The Girl in Question

Gr 9 Up–In this follow-up to The Girls I’ve Been, to celebrate graduation, Nora’s dear friend Wes and beloved girlfriend Iris suggest a long hiking trip. The only downside is that Wes’s new girlfriend Amanda will be accompanying them, but surely, Nora thinks, it will be fine. But nothing is as simple as it seems. Nora will get a chance to use the skills she learned as all of the other girls she’s been to evade her evil stepfather, now out of prison, along with multiple other forces from Nora’s past and present as she, Iris, and Wes try to find a captured Amanda and keep themselves alive. As with the first in this series, Sharpe drops readers right into a slow unspooling of what is happening, how the characters have arrived here, who wants what, and most importantly, how far they’ll go to get it. Multiple perspectives and multiple time lines are a lot to balance at once; for all the twisting suspense and wildly fun action, there is a complex web of means, motives, and opportunities underlying everything. Nora and Iris’s relationship is fiercely loving and supportive, and Iris’s struggles with endometriosis give specificity and concrete representation to a not-uncommon yet rarely discussed chronic health condition.