I have to say that this isn't one of my favorites by this author. I really had a hard time getting into this. The characters were good but it just seemed to drag

I think my biggest issue with this book was that I didn’t like/relate to any of the characters, so I really struggled with actually caring about what would happen to each of them as the story unfolded. It was a unique plot and I found it engaging at times, but I felt that some things were a little bit too far-fetched for me. It was an overall decent story, but missed the mark for me 😕.

Thank you, NetGalley, Blackstone Publishing, and Wendy Walker for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

ᴀᴍᴇʀɪᴄᴀɴ ɢɪʀʟ
ᴡᴇɴᴅʏ ᴡᴀʟᴋᴇʀ
ʙʟᴀᴄᴋsᴛᴏɴᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜɪɴɢ
ᴘᴜʙ ᴅᴀᴛᴇ: ᴏᴄᴛᴏʙᴇʀ 𝟷𝟽, 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟹
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Happy Sunday! I hope everyone is having a relaxing weekend filled with lots of reading time♡︎

Author @wendywalkerauthor always gives us an intriguing psychological suspense and her newest 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝐺𝑖𝑟𝑙 was so good! I loved the storyline in this thriller but the best part of all was the characters!

Charlie Hudson, an autistic 17-year-old, is our main character and I loved her so much! She is one of those memorable characters that will forever live in your brain and you secretly hope the author brings her character back in another novel someway, somehow!

The storyline focuses on a crime that occurred at Charlies work place and she’s right smack dab in the middle of it. We get to know Charlies coworkers and it was a wild ride trying to figure out who and why committed the crime. I had lots of ideas and I was wrong continuously (love that). Also, totally loved the dash of romance the author gives us!

I seriously don’t think there has been one @wendywalkerauthor novel that I haven’t enjoyed! Special thanks to @netgalley @blackstonepublishing for the early copy! 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝐺𝑖𝑟𝑙 releases on October 17, 2023!

American Girl was a fun read that I finished in two days. Charlie reminded me of Molly Gray from Nita Prose's The Maid and with her as the narrator, it was a "fresh" viewpoint that I wish more books had. Charlie hasn't always had the easiest life but she will go to great lengths not to get sucked in by her small town and protect those in her tribe. The last third of the book had me racing through, the pace picked up, things were coming together and I couldn't wait to have it all figured out. Fans of Walker's previous works should add American Girl to their TBR when it comes out in October!

This was the ultimate slow burn. We had a main character that was incredibly well developed and layered and complicated.

The story was really good, but I found it to be painfully slow. I needed a bit more fast paced action that I think would have added to the overall atmosphere of the story.

Charlie has one goal, get out of her small hometown and go to college. She works as many hours as possible in the local sandwich shop. Everything is going as planned until the owner is killed and the police think Charlie knows who did it. This was a fun and twisty book. Some parts were a little slow and a little hard to believe but it kept me guessing and I cared about Charlie and what happened to her.

Charlie, a teenage girl on the autism spectrum, is somehow involved in the murder of her boss in Walker's latest thriller. There are several people who want the boss dead, and Charlie will not speak to authorities about her possible so that she may protect her (found) family.
I loved this one! The beginning of this book moved a little slowly, but after the first 40% I couldn't put it down. The pacing picked up, the characters were relatable, and the ending was unexpected. There were plenty of twists and red herrings. It would make a great movie!
Many thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book

Seventeen year old Charlie is just an American Girl, living her life in a small American town and counting the days until she can escape to college, leaving the town and her family behind. Charlie’s mother was a teenager when Charlie was born and never knew her father who fled town. They struggled until Charlie’s mother married a well-off lawyer she didn’t particularly like and produced two sons for him. As Charlie is a little different due to her mild autism, her step-father refused to have anything to do with her, although he’s quite happy to claim her as a tax deduction but not help her financially with college.

Especially talented in maths, Charlie has been offered a place at MIT and has worked at the Triple-S sandwich shop since she was fourteen to save for college. She regards the other staff who understand and care for her as her real family and would do anything to protect them. All expect for her boss, Clay Cooper, an unscrupulous businessman and womaniser, who is universally hated. So, when Charlie hears an argument in the shop and Cooper is found dead, she refuses to tell police what she heard in case she implicates one of the people who matter to her.

