The chosen book for our next book club meeting is “The Girls I’ve Been” by Tess Sharpe. This was not my chosen book, as we all get to select one throughout our member rotation, if that makes sense, so I was not sure of what to expect going into it.
This book is considered YA (young adult) literature, and while I didn’t realize this prior to starting the book, I was able to identify its classification relatively soon in. That might sound bad, but I don’t intend for it to; rather, I quickly realized this book is not a challenging one to read in terms of the degree of writing.
This book is about a young woman named Nora. She is the daughter of a relatively successful con artist, and has therefore been thoroughly instructed in the trade. The book begins with Nora, her ex-boyfriend, Wes, and her new girlfriend, Iris (complicated, I know), finding themselves in a pretty hairy situation – they are visiting a bank to deposit money and find themselves taken hostage by burglars as they attempt to rob said bank.
Unbeknownst to the robbers, however, is the fact that Nora is quite a criminal herself and has a few tricks up her sleeve that she is more than willing to impart on these burglars.
I don’t hate the book by any means, but I don’t particularly like it, either. I find Nora’s character to be interesting, but simultaneously whiny, irritating and repetitive, and this really took away from my ability to focus on the overall plot. This is arguably because Nora is a teenager, which is understandable, but again, I didn’t realize this was a YA novel before I began it.
It is decent, and while I wouldn’t read it again, I don’t think it warrants a ‘rid.’
Photo by Kimberly Farmer on Unsplash
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