Thank you to @netgalley and @bookmarked for this ARC. I was so excited to receive an invitation to read this one - the summary sucked me in and I was so intrigued by The Inheritance Games meets The Family Game vibes.

Maya is a former reality tv star who is notorious for her party girl lifestyle who just married Colin Sterling, one of the legendary Sterlings that fill tabloids, magazines, and make the headlines due to their royal family like status and wealth. At the end of their honeymoon, Maya and Colin receive urgent news that the heiress of the family’s estate has been murdered and so must travel, with their baby in tow, to the Sterling Estate.

Not all is as it seems and the true character of each person is revealed. There are many sinister forces at play and when news breaks about the heiress’s will, all havoc breaks loose and secrets emerge.

I loved the premise of the story and couldn’t put it down, until about 50% in. After that point, things got a bit too outrageous. All the characters lost their appeal and things moved way too quickly. Things seemed implausible and just ridiculous. I wish it kept its hold on me the whole time, as it was a great idea with twists. It just wasn’t for me.

Release date: February 11, 2025

Really glad to have had the opportunity to try this one out, but it ended up not being for me.
I'm always drawn to a murder mystery, especially a locked room mystery. I love the twists and turns and finding out what's really going on with the different characters involved. It becomes much more difficult when the characters are so unlikable, as they were in this novel. It was hard to connect with or care about them due to their wickedness.
I also hate the heavy handed foreshadowing. Every chapter it seemed like we were reminded that Maya has secrets!!!!!!! But that was pretty obvious from the get go. It turns the book into a bit of a slog.
Thanks to Net Galley for the book to review.

This was dragging on and on, so I skimmed ahead to the ending, and this sounds so mean, but it was written as if it was such an original plot that the reader would need a lot of hand-holding and explaining to understand it….except it's based on common, predictable tropes. Which is fine if a story is intriguing enough to carry it, but for me, it wasn’t.

• The writing is okay, but the book is too long with too much filler.
• The pacing is incredibly slow. Entire chapters seemed dedicated to rehashing information we already know without offering new details or moving the story forward. It felt like I was reading the same internal musings over and over.
• This is a story type I’ve read (and watched) countless times and I like these tropes. But nothing felt intriguing. At 10% in I could predict where this story was going and that’s where it went. It relies so heavily on being twisty that it becomes boring if you already know where it’s headed.
• I like melodrama in rich people behaving badly/secret past stories, but this felt more like a drawn-out soap opera with dramatic ‘dun dun dun’ moments that didn’t land for me.
• All the characters lacked depth. We’re frequently reminded one of the characters is ‘not like the other girls’ in a forced, one-dimensional way.

📚 Format: Advance Reader’s Copy from Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley

I honestly tried with “A Girl Like Us” by Anna Sophia McLoughlin. Having never seen the shows (are they shows?) Succession and Saltburn, I focused more on the locked-room thriller and secrets. Maybe I’m not the right audience for this book, but I found myself overwhelmed between the names of the Sterling family and the main character (Maya) hinting about her secrets throughout the part of the book I read. I think the premise is interesting, but for long periods of time the story didn’t have much happen and I never felt like any of the characters were well developed - or likable. I found myself skimming through the book and started reading again near the ending … but then the ending ended and there was the abrupt transition to the epilogue. Not the best book, but - again - a great idea. I seem to be in the minority with this review, so it could just be me.

Maya, reality TV star, marries Colin Sterling, of the extremely wealth Sterling family. When his cousin is murdered in Mexico, the entire family must go to Silver House as a safety precaution. From there, multiple secrets start to unravel. It was a wild journey and a pretty big twist at the end that I didn’t expect!

This book certainly keeps you turning the page! Fast-paced and full of intrigue, there’s a lot to unpack with this murder mystery. I was certainly excited to uncover the Sterling family secrets as the story unfolded.
I was initially compelled by the concept of a super rich, old money family and their media empire, but I felt like we saw relatively little of the actual goings on in the business and the family itself. There were games of chess and cocktail hour, but little else.
Unfortunately, I also found the main character unlikeable. Her morally questionable choices felt a bit unjustifiable and flat. Her relationship with her husband was also very much off the page and difficult to root for.
The twists were interesting and well thought out, but I felt perpetually two steps ahead of the narrative, which ultimately left me dissatisfied with the conclusion and untied loose ends.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book!

I love a good locked room mystery novel. Add some ridiculously rich people who all play dumb while manipulating each other, a former reality tv star, and a desperate grasp to maintain their wealth? Yes please! I loved this so much.

I think A Girl Like Us has the potential to be a big winter thriller when it comes out in February.

It’s 2004 and former reality star Maya Miller has just married one of the most eligible bachelors in SterlingCo’s Colin Sterling. SterlingCo is a huge media empire, on scale with the Murdoch’s, so Maya has hit the jackpot. They’ve just gotten back from their honeymoon when Colin’s cousin, and the heir to the family’s fortune, Arianna is found murdered. A 202 protocol is enacted, corralling the family into a lockdown at the family’s UK home Silver House. As an investigation into Arianna’s death ensures, the new family heir has been named…and it’s Maya! Suspicion turns to Maya as the suspect, after all, she never knew Arianna. As the family remains locked down, Maya starts to search for the truth and a way to clear her name. The Sterlings have plenty of skeletons in their closet and Maya’s going to have to fight through them to claim what is rightfully hers.

