The Girl You Thought I Was

Gr 9 Up—Morgan Kemper has a "dirty little habit" that she desperately wants to hide from her friends and from Eli Jamison, the uber-cute guy she meets at Rita's Reruns, the thrift store where she volunteers to fulfill 30 hours of community service over the summer before her senior year. Outwardly, Morgan comes across as a cute, petite, well-behaved, and well-adjusted teenager. On the inside, this redhead demonstrates a proclivity for lying and harbors rage against her mother for leaving her dad and abandoning Morgan for another man. Phillips leads off with a suspenseful first chapter told in the first person by Morgan as she endeavors to shoplift a bikini from a department store. This character-driven novel set in an unspecified American city progresses with even pacing as it explores themes of forgiveness, friendship, self-perception, and compulsive behavior. Believable characters emerge from Phillips's straightforward writing. Readers will root for Morgan as she confronts issues of fallibility and makes important choices. The element of romance serves as a credible foil for Morgan to consider her own behavior in relation to the destructive decisions her mother made.