Courtney Summers, she never disappoints, and this book is no different. In fact, fans of her past books may seem some cameos/mentions. Once again, Summers delivers gritty truths speckled with hope that is empowered by the strength of women.

I was incredibly confused this entire book. I’m sorry but I don’t think this ever delivered on what it was trying to do.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an eARC of this book.

Georgia dreams of being an "Aspera Girl" - working at the exclusive resort on the edge of town. Her mother worked there as a housekeeper until her death and wanted Georgia as far away from that place as possible. Georgia interprets this as her mother not thinking she is good enough for the Aspera world and this makes her even more determined to thrive there.

On her way to speak to the owner about the job, she sees a car speeding around and sees that a girl has been dumped on the side of the road. Georgia and the victim's sister, Nora, team up to find out what happened to her. As Georgia gets closer to the inner circle of Aspera, she learns that it's not all that it seems.

I really enjoyed this book. 4.5 stars. There are a lot of mature topics so I would definitely say it's more for older YA readers.

Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. This YA thriller riveting and disturbing. We follow the protagonist, Georgia after she discovers the dead body of a girl after she herself was hit by a car and left unconscious on the side of the road. The story unravels and Georgia not only learns things about herself, but also about the dead girl and her sister. She learns more about her Mother who is also deceased.

It's a sad narration that I think really examines feminine power versus vulnerabilities through the lens of a coming to age story for a young woman.

Courtney Summers is ridiculously talented, to this DAY Sadie stays with me. I think I was expecting something...more? When the book ended, it felt like it was only half done. And I think on the one hand, it makes sense for the setting and for the situation and for the unfortunate reality of the world--but on the other hand, wouldn't it be satisfying to see it not played out that way?

Sadie was one of my best reads of 2020, so I dropped everything to the second I got approved for this ARC.
Courtney Summers has done it again.
I'm the Girl centers around Georgia, a 16 year old girl who's life changes forever the day she's mysteriously hit by a car and then discover's the body of 13 year old Ashley James. Georgia teams up with Ashley's older sister, Nora, to track down Ashley's killer. Together, Georgia and Nora uncover a hidden world of privilege and wealth within the elusive Aspera.
Courtney Summers writing gets me. She artfully creates such a creepy and addicting atmosphere that you can't get enough of. Much like Sadie, I really appreciated this being a queer thriller. I loved Georgia and Nora together, they made sense in such a sad and beautiful way. This story had so many unique elements to it, I'm so impressed with how seemlessly the story came together.
This story keeps you gripped the entire time, and I couldn't guess the ending, which is always a plus for a thriller. Summers did such a good job incorporating current pop culture references without feeling hacky or forced in any way. The subject matter in this book is tough to read about, so please search triggers if that's something that plays a factor in your reading experience.
Overall, an excellent thriller that feels creepy in your bones at times, but doesn't cross the "too much" threshold in my opinion.

One thing that I've always admired about Courtney Summers is her ability to tackle abuse in many different ways while never glamorizing it.

That being said, unlike Sadie and The Project, this story was much harder to follow and maybe I wasn't in the correct mindset to read this, but it just didn't have the same impact for me that her previous releases have had.

I'm sure that this book will be for a lot of people, but I just don't think it is for me.

Arc provided by NetGalley

The pace was way to fast for me. Although, I will give it a reasonable look how flashbacks of traumatic events occur.

Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for something so heavy, but just didn’t click for me.

I really don't know how to feel about this book. It made me feel angry and disgusted. I know that was the intention for some of it, but for some parts of it, I'm not so sure. I thought the beginning was well done, but I couldn't understand the extent of Georgia's obsession with Aspera. And I don't know why her mom or her brother didn't even really try to warn her about it.

