American Girl gives off a locked room mystery style vibe as the story quickly unfolds as Charlie tries to figure out who killed her boss. Her boss isn’t well liked by many so there are a number of suspects but the only thing Charlie knows for sure is that she didn’t kill him but she’s covering for someone she cares about. I liked Charlie’s character; she’s autistic and has a very logical outlook on life and has certain goals to achieve to get out of her hometown.

There wasn’t a shocking twist or aha moment because as the story unfolds you can see where it’s heading and the revelation makes sense. The ending wraps up rather quick and it’s how you predict it would be.


Thank you publishers and netgalley for this eARC in exchange for my honest feedback.

Wendy Walker is a go-to author for me. I have enjoyed all of her books that I have read so far, including this one. "American Girl" by Wendy Walker was originally only available as an Audible Original. I received an ARC of the text version that recently became available. I wonder how my experience with the book would have been different had I listened to the audiobook version. Walker writes the story from the first person perspective of a teenage girl with autism. I read that the narrator for the Audiobook version is a woman with Autism- which I think is so great. Too often portrayal of Autistic individuals is done by neurotypical actors.
Once I got used to how the writing was- as basically an inner dialogue of the protagonist- it made it easier to follow along. I think I would have preferred to listen to this story, but love it as a regular book nonetheless.
I recommend this book! All opinions are my own

𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐋𝐄: 𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋⁣
𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑: 𝗪𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐘 𝗪𝐀𝐋𝐊𝐄𝐑 ⁣
𝐏𝐔𝐁 𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐄: 𝟏𝟎.𝟏𝟕.𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑 𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐀𝐯𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞⁣
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Charlie Hudson, an autistic seventeen-year-old, is determined to leave Sawyer, PA, as soon as she graduates high school. In the meantime, she works as many hours as she can at a sandwich shop called The Triple S to save money for college. But when shop owner, Clay Cooper--a man both respected and feared in their small economically depressed town--is found dead, each member of his staff becomes a suspect in the perplexing case. Before she can go anywhere, Charlie must protect herself and her friends by uncovering the danger that is still lurking in their tightknit community.⁣
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Based on the #1 bestselling audio, American Girl is a riveting thriller told through the eyes of an unforgettable protagonist.⁣
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𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒:⁣
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I enjoyed reading this Murder mystery through the eyes of Charlie, a brilliant seventeen year old autistic teen headed for MIT. I thought it was such a unique perspective getting into Charlie’s head and how her relationships and daily interactions are translated in her head. I thought this was a good character study and my heart really went out to her as she tries so hard to calculate her way out of small town Sawyer from her toxic mother and family life. I enjoyed the short chapters which moved the story forward making this a fast paced read. Though the twists in the story was predictable, I really still enjoyed the story as the story was more focused on Charlie - which I enjoyed the most.

American Girl was an entertaining read, but overall not a favorite pick for me. The story felt a little drawn out, though there were some really good twists. I loved earlier books by this author, but have not enjoyed her latest two as much. I think many readers will enjoy this one!

American Girl by Wendy Walker was only out on audio at the time of this review, but it looks like it is coming out in book form this year as well! I kinda love that it was made an Audible Original to start, and I'm wondering if it will be exactly the same when it comes out physically. As an audiobook, it truly is an experience and I loved that it had a full cast of narrators as well as plenty of sound effects. Due to the nature of the storyline and the sound effects used in the audio, there is a disclaimer and a warning to use discretion. The weirdest part for me was the one kissing scene since it was like listening to the audio of a movie without actually seeing anything.

It was wonderful having an MC with autism, and I'm glad that a sensitivity reader was used. I really don't know as much about autism as I should, and I loved Charlie so much. The audio is basically the length of a normal book at over 8.5 hours, but it felt a lot shorter to me. It was a quick, mostly easy listen that deals with some pretty serious subjects, but in a way that is very interesting and suspenseful. The plot was fairly complex which I loved, but it is also easy to get confused so I'm glad they are releasing a book now as well to reference. The main narrator is Paige Layle and WOW, I didn't even know going into it that they are autistic, and to have a performer in this role who is actually on the spectrum just makes me love it even more. Thanks to Wendy Walker, one of my favorite authors, for another twisty and surprising read!

