Girl One is a fantastic science fiction thriller that takes the reader on a wild ride. I was hooked from the first page, and couldn't wait to find out how Josie and the other women from the 'Miracle Babies' project fared. There were so many mysteries wrapped inside this story that every page seemed to hold something new. Definitely recommend this book.

This book was described as “Orphan Black meets Margaret Atwood in a twisty supernatural thriller about female power and the bonds of sisterhood.” Naturally, this peaked my attention – I mean, who wouldn’t be?

This book has a lot going for it. At first glance the premise promises exciting dystopian sci-fi, and there are absolutely elements of that. I think this book is actually more of a mystery/thriller. It is fast paced and has lots of twists and turns and red herrings. I will say, however, that the story can drag a bit and the first half of the book was slow – the action really begins in the second half.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and I found myself really rooting for Josie, the main character.

This book takes genetic engineering to a whole new level by creating children with no male needed. These women live in a compound and flee across the US when they are burned down. Josie was very young when they fled but now is older and is searching for her missing mother. She is trying to find her sisters who hold the key to Margaret's disappearance. Together the girls are discovering their powers and trying to survive the attacks by people who want to destroy them. An interesting concept for a book. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This book never let up on the forward movement of the story. I read it in one sitting, afraid I would miss something if I looked away. I want read more about these women! Actually, I want to read anything else this author has written.

Great premise but it took me over a month to finish this average sized novel because I was just really bored. The writing style didn’t jive with me and the characters didn’t call to me in any way.

Wow. Girl One brings it and then some.

Sara Flannery Murphy gives us a heroine to root for in Josie. Girl One is a genetically engineered sci-fi suspense story. It has red herrings, bad guys, quasi bad guys, and paranoia. It is so good.

Murphy speeds readers through the past all the while on the hunt for Josephine’s missing mother. Secrets are revealed, hidden, and blown up. Have I mentioned how good this is again?

I mostly love the secondary characters. Let’s just say you dislike who you are supposed to dislike (laugh).

The cover does not do justice to the action packed inside. This is a book you are going to want to read again because it is that exciting.

Murphy also manages to throw in some romance too. Gotta love “love on the run”.

I hope we see more of these girls as Murphy only refers to Girl One with the title. Spoiler alert: there might be more than one and you will want to read more about them.

I received an ARC of this book and I am writing a review without prejudice and voluntarily.

This book has a good cult-y feel, but goes lighter on the sci-fi than I'd expected. It should have been a great counterpunch to books like The Handmaid's Tale, but with a man at the center of the drama, that possibility was lost. I did love the dynamics between the women who were conceived by their mothers and their mothers alone. But I'm still waiting for a great "world without men" thriller.

3.5/5 stars

This novel follows Josephine Morrow, who is Girl One. What is Girl One? She is the first of nine "Miracle Babies" that were conceived without a male between 1971 and 1975. These babies were raised on a commune called the Homestead, which burned down 1977 following the death of one of the mothers. The remaining mothers and babies split up before the fire, other than the 9th baby and Dr. Joseph Bellanger.

Years after the fire, Josephine Morrow's mother goes missing and she must go search for her and answers on her existence.

Girl One is fast-paced and had plot twist that kept the reader on their toes. I recommend this one for anyone who likes thrillers, mysteries, or dystopian novels.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an ARC to read and share my honest thoughts!

I was really excited to start reading this book. I love Dystopian fiction and the synopsis sounded like a book I would love.

The story premise is about nine miracle baby girls raised on a commune known as 'The Homestead.' These babies were born without fathers through a new experimental science known as parthenogenesis.

Unfortunately many people feared these girls and their homestead was burnt down and the girls (and their mothers) fled to different parts of America to lead separate lives.

The story starts, years later when 'Girl One' (the first miracle child) goes in search of her mother after she disappears, following a fire at her house. To help uncover the truth about her past and to help her find out what happened to her mother Girl One seeks out the other miracle children. Their past is complicated and unravelling it leads to further mysteries which put them all in danger.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I really couldn't get into the first half of it and didn't find the storyline very interesting. I didn't feel much empathy towards the characters (there were so many!) and the story seemed very repetitive.

By the second half however I was hooked and couldn't put it down. The story picked up pace and had several great twists. The story focused more on three central characters who I became much more invested in. I even enjoyed the supernatural elements of the story which slightly reminded me of The Justin Cronin Trilogy. I loved the last 20 percent of the story and raced through it!

So overall a bit of a mixed review! I would recommend this if you enjoy dystopian fiction and fancy trying a different sort of thriller with some fantasy/Sci fi thrown in! I think this would make a great film/short series too

Such an interesting concept! As the book progressed, I continually felt that I didn't know where it was going (and I loved that!). My only complaint is that the main character seems unlikable. I enjoyed so many of the supporting characters, so that helped.

I'm glad I didn't leave this on my TBR for too long, I loved Girl One. It is clever and entertaining. Almost every chapter had some sort of big reveal to further the plot. It has a feminist undertone which I enjoyed. Honestly, I don't want to say too much because I really enjoyed reading it without knowing too many details, and being surprised and I think that is probably the best way to read this book. I will say that it's a bit of Stranger Things meets Orphan Black meets The Power by Naomi Alderman. A solid 4 stars for me.

