but that's exactly why it's so good?! It was so uncomfortable! It was so well written! It was tragic!
I am going to retreat into the world of fluffy romance for a few weeks to recover from this. Courtney Summers is a goddamn master.

I hated it. Like passionately. Disgusted by it. Super uncomfortable. I'm actually really bothered by it. Cleo was terrible. Georgia was dumb. The men in this book, just dumpsters. <b>Massive TW for sexual assault, statutory rape, murder of a child.</b> This book sickened me and I didn't find one second of it interesting or enjoyable. I thought [book:Sadie|34810320] was fucking depressing but this was completely awful to read. I'm really not easily disturbed this book almost physically sickened me. This girl is so dumb and so naïve and so desperate and she is SO TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF that it got really hard to read. Nothing prepared me for it.

I was excited to read this title based on the authors other work. I knew to expect a dark story, but I didn't anticipate how dark this story would be. I will have difficulty recommending it to teen patrons.

This is a hard one to review. I'm the Girl (quite graphically) tackles the issue of wealthy people grooming and preying on pretty teen girls from impoverished backgrounds.

It's one of a couple books recently that is clearly drawing on the Jeffrey Epstein case, including a woman involved in recruiting and grooming the girls. Topically, this is important and relevant. What I appreciate about this approach is how it portrays the nuance of what the process is like for teen girls who are exploring their own sexuality in ways that are and AREN'T safe. And how they might not understand the difference.

The difference is power- a peer doesn't hold undue power over them while an adult does and is preying on their inexperience and naivete. In this case, the main character is a lesbian, which further muddies the waters in how she thinks about men being interested in her. We actually get two quite explicit scenes back to back, clearly intended to demonstrate the difference in both power and desire, regardless of supposed "consent" (not that a 16-year-old can actually consent to this with an adult). One scene involves the result of grooming by an adult with power over her, the other is an actually consensual encounter with her girlfriend. The contrast is stark, but the progression is realistically drawn which might be very uncomfortable for some readers. I do think it's effective for what Summers is trying to do thematically.

Now as a NOVEL with a mystery plot, this book is less successful. The pacing is weird, the reveals aren't always well explained, there are conveniences that don't entirely make sense, and a lot of things are less surprising than I think they're intended to be. But maybe that's because as an adult reader, it's obvious how incredibly naive the main character is. But this is a very real problem, and it's true that there are people with privilege who get away with this kind of thing.

And, much like how I have felt about other books by Summers, I think it's important for teenagers to have access to books like this even if they are explicit and mature at times. Because protecting them from these books isn't always protecting them from things like this happening in real life. I think a criticism of this will be that it's too much for teenagers and shouldn't be YA, but I don't agree. I think the novel is clearly written from a teenage perspective and with their real feelings in mind. It doesn't feel didactic or like it's infantilizing the burgeoning sexuality of teen girls- just trying to draw some lines between where that sexuality can be explored safely and where it is being exploited in harmful, predatory ways. There is a huge amount of value to that. The narrator of the audiobook nails the voice of a teen girl in this place in life. Excellently done.

I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

I have loved other books written by Courtney Summer's and I tried really hard to like this one. I read more than half of the book before finally deciding to not finish it. The story is very fragmented and the characters are confusing.