Clever, entertaining, and original. I’m a huge Wendy Walker fan, but her last book, What Remains, completely underwhelmed me. Glad to say this one is a winner! It’s a suspenseful story with interesting characters and some unexpected twists.

Absolutely loved the MC and her representation of autism. So well written. Her trials with dealing with small town drama were so engaging.

The story as a whole sucked me in. I did however kinda see how it was going to play out, but the characters and storyline carried so well I wasn't disappointed in that.

I tandem read this one with the audio. Loved it. The sound effects in some of the chapters and the narrator as a whole did a phenomenal job!

Thank you @netgalley @blackstonepublishing @wendywalkerauthor for allowing me to read and give my honest review.

This is my second book by this author, and I loved it. The way the investigation hangs around what Charlie knows but refuses to reveal added a little more mystery. I liked how the events leading up to and after the murder were written. I really liked Charlie and the way she processed/stored information. It was so interesting to me how she used people’s reactions to situations to create rules for herself on how to response and make decisions. I never knew how it was going to affect the investigation. I did guess one of the twists, but I still was not able to put everything together. I loved how it was fast paced but the ending was not rushed and did a good job putting the facts together after the reveal.

Thank you @wendywalkerauthor @blackstonepublishing and @suzyapprovedbooktours for the gifted digital copy.

American Girl is a who-dunnit mystery turned psychological thriller. This thriller had a slow burn pace - due to the main character, Charlie, knowing what happened the night her boss was killed and not giving the authorities the information. It created for a lot of suspense and continuing to draw you into the story. I really loved Charlie’s character. It was such a different experience to see a thriller though the eyes of someone with autism and how their brain rationalizes around them. I also enjoyed Charlie’s rules - many of them I should listen to! The book has some good twist and turns, but the ending was a little predictable for me. Did I still enjoy it though? Yes!

I was really attracted to the synopsis on this one , but I found it to be a bit unrealistic. What I did love was the main character had autism.

American Girl, by Wendy Walker, is a short, highly suspenseful, fast-paced, small town thriller.

This story follows Charlie, a brilliant, autistic teen girl with high grades and unfettered determination to save money for MIT by working at the local Triple S. Her home life has not been easy, marred by difficult people and prejudices, and she desperately wants to make it out of her sh*^ty small town, per her mother’s constant admonitions and warnings. When she witnesses a tragic event and finds her repugnant boss murdered, she is determined to protect her friends who have stood by her; all of whom are potential suspects. Charlie must determine whom she can trust in a situation where she can trust no one, piece together the clues on her own, and not lose her entrance to her dream college in the process.

American Girl is a complex, twisty, uniquely told thriller. It’s dark, unsettling, and rather heart-breaking with some truly reprehensible characters, but it’s also a suspenseful, compulsive read.

Wendy Walker is a new to me author and I’m happy to say that American Girl is just the start of her books that I plan to read.

Charlie is an autistic 17 year old teen living in Sawyer, PA and working at the Triple S sandwich shop. She’s exceptionally good at math and sandwiches and her mantra is Lettuce Tomatoes Pickles Onions.

Charlie has been accepted to MIT and is working as much as she can to pay the tuition so that she can escape out of her small town.

And then Charlie’s boss is found murdered.

I LOVED this character. I loved being in the mind of this autistic teen listening to her talk about her rules and chanting her mantra. She was absolutely fascinating.

And the twists of this psychological thriller pretty much blew my mind. I didn’t see any of it coming!

I highly recommend American Girl to anyone who loves these types of thrillers!

*Thanks so much to the author and to Suzy Approved Book Tours for the eGalley and for including me on the book tour!*

“Charlie Hudson, an autistic seventeen-year-old, is determined to leave Sawyer, PA, as soon as she graduates high school. In the meantime, she works as many hours as she can at a sandwich shop called The Triple S to save money for college. But when shop owner, Clay Cooper—a man both respected and feared in their small economically depressed town—is found dead, each member of his staff becomes a suspect in the perplexing case. Before she can go anywhere, Charlie must protect herself and her friends by uncovering the danger that is still lurking in their tightknit community.”

