I’m the Girl by Courtney Summers, 3 Stars

All sixteen-year-old Georgia Avis wants is everything, but the poverty and hardship that defines her life has kept her from the beautiful and special things she knows she deserves. When she stumbles upon the dead body of thirteen-year-old Ashley James, Georgia teams up with Ashley’s older sister Nora, to find the killer before he strikes again, and their investigation throws Georgia into a glittering world of unimaginable privilege and wealth–and all she’s ever dreamed. But behind every dream lurks a nightmare, and Georgia must reconcile her heart’s desires with what it really takes to survive. As Ashley’s killer closes in and their feelings for one another grow, Georgia and Nora will discover when money, power, and beauty rule, it’s not always a matter of who is guilty but who is guiltiest–and the only thing that might save them is each other.

A spiritual successor to the breakout hit Sadie, I’m the Girl is a brutal and illuminating account of how one young woman feels in her body as she struggles to navigate a deadly and predatory power structure while asking readers one question: if this is the way the world is, do you accept it?

My Review:

Georgia has a dream to be an Aspera girl. It’s a pretty girl who works in hospitality at the fancy Aspera hotel in town. But I’m not sure she quite understands what’s in the job description. It looks glamorous on the outside looking in, but has hard Jeffrey Epstein vibes on the inside. And it’s actually on her way to the Aspera for the first time that she finds the dead body of Ashley James, a 13-year-old local girl.

This launches Georgia into a quest to find the killer. She teams up with Ashley’s sister and together they try to get to the bottom of it. And while Georgia does land a job at the Aspera, she is quickly discovering what really happens there. What if being a pretty girl actually makes your life worse than if you never qualified for the Aspera girl distinction? To top all this off, Georgia is also realizing that she’s in love with Ashley’s sister, Nora.

I’m the Girl is definitely a coming of age story. Georgia is figuring out who she is and also figuring out that the world is a harsh place. She has a strong voice as a character and I did like her. I wanted to like this one more, but there was almost too much going on, and I even found it hard to sum it all up in a quick book review.

Special thanks to Netgalley and Wednesday Books, a division of St. Martin’s Press for an advanced e-galley in exchange for my honest review. This one is out now.