As a side note, I did listen to a few chapters of the Audiobook and I didn't love the narrator's character voices. So I would stick with reading this one.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Girl One brought out some interesting ideas about becoming pregnant without a male. The book was in parts fantasy, mystery and thriller all brought together in one book. It was well written and paced well. I would have enjoyed reading something about how the experiment came about and how the women became pregnant. It kept my interest and I enjoyed reading Girl One.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC. The review is my opinion.

This novel follows girl one, a young lady born of apparent virgin birth….no male needed. She is retracing the scientific work he “father” used to impregnate her mother. Unfortunately, she is called home from college because her mother has gone missing after a fire at home.
From there, we learn about the other girls and the tragedy that lead to them all living apart instead of the community they had all shared,
Ultimately she discovers the other girls that are still living and a secret they all share, Also discovers more about her so called father….changing how she feels about him and his supposed science breakthroughs.

I greatly enjoyed this fresh and intriguing contemporary science fiction novel. The plot grabs you from the get-go with its first line and takes you on an extensive physical and emotional journey until a stunning conclusion. There is a good chunk of worldbuilding in it involving scientific advances in reproduction, an examination of gender roles, etc but the heart of the story comes down to the characters.

Josie is a great protagonist. She undergoes a lot of growth in the story, a totally different woman (or rather more of her true self) in the end, but all the way she remains someone you root for and push for her to fight for herself and her sisters. The traveling aspect of the plot lets the reader meet a lot of personalities. I enjoyed them all but Tom and Isabelle were the most interesting to me. I don't trust even spoiler tags so I'll leave it at that and let you all figure it out for yourselves when you read it.

My only tiny complaint is there were some lulls plot-wise where the tension let up too much for my taste but I am a thriller reader at hard and I know this to be a fault of my own. It wouldn't stop me for one minute from recommending this book to any reader I know. It hits all the high points and does it well. Even though I've finished it, I'm still intrigued by the points it made while giving me an awesome story to read.

Note: I received a free electronic edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for the honest review above. I would like to thank them, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to do so.

This book had a very interesting premise, I enjoyed the slowly unfurling mystery and the suspense. My problem with the story is Josie. Josie's character was boring to me, I found her to be annoying more than anything else. Her adoration for Bellanger from the start gave off creepy vibes. I wish the author had spent more time focusing on the female power instead of just bringing down Bellanger and destroying his legacy. I would of liked to have seen the truth come out and everyone realize just how little a part Bellanger actually played.

We used this novel for our first Adultish Book Round Table and the entire group thought it made a great Summer read. The story was twisty enough for mystery lovers and just science fiction enough for the more sciencey members of the group. Bonus points for 1970s feminism

DNF at 33%. Really interesting premise and in a brief summary of what I’ve read so far it sounds really great. But for some reason as I’m actually reading I am not drawn into the story and don’t want to pick it up again after I set it down. May just be a case of picking this up at the wrong time but for now it’s a dnf. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance reading and listening copies.

This was an enjoyable book to read. Great characters and great story. Opens up some interesting questions, and wanted to keep reading at the end of each chapter to see what was next. Will definitely need to read more of Sara Flannery Murphy.

Josephine Morrow is the first of nine “Miracle Babies” who were born to nine women without men’s biological input. The women who participated in the experiment lived on a New England property called the Homestead together, where their girls were born between 1971 and 1975. After the last mother died when her child was just a toddler, most other mothers left the commune with their daughters, scattering across the country. The Homestead then burned in 1977, killing the orphaned Girl Nine and Dr. Joseph Bellanger, whose groundbreaking work allowed the “virgin births” to happen.

Now it’s 1994, and Josie is a medical student hoping to replicate the lost research of her father figure Dr. Bellanger. And her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken in a year, has disappeared from their quiet home in small-town Illinois, which has partially burned. In search of answers and her mother, she teams up with a reporter who has plans to write a book about the Homestead and sets off to find the other mothers and daughters. As she meets each one, she collects pieces of the truth that contradict what she had always been told and learns about surprising abilities each Girl has. While Josie knows she is facing some dangerous people, the full scope of the threat only begins to take shape far into her journey. Girl One and her special sisters have to draw on their relationships with each other, with their mothers, and the abilities they discover to protect their family.

The premise of this book had me imagining this would be a dystopian novel with a society very different from what we know now; however, it presents only a small slice of an alternate history with a scientific breakthrough that affected a very small group of people, with everything else staying the same. It explores the likely ways society would react to a scientific breakthrough where women give birth without men’s DNA. It explores the bonds between mother and daughter, female friendships, and female romantic relationships. It’s definitely a feminist book, and even while showing the variety of ways society likely would react to a scientific development that would enable a world without men, it essentially pooh-poohs the reactions (at least some of which would be understandable and important to discuss as a society) and embraces the notion. Interesting premise and execution.

I am a sucker for novels with magical realism/light sci-fi, cults, female friendships, and mysteries - and this one had it all of these aspects! I felt like I was constantly on my toes during this novel. I saw some of the twists and turns coming, but some took me completely by surprise. What really kept me invested, however, was the bond between the Girls. I was very invested in main characters and needed to know what would happen next to them. I was enamored with how female friendship was not represented as either sickly sweet/perfect or impossible, but rather as a complicated, but strong bond.