This is an excellent psychological thriller with an engaging main character that you can’t help siding with, hoping everything will turn out okay for her and she’ll attain her dream of escaping town to go to MIT. There are some good twists in the tale and increasing tension as we gradually learn what Charlie saw and heard that night and faces danger for the secrets she knows. Definitely a good page turner!

Wendy Walker's books never let me down. They are gripping, well paced and you want her characters to persevere. Her newest venture is American Girl - where Charlie, a high school senior with autism - gets wrapped up in a murder investigation in her small town.

Charlie's boss has been killed - he's a very unpopular man and just about everyone Charlie cares about has a reason to want the man dead. She's brought in for questioning after being caught on video hiding - while her boss fought with an unknown person at the sub shop where she works. If she says anything she could get her friends in trouble - so she's not saying a word...literally.

American Girl was well written with an incredible main character in Charlie. The story unfolded a a perfect pace and one of my favourite books of the year.

Thank you to Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for an advanced copy of American Girl!

I will read anything that this author puts out there. Her books aren't the most popular, as far as I can tell, but I am thoroughly entertained every time. I also like that I don't have them all figured out before the reveal starts happening.

In this one, a semi-unreliable narrator seems to have witnessed a murder. And this fact has been caught on a hidden camera, which did not record the murder itself. She's brought to the police station by her high school crush/ex-boyfriend for questioning. There are a lot of potential suspects. There are also a lot of people she is willing to lie for. You'll have to read it to see how it plays out.

Charlie is a 17 year old autistic American Girl, employed at a sandwich shop in a dead end town called Sawyer. Her dreams of escaping the town get sidetracked when she becomes involved in the murder of the shop’s unpopular owner and prominent Sawyer citizen Clay Cooper, and there’s a long list of suspects, all of whom are Charlie’s friends. While the plot device of an autistic protagonist is trendy, the author doesn’t over do it, and Charlie’s affliction propels the plot, and the reader roots hard for her throughout the book. The book can get repetitive, as the suspects and their motives are rehashed one too many times, which slows things down, and the plot does get a little muddled, but overall it’s an entertaining read. I received an ARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A brilliant story with one of the best main characters I've read. I highly recommend this twisted, dark small town secrets story. No spoilers just a must read xx

American Girl is a compelling thriller that had me guessing and racing to the finale .

What a great cast if characters and none better than Charlie Hudson, who is a 17 year old autistic that is diligently working to afford going to MIT.

She had my heart from her first rule . She had a lot of them . All she wants is to protect those around her .

When her boss ( who owns most of the town) is murdered, the police know Charlie was there .

Charlie is not talking . No way .

Charlie is on a mission to find the killer and the killer is on a mission to eliminate her .

The tension mounts with every page ,with every twist and turn and every secret that comes to light .

Highly recommend you clear your schedule and grab your copy of American Girl and settle in for a compelling read .

I am hoping that Charlie returns in another adventure.

Thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for an excellent read .

Another riveting thriller by author Wendy Walker. American Girl's Charlie Hudson is the unforgettable 17-year-old autistic protagonist. Surprises are around every corner. Thank you #NetGalley for the advanced copy.

Wendy Walker has done it again! Another gripping, psychological thriller that had me fully invested wanting to know whodunit in this shocking murder mystery set in a small town full of secrets and interesting people.

Charlie Hudson, an autistic 17-year-old has been accepted to MIT and has been working hard to raise money to afford her studies. She began working at the Triple S, a local sandwich shop, at the age of fourteen. She never gets an order wrong and has a mind for numbers. Her co-workers are like family to her, and she enjoys working with them. Her boss Clay Cooper employs most of the town in various businesses. He is respected and feared by those who rely on him for their income.

When Clay Cooper is found dead, the employees at the Triple S become suspects. Charlie finds herself at the heart of the investigation and does her best to protect herself and her coworkers.

I enjoyed Charlie and her "rules". She is extremely likeable, and I enjoyed her POV, her desire to protect those in her life, and her relationships with others.