I liked Charlie’s character from the beginning. I loved how her mind works with her love of rules and analyzing data. I just kept hoping she would be ok and nothing bad would happen to her throughout the book! Her willingness to help and protect those she considers family is another reason why she is such an appealing character. The mystery was good. The small town’s and secrets will keep you enthralled. I definitely recommend!

This is a good book as it has a lot of twist and turns. There are two stories going on at once so there was an adjustment that had to be when the stories change. Plot and ending were great, super bidpg twist you don’t see coming.

No doubt Wendy Walker is a fantastic author. Her books keep you turning the pages and holding your breath all the way through. No different with this one.

This book is about an autistic girl named Charlie who is only seventeen years old. She wants to get away from this town and is working hard saving to do just that. She is going to MIT and has the grades for it. Charlie is a very smart young lady and very loyal to her friends. She was, and really still is, in love with Ian. But her mother told her things about girls who do and Charlie won't. She remembers the night they ran from her grandparents house while they were calling her mother bad names. And Charlie was only five at the time.

This book takes you through a murder. Through several suspects. Seems quite a few people had reason to want Coop dead. Even though the town loved him there were a few who had to deal with his mean cruel ways.

I figured out several things while reading this book. From what happened in the police station to what happens later in Charlie's home. I figured out several things but it did not in any way take away from the story. Some things you just have to read to believe. There were some things that didn't happen that I wanted to happen so bad. For Charlie. She deserved it. But it was not meant to be. I was very happy for Keller and Levi. Also for the other women who worked at the sandwich shop. All of them were family to Charlie. She would have done anything for them.

This book was a great read. It had me on the edge in several parts even though I knew. It made me cringe so bad when the accident in high school happened. I cried in parts also. It took me a bit to understand her mother but she was a mama bear when it came to her children. She loved Charlie so strongly. With the love of a wild animal. Yet she gave in to Dusty(stepdad) at times without talking it over with Charlie. I understand that partly. She was a ferocious woman if you messed with her children though. So she was a good mom. She did what she had to to survive also.

Thank you #NetGalley, #WendyWalker, #BlackstonePublishing for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this book.

Four stars and I highly recommend you read it. It's very good.

Wendy Walker has done it again. She has written an excellent murder mystery with interesting characters, that pulls you deep into the story like you are witnessing the crime. American Girl is a story about a neurodivergent teenage who gets wrapped up into a murder investigation. Charlie, who has had a hard life, is just trying to save up for college when her boss is murdered. She was at the scene of the crime so the police think she may know more than she is telling and perhaps she does.
Charlie is a wonderful character. She is neurodivergent so she sees the world a little differently. She works hard at trying to solve the case on her own and to protect those she loves, regardless of the danger she is putting herself in.
The story is full of suspects, as everyone had a motive to kill Clay Cooper. The characters are typical middle class Americans who are just trying to do the best they can. The plot is full of twists and turns, which keeps you guessing. It is a quick read and you will feel like your part of the story

Excellent small town story with a perfect title of American girl. Cooper, local business owner has been murdered, and he definitely had some enemies and secrets! Our slightly autistic main character was seen on camera at the scene of the murder, and definitely appears to have overheard the attack. But did she see or hear more? The story unfolds very well, and definitely has shocks and twists that you won’t see coming! I loved some of the quirks that were written in for our main female character. She definitely has a very developed character and much depth. Wendy Walker has done it again, and I would definitely recommend this book!

Thanks to Netgalley and Blackstone publishing for my electronic advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Charlie Hudson has worked hard her whole life not only to get by, but to live up to her mother’s high-flying aspirations for her. It’s not easy growing up in a small town like Sawyer, Pennsylvania. Sawyer’s particular mix of unyielding social prejudices makes life difficult not only for a teenage mom having a baby out of wedlock – like Charlie’s mom once was – but also for anyone struggling to make a better life for themselves. Charlie knows that the only way to get out of Sawyer is to go to a good college, and she’s been working at the Triple S deli since she was fourteen in order to be able to afford it.