Interesting and well written I just personally couldn’t get into the story. Definitely creepy. Just a little slow and unbelievable at some points. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

As a teacher who recommends Sadie to anyone who will listen, I was both eager to devour I'm the Girl and also hella nervous because I loved the premise and wanted it so badly to be my next recommended Summers work. We find ourselves squarely in the "must recommend" column. It's a divine work, full of dark and twisty secrets, and Summers get again nails the gripping and tumultuous relationships, the painful bridging of truth and lies, the power that law enforcement yields, and a cruel, vicious world that is uncomfortable to witness but necessary to read. Trigger warnings will definitely be needed on my bookshelf, but this one is not to be missed.

<i>(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Netgalley. Trigger warning for violence against women, including rape and murder.)</i>

“It wasn’t her inevitability,” I say. “It was his.”
“Yeah? That’s what you think?”
“If it hadn’t been her, it would’ve been any other girl.”
It was almost me.

***

“You said a whole world would open up for me.”
“And it will, but you have to remember it’s still their world.”

***

Courtney Summers is one of a few dozen authors who's an insta-read for me, and her latest does not disappoint. The book description pitches I'M THE GIRL as "a spiritual successor to the 2018 breakout hit, SADIE," which is true - but I also found a lot of THE PROJECT in here: mostly in the way that I wasn't sure which direction the story was headed, and worried that the wrong characters (and their problematic world views) would prevail, right up until the very end, making for a rather uncomfortable read.

Thankfully, the warped, jaded, and ultimately misogynistic mindset of the story's female antagonist (and, by extension, the world that made her) doesn't prevail - but neither are we treated to a happy (or even particularly hopeful) ending. I'M THE GIRL is as bleak as it is suspenseful; it interrogates rape culture, patriarchy, capitalism, and privilege, but only offers the tiniest grain of sugar to help the medicine go down. Actually, that's a terrible comparison, because there is no clear cure here.

It's certainly a twisty and harrowing read, but to what end? I actually felt more despondent over the state of the world after I turned the final page.

Love Nora + Avis though, and some of Nora's grief-related stuff is super-relatable, especially in these dystopian pandemic times.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Oh, Courtney Summers you did it again. You made me care about the characters in this story and then devastated me by the end. I'm the Girl tells the story about the summer when Georgia Avis finally makes her way to Aspera to become an Aspera girl. The exclusive club is where her mother once worked and was cruelly dismissed from a few years before the story takes place, but Georgia has always been drawn to the club ever since the day the owner, Matthew, finds her walking along the road and offers her a ride. Telling Georgia that she has so much potential. Georgia, now sixteen, is on her way to Aspera when she stumbles across the body of the police chief's youngest daughter.

Teaming up with the chief's oldest daughter, Nora, who Georgia knows from school and also is attracted to, the two set out to find out what happened to Nora's sister. Georgia enters the world of Aspera and the secrets that hide behind the club's exclusive doors. What she finds out will break your heart, but leave you wanting more time with these characters.

If you've read Courtney Summers before, then this is another powerful read by her. I highly recommend it, and it also contains a nice little Sadie easter egg.

I'm the Girl is a tough read. It's raw and real, and explores the ugliness of powerful people and the abuses the take. This book hurt to read. Georgia is so hopeful and innocent. To see her get taken advantage of without really knowing what was going on was hard to read. I feel like it's important, though, for people to get their hands on this book. This book is emotionally draining, and it is one of my favorite books this year.

First, I would definitely consider this book to be Adult, not Young Adult. The content level was too detailed for what I would comfortably recommend to a teenager. The book was so dark and deep, but I could not stop reading. Summers did an amazing job of playing the power dynamic of the wealthy and the young. At times, the book was so disturbing and uncomfortable, but I think that's what made it so good. Summer did not hold back on the darkness of power and the corruption of the entitled. There were times when I felt annoyed with Georgia as a character because she was so naïve and vain. But, the I remembered that she's a teenager and experiencing these things for the first time in her life. This book was so well done and I always look forward to the next book the Summers releases.

This book was not at all what I was expecting, but not in a bad way! It was a close look at the exploitation of one girl rather than a more sweeping examination of the issues. Focusing primarily on Georgia really helped showcase just how awful some things were.

