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Welcome to Read This Book, a newsletter where I recommend one book that I think you absolutely must read. The books will vary across genre and age category to include new releases, backlist titles, and classics. If you’re ready to explode your TBR, buckle up!
This week’s pick is a great YA/adult crossover thriller that I really loved, and read in probably two sittings! Content warning for discussion of assault, violence, and child abuse.
The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe
Nora is the daughter of a con woman, and she’s been living a lie her entire life. The latest lie is that she lives with her big sister in a small town, and that nothing about her is unusual in any way. The truth? Nora isn’t her real name, her mom is in prison, and Nora put her there. She’s mostly happy, until the day that she and her new girlfriend Iris and ex-boyfriend Wes have to go to the bank together to deposit money from a fundraiser. What should just be an awkward ten minutes turns into a nightmare when the bank is held up by two gunmen, and Nora, Iris, and Wes are all taken hostage. Nora has a sense that this whole thing could go very, very wrong, so she pulls upon all of the tricks she learned in a lifetime of subterfuge in order to get out alive with the two people she cares about, but doing so also means directly confronting a traumatic past.
I love books that (mostly) take place over the course of a single day or event, because I think it really heightens tension and it takes a talented writer to pull it off. Sharpe does this brilliantly here, alternating between present action scenes and flashbacks from all the different girls that Nora has had to become over the years to survive. This demonstrates her struggles with being genuine, and her inability to know who she even is after all of the identities she’s impersonated. I loved that Sharpe really explores what it is to have morals and be ethical when you’ve lived a life of deception, and Sharpe illuminates how Nora makes sense of her experiences and decides what she’s going to stand up for. This rich emotional landscape is contrasted against a really thrilling plot of Nora outwitting the bank robbers at every turn, balancing her many secrets, and also maintaining her platonic and romantic relationships—which force her to be brutally honest in a way she’s always avoided before. It’s a story that requires a deft hand in its telling and lots of balancing between the emotional moments and high-powered action, but Sharpe absolutely nails it!
Bonus: This book is in development to become a Netflix movie starring Millie Bobbie Brown, so definitely pick it up before it hits the streaming service!
Happy reading!
Tirzah
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