While she views most of her co-workers as close friends, if not outright family, there is one person there that no one likes: the boss, Clay Cooper. Charlie is grateful that he took a chance on her when she was younger, especially now that she’s eighteen and has been squirreling money away in her college fund for years, but she’s not oblivious to the kind of person he is. Coop is one of Sawyer’s biggest employers, and he will not hesitate to lord that power over any of the people who depend on him for a living:

QUOTE
This is another way I think of Clay Cooper. With one hand, he gave you a job. With another, he stole your dignity, your pride, your something or other. No matter the employee, with that second hand, he always took away the one thing that should be more valuable than money. But it can’t be when you need to feed four children, with one [ill] like Ollie, or when you need to pay for college, or support your sick grandmother.
END QUOTE

When Coop is found dead in his driveway one morning, the entire town is shocked. It quickly becomes obvious that he was murdered, and that the list of people who hated him enough to want to kill him is a mile long. Charlie just wants to keep her head down and keep working, in hopes that the investigation into his death will soon blow over, but a security camera Coop had secretly installed in the Triple S shows that Charlie was hiding in the deli on the night that he was killed. Worse, it’s readily apparent that she at least heard, if not outright witnessed, some sort of violent altercation between Coop and a mystery figure.

In an act of either courage or foolhardiness, Charlie refuses to speak with the police about what happened that night. They can’t compel her to talk, especially after she lawyers up, but when federal agents get involved, everything gets way more complicated. Charlie only wants to protect her friends and get the hell out of town. What will she do, however, when it’s both her own life and the lives of those she loves on the firing line?

Charlie is such a compelling heroine, a person with autism who isn’t portrayed as either a robot or hopelessly naive but as a whole individual with conflicting desires and inclinations. Telling the story from her point of view helps readers, especially the neurotypical, better understand the neurodiverse. As Charlie explains about one of her own coping mechanisms:

QUOTE
I began to form rules like math equations. <i>When this happens, people act that way and say those things. When that happens, people act this way and say other things</i>. And those rules stayed in my head, each and every one. I realized I could use them to prepare for whatever was coming. To protect myself.

My mom went on to tell me I was like a lopsided seesaw, and this image gave my feelings a home inside my head. A shelf to sit on. A box to live in. I didn’t know the box had a name and that the name was Autism until I was eleven. It was a relief, but also a burden I would carry forever. Like if she’d told me my nose was too big or my eyes were set too close together. I would never again be able to think that I was the same as everyone else.
END QUOTE

The way Charlie learns to embrace her differences, and use them not only to keep herself out of (too much) trouble but to protect her loved ones as well, makes for a fully realized portrait of a young woman with autism who learns how to stay true to herself even in the most unimaginable circumstances. Some books about people on the autism spectrum have the unfortunate habit of portraying them as less than, whether socially or morally (or, in some particularly annoying cases, both.) American Girl, on the other hand, is a wonderfully nuanced tale with a sympathetic heroine whose honest, clear-eyed assessments of the world can only enrich the lives of this book’s readers.

I love a small town whodunit and if the whydunit is strongly threaded throughout, even better. AMERICAN GIRL does both well! I was fascinated by Charlie, and her involvement in a small town murder that, at first, seems easily explainable, but explodes into something on a much grander scale. If you’re looking for a story that has plenty of twists and turns and a character in the middle of the chaos, who is easy to root for, look no further. Fair warning though - reading this book may cause sandwich cravings.

(Thank you @suzyapprovedbooktours, @wendywalkerauthor for the gifted copy)

Today is my stop on the book tour for American Girl by Wendy Walker!

This was an action-packed book from the very beginning. There was a lot going on, so it kept my interest. I really liked the main character, Charlie - she was smart, brave, and no nonsense. She seemed pretty naive at times, but I think that’s part of being a teenager. The author also included autism representation, which is important.

There were a lot of twists and turns, and I didn’t expect all the outcomes, which is always good in a thriller.