Found family, thrilling storylines, and strong anti-abuse messages.
Thank you so much to TBR and Beyond Tours and Tess Sharpe for allowing me to be part of this experience and also providing me with a complimentary eBook and media kit!
Book Information
Publishing Date: January 26, 2021
A slick, twisty YA page-turner about the daughter of a con artist who is taken hostage in a bank heist.
Nora O’Malley’s been a lot of girls. As the daughter of a con-artist who targets criminal men, she grew up as her mother’s protégé. But when mom fell for the mark instead of conning him, Nora pulled the ultimate con: escape.
For five years Nora’s been playing at normal. But she needs to dust off the skills she ditched because she has three problems:
#1: Her ex walked in on her with her girlfriend. Even though they’re all friends, Wes didn’t know about her and Iris.
#2: The morning after Wes finds them kissing, they all have to meet to deposit the fundraiser money they raised at the bank. It’s a nightmare that goes from awkward to deadly, because:
#3: Right after they enter bank, two guys start robbing it.
The bank robbers may be trouble, but Nora’s something else entirely. They have no idea who they’re really holding hostage…
High school is over, but Nora O’Malley’s life isn’t, which is weird now that her murderous stepdad Raymond is free.
Determined to enjoy summer before her (possibly) imminent demise, Nora plans a ten day backpacking trip with Iris and Wes. Her plans hit a snag when Wes’s girlfriend tags along. Amanda is nice, so it’s not a huge issue—until she gets taken. Or rather, mistaken…for Nora. All because of a borrowed flannel.
Now Raymond has a hostage. Nora has no leverage. Iris has a spear and Wes is building boobytraps. It’ll take all of their skills to make it out of the forest alive.
There are three problems: Someone is lying. Someone is keeping secrets.
And someone has to die.
Book Links
- Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/194848807
- Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Question-Tess-Sharpe/dp/0316574910/
- Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-girl-in-question-tess-sharpe/1143528210
- IndieBound: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-girl-in-question-tess-sharpe/20100091
About the Author
Born in a mountain cabin to a punk-rocker mother, Tess Sharpe grew up in rural northern California. She lives deep in the backwoods with a pack of dogs and a growing colony of formerly feral cats. She is the author of Barbed Wire Heart, the critically acclaimed YA novel Far From You and the upcoming Jurassic World prequel, The Evolution of Claire.
She is also the co-editor of Toil & Trouble, a feminist anthology about witches. Her short fiction has been featured in All Out, an anthology edited by Saundra Mitchell.
Author Links:
- Website: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/f7o3w4
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/sharpegirl
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forest_of_arden
- Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6580285
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authortess.sharpe/
- Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/sharpegirl
Review (no spoilers)
If you’d like to follow along with the rest of the tour, you can find the tour schedule here.
This book tour is for The Girl in Question, which is the sequel to The Girls I’ve Been. I hadn’t read The Girls I’ve Been before joining this, so I ended up reading both novels back to back in order to get this review done in time. As such, I’ll be doing a combination of both in this post.
The Girls I’ve Been (which I rated 4.5 stars) is a powerful story about a girl who was used and abuse her entire childhood. Raised by a con artist and forced to flee when things became life-or-death, Nora is a complicated girl whose identity is a mixture of all the girls her mother forced her to be growing up. When Nora and her friends are trapped with two bank robbers in a hostage situation, she must use the knowledge gained in her past-lives to get them out alive.
I had no idea what this book was about before I started reading it. I just knew that it was a book people talked about a lot. The mixture of present (bank robbery) and past (previous lives as a con-woman) made for a reading experience that was wild in the best way. I honestly think that Tess Sharpe could have done a great job writing these two timelines as two completely different books, but the fact that she wove them together was absolutely brilliant. It added a great amount of character depth to Nora, while also contributing to the anticipation and suspense that a good thriller always has. Ultimately, I think this book is the great start of a story about a young girl finally acknowledging all the wrongs that were done to her and taking the steps needed to grow past it.
The Girl in Question picks up a bit after the end of The Girl’s I’ve Been and follows our main three people (plus Amanda) as they are hunted down by Nora’s stepfather and his goons while on a camping trip.
While I don’t think this sequel was at all necessary, it was a fun ride that opened up a bunch of new plot twists that weren’t explored in the first novel. We learn more about our character’s backstories while watching them learn more about themselves in the process. The end of the book seemed to close pretty much all necessary plots, so I don’t think there will be any more installments in this series, but we’ll see!
I didn’t like the second book as much as The Girls I’ve Been mainly because I felt like the plots stretched a bit too far beyond my imagination to seem at all realistic (I know the first book wasn’t that realistic either, but it wasn’t as bad as this one, in my opinion). I also found myself getting frustrated with what I perceived to be immaturity in the characters that I didn’t really have a problem with in the first book, despite the characters being older here.
That being said, Tess Sharpe once again did a great job delivering a thrilling ride with many twists and turns that are sure to keep you glued to your seats as you read. I’m excited to read more of her work!
Jenjenreviews