NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS

Seventeen-year-old Jo-Lynn Kirby, ostracized by the guys she used to be friends with, comes to terms with many difficult experiences while she looks into the case of a missing girl.

Smart but struggling Jo is on academic probation at Rochester, New York’s Culver Honors High School and trying to conceal her school troubles from her loving but unsupportive and checked-out parents. When Maddie, her former best friend, goes missing, Jo gets pulled into a scheme to find out what happened to her. Jo’s working with Hudson, a guy with whom she has a long and smoldering history, setting the stage for what proves to be a banter-filled, funny, sex-positive, and ultimately poignant romance that grows out of a fake-dating scenario. This, and the gradual reveal of Jo’s heartbreaking social history involving betrayal, bullying, and multiple instances of sexual harassment and assault, provide a strong emotional grounding for the sometimes-unwieldy twists and turns of the central mystery. Jo is an authentic, multidimensional character, and her relationships with a whole host of secondary characters are explored throughout, including what led to the end of her friendship with Maddie. All the main characters read white; there is some diversity in race and sexual orientation among background characters.

A thoughtful and thought-provoking feminist tale woven into an expansive mystery.