This book definitely has a few twists and turns in its path, many of which I enjoyed. I didn’t figure them all out either, which is refreshing. I liked the layers of character development for Maya and it was fun to see them peeled back. Maya’s quite a slick character herself, so it’s fun to see her play. The story unfolded nicely and I’m glad it wasn’t fully tied up neatly in the end.

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: 2/11/25

"Succession meets Saltburn in a crackling locked-room thriller of inconceivable wealth, unchecked power, and the secrets poised to bring a powerful family down."

A Girl Like Us is a very enjoyable thriller with well executed twists and turns. The book is well written and atmospheric. It is very reminiscent of Succession with the uber rich getting away with whatever they want. "Normal" people can't trust anyone.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book!

Wealth, Power and a family forced into lock down, what could possibly go wrong? I was into this book, it just got better and better with each page. I could not put it down. This book is very well written and has some great plot twists.

Do you love a good rich people being awful story?? Then this one's for you! This story takes place in the early 2000s and stars our it girl Maya Sterling who has recently married the rich son of a media family Colin Sterling. However, their wedded bliss comes to an abrupt hault when the heiress to the family fortune is murdered... in the same weekend as their wedding... in the same town they got married in... but wasn't in attendance. As if that wasn't wild enough, Maya is the only person named in her will, even though the two have never met!

Everyone must remain at the family estate in England until the threat has been neutralized, and no one is enjoying the company. Now we find ourselves in a locked door mystery where everyone has their own agenda.

This book was great for those that love domestic thrillers, stories about rich families, twists and turns, and endings you simply cannot guess!

I prefer my thrillers to be fast paced and engaging, this was not that. I struggled with this book for a few reasons. For starters, and the biggest reason I just struggled so much with this one, was the writing style. It was choppy and overall hard to follow. I also really disliked some of the word choices. While I knew the words, and their meanings, their placement felt stilted and like the author included them just to say hey I wrote a smart book. It was a huge turn off to me and really kept a bad taste in my mouth the entire book. I also struggled with this book being considered a thriller. It didn’t really have any thrilling elements, it read more like women’s fiction. Nothing wrong with that, I just expected a different story.

I really wanted to like this book more. It’s crushing that I didn’t.

DNF at 20%

This book made me realize that while I love watching these types of stories on the screen, I tend to not love them in book form. The premise is there, but the execution is lacking for me personally - too much telling and not showing, overly obvious bad guys, and too many characters to keep track of.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for this arc. I received this book in exchange for my honest review. My thoughts are entirely my own.

This book has rich people drama and was so good. Maya has married into the powerful Sterling family. Maya has a daughter with her husband Colin. They celebrate their wedding in Puerto Valletta and Maya sneaks off to meet Jessica who she believes is a journalist who tells Maya that her new family are murders. Then on their way back to New York they are taken to the Sterlings ancestral home after the heiress Ariana is murdered. Maya finds out that she was the last person to speak to Ariana because she was pretending to be Jessica. Then at Silver House Maya learns the truth and sees the lengths that the family will go to protect themselves and their inheritance. Luckily Maya is able to protect herself and comes out the new heiress and has an insurance policy in case history repeats itself. A very good book and one I plan to purchase once it’s released.

Oh what a book this was! Going in I didn't know what to expect - and when I saw that it has the chapters on the longer side I was scared that the book is going to drag but I was mistaken. I absolutely loved the pace of the book and that we were finding out things at the same time as the main character.

Loved the addition of the diary entries - although maybe I wished there were a bit more.

Good ratio of descriptions to the plot and dialogue (which is always important for me).

Really enjoyed the twists coming in at steady pace - and the last few twists at the end of the book?? Made my jaw drop! I loved them so much!

The book definitely exceeded my expectations.

3.5⭐️
i enjoyed this book. there were a lot of scenes that caught me off guard… i never really knew what to expect.

If you loved *The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo* but are craving something with a *Knives Out* vibe, then *A Girl Like Us* is the book for you! This story is scandalous, thrilling, and packed with twists and turns that will keep you guessing. No character can be fully trusted, and the mystery unfolds in a way that takes the reader on a wild, unpredictable ride.

What really stood out to me was the strong and unlikely female protagonist. She was full of life and grit, and I loved that she was a new mother—this added so much depth to her decisions and the stakes in the story. Her journey was both emotional and empowering, making her a truly compelling character to root for.

The combination of high-stakes drama, secrets, and tension creates an enthralling read. If you're into complex characters and sharp, suspenseful storytelling, this book delivers on every front!

I was a little intimidated when I realized this book is over 400 pages but once I started it, I was completely engrossed. Everything about this book was smart and expertly crafted from the characters, the plot, the narration, and the execution.

A Girl Like Us is a fast-paed thriller with many twists and turns that you'll have a difficult time seeing coming. The book was exvellent and did a wonderful job portraying that hardships you face when dealing whith trauma and how complex the justice system is and how survival is messy and not a straightforward journey. This book explored so many powerful topics and themes withh tacta and respect and I appreciated and am grateful for it's existence.

This reminded me so much of a ‘knives out’ movie. I liked the main character a lot and the plot felt pretty unique. It’s slow going but it’s worth pushing through. I found myself growing impatient but that’s both a positive and a negative, I suppose. 3.5/3.75 stars.