What happened the night Clay was killed? Charlie is keeping mum on what she knows but is willing to do what she can to find out who killed her employer? As Charlie searches for answers, the tension mounts, secrets begin to be revealed, people will show their true colors and the sense of danger will intensify.

There are a few twists and turns and a few reveals along the way. I enjoyed the mystery and was willing to overlook some of the things that took place at the end of the book.

Overall, a very enjoyable psychological thriller and I look forward to reading more books by Walker.

Gripping, well written, and tense.

So I read some other reviews and saw that the majority of folks listened to the book and I absolutely loved reading this on my kindle. It was pulse pounding and fun and I really wanted to figure out the mystery.

"This is just a story about one American girl. And nobody will ever notice."

3.5 stars

American Girl is a psychological thriller/mystery about a 17-year-old caught in the web of the murder of a small-town tycoon.

17-year-old Charlie lives her life by a set of rules. Autistic and on the margins of her friends and family, she finds herself trapped when she witnesses the murder of her predator boss, Coop, who happens to own most of the small, failing town, Sawyer, from which Charlie is determined to escape. With numerous suspects in Coop’s murder, Charlie does all she can to protect her friends and family, putting herself in danger

Charlie is the primary narrator. The reader is trapped in Charlie’s mind the same way Charlie is trapped in her own head, repeating her rules and other coping mechanisms. Charlie is a riveting, if not wholly believable, character. Her narrative revolves around her rules and observations. This book is as much of a character study of Charlie as it is a mystery/thriller.

While the novel starts with a bang, it slows down in the middle, with Charlie recounting the past. The narrative becomes repetitive--not in Charlie’s repetition of her rules and other mantras, but in that sentences are repeated verbatim. The pace picks back up in the last 25%.

This was a mixed bag for me. The first half had me riveted, but as events unfolded, I had to suspend my disbelief, especially toward the end. It all seems too much for a 17-year-old girl to figure out and handle on her own.

With Charlie being a teen, the overall tone has a YA feel, but Charlie isn’t mired in YA problems. Rather, her experiences and keen observations propel her into adulthood way too early. The mystery behind Coop’s death and Charlie’s part is compelling and kept me turning the pages.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

Wendy Walker has been an auto buy author for me for years, I will forever read everything she writes. American Girl is definitely in my top three reads from her! I loved getting to know Charlie, she was such a smart character that I was rooting for her from the start. I would love to see where life takes her after the epilogue, but for this story itself we got a great conclusion.

Charlie works at a sandwich shop in her small town, and the sleezy owner ends up murdered. Her friends who worked or were closely linked to the sand which shop come under suspicion, and Charlie knows she needs to do what she can to protect them.

I’d definitely recommend picking this one up!!
Thank you to the publisher for the gifted ARC.

American Girl by Wendy Walker showcases why this author is a must-read and why I’m a long-time fan. American Girl is another brilliant psychological suspense which will keep you eagerly turning pages. Wendy Walker has a unique narrative voice that sets her apart from other authors in this genre showcasing her ability to build suspense over time and leave readers with just enough intrigue to keep them hooked. A true page-turner.

The story is primarily told from the POV of a 17-year-old protagonist, however at no point did the book feel like a young adult novel and at times, I had to remind myself that the main character was just a teen. The authors portrayal of a character with autism was handled sensitively and authentically and felt seamlessly integrated into the character’s identity, rather than a shoehorned effort for diversity’s sake. The story is set in (and raises themes around) a small-town community where everyone could be a suspect and explores themes around family, friendship and human relationships.

The pacing of American Girl is spot-on and at no point did the story feel padded out or rushed. It was a true testament to the author how they picked up all the questions and loose threads and wove them together to present a satisfying and rewarding conclusion. American Girl is a testament to this authors brilliance and is a must-read for fans of psychological suspense. Wendy Walker truly deserves all the praise and recognition and they are an author that I never hesitate to recommend.

This book took a little while to get into, but once I did I couldn’t put it down. I really liked how the main character was written, and I appreciated how much thought and obvious research went into writing about a character with autism. Overall, it was a good story with a twisty end.