Spoilers Ahead! (marked in purple)
“It’s always you, me, and that road, isn’t it?”
Sixteen year old Georgia knows she’s destined to be an Aspera girl. She’s known it ever since Michael Hayes found her three years ago on the road leading to Aspera, a 12,000 acre members only resort in the mountains he and his wife, Cleo, own. Georgia is determined to do everything in her power to make her dream a reality.
Georgia is on that same road when she discovers the body of thirteen year old Ashley James, the deputy sheriff’s daughter. Nora, Ashley’s sister, and Georgia begin their own investigation into Ashley’s rape and murder.
Based on the blurb, I expected there to be more of a focus on Georgia and Nora investigating Ashley’s murder. There’s some of this scattered through the book but really it’s the abuse of power and privilege, so much privilege, that abound here.
This book was … a lot. It’s motherless daughters and grief and kidnapping and murder and on page sexual assault and trafficking and grooming and incest and it’s all a case of wondering who’s going to do the next horrific thing. I feel like I need a shower to wash it all away.
Some part of me will always be finding her here. Some part of her will always be here, waiting to be found.
Content warnings include child pornography, grooming, incest, self harm, sexual assault and trafficking.
Once Upon a Blurb
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.
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?
Schizanthus Nerd 