The ending left me feeling like there was a bit to be desired, it reminded me a lot of another recent novel of Summers', Sadie. However, I think the lack of resolution is only fitting for the story and anything else wouldn't have fit with the narrative at all.

Overall a very worthwhile and timely read!

Wooo boy, this book is dark for a YA thriller. It's super dark pretty much right off the bat (and while I've read 'The Project,' and that got very intense as well, it wasn't as unremittingly bleak as elements of this was, at least in certain ways). There's sexual assault, preying on minors, rape, and all sorts of content warnings to be advised of going into this. The whole work is an indictment of the ideologies and institutions that make SA and rape culture so ubiquitous, so it's certainly no walk in the park to read. That being said, it's still a very engaging read, and not entirely bleak. The budding relationship between the MC and the dead girl's sister allowed slivers of joy in the book, which made them stand out all the more against the overall tone/backdrop of the novel.

I'm the Girl by Courtney Summers is a thrilling, fast-paced, impossible-to-put-down novel. Like all of Summer's books, I couldn't help racing through it. Georgia is a complex, flawed, naive protagonist I wanted to swaddle in bubble wrap. Sometimes I read with my hand over my mouth, knowing Georgia was walking blindly toward a cliff's edge and the author would no doubt shove her off any second. I love Ms. Summer's writing style-it's absolutely flawless. Highly recommend!!

I have very mixed feelings about this book and it took me a little while to stop and process what I read before coming to a decision as to how I was going to rate it. I have a lot of thoughts here, so humor me here for a bit as I try to get them out in some coherent fashion.

The Good: Courtney Summers is a fantastic writer. She could make a rewrite of the phone book worth reading. The way she manipulates language is stunning. It’s clear that her craft improves with each novel she releases. I will continue to read whatever she writes because I believe she still has a lot of great stories in her. This one was not one of them.

The Not-So-Good: There is a lot of not-so-good in this novel. Let me start by saying that Sadie is an absolute masterpiece and calling this one a “sister novel” isn’t a fair assessment. I understand the sentiment, but it’s off-base. This book is explicit in ways that even Sadie was not. I’m the Girl was trying to be poignant and provocative at the same time and completely missed the mark. For one, the plot holes were gaping. I read the ending several times over and still am not 100% sure what even happened. The main character, Georgia, was completely unlikable and there is no way you can root for a protagonist with absolutely no redeeming qualities even when they are put in hopeless situations. I found myself wanting to physically gag more than once (ugh, Matthew and Cleo, seriously?) and never once did I understand why the plot unfolded the way it did. The meaning was completely lost behind the umpteen explicit scenes that had no bearing on the story itself.
I think people will rate this highly because of the intrigue, but If you’re going to write a novel based on such explicit content, I think your theme needs to be crystal clear. The theme in this was about as clear as mud. I only understood where she was trying to go with it because I watched interviews with her, not because the book made it clear that the events that took place were inherently wrong. I know I’m just one reader in a sea of people who will love this offering because it’s risqué, but as a fan of Summers and her work, this one just feels like a complete let down.

If you’re going to position yourself as an author who champions girls who are broken and lost, you should make sure their lives and stories are told in a way that is meaningful. Sadie did that beautifully and it’s why it has such staying power. All of the brokenness led to something significant. This one felt cold and devoid of any real consequence. I don’t think it did any of the victims who have led similar lives any justice. (Because, let’s be honest, we all know where the inspiration for this story came from.) I just know that if I were one of those girls, this isn’t how I’d want my story to unfold. Even if a story doesn’t have a happy ending, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lesson that can be learned from it, and if Summers meant to infuse a deeper meaning here, she missed the mark.

This book, while not quite as gripping as Sadie was, kept me intrigued and guessing for the majority of the story. This story is well-written and keeps you thinking even after you finish it.

3.5 stars rounded up.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the chance to read this book!