Not like Other Girls
by Meredith Adamo
High School    Bloomsbury    448 pp.
4/24    9781547614004    $19.99
e-book ed.  9781547614011    $13.99

Seventeen-year-old Jo is quick to list qualities she’s learned are “the trouble with girls like me.” She’s “wild,” “difficult,” “a slut.” A social outcast after a classmate leaked nude photos, she’s mostly ignored by her parents and failing school. When her ex-best friend, Maddie, one of the popular girls, asks for help, Jo can’t imagine why—but before Maddie can explain, she disappears. Everyone thinks she ran away, but Jo believes it’s not that simple. She teams up with Hudson, a friend (or maybe more) who has his own reasons to investigate Maddie’s disappearance; together, they uncover a schoolwide scandal with dangerous implications. The mystery has all the elements of a good thriller: characters you can’t necessarily trust; nail-biting suspense; and a twisty, surprising conclusion. But there’s another layer: what happened to Jo at age fifteen, when she and Maddie stopped being friends. Jo’s experience, once revealed, is clearly sexual assault, contextualizing her bitterness, rage, and self-blame. It takes time, and some help, for Jo to recognize it, too, and reclaim her body and her voice. Adamo writes with compassion for “girls like me” (an author’s note acknowledges firsthand experience) who deserve to be listened to, believed, and loved—and nothing less.

From the May/June 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.