Girls Like Her

by Melanie Sumrow Narrated by Melanie Sumrow, January LaVoy

Overview

AN ODYSSEY AWARD FOR AUDIOBOOK EXCELLENCE HONOREE

AN AUDIOFILE EARPHONES AWARD WINNER

A raw, gripping, authentic, and boldly original novel about a fifteen-year-old Texas girl set to stand trial for murder-and the one person who might be able to help her clear her name.

A wealthy businessman is dead, and fifteen-year-old Ruby Monroe is in a Dallas jail awaiting trial for his murder. Ruby has no one she can count on-no one, except her state-appointed caseworker, a woman named Cadence Ware. In Ruby's experience, that's not anyone she can trust.

Cadence is familiar with the cold reality of Ruby's situation, even before Ruby was arrested. Angry and alone, homeless and hungry, breaking the law just to survive, she is the kind of girl no one wants to listen to, especially not the prosecutor who wants to put her away for life.

But no one knows the story-the real story-of what happened the day Ruby met the man who would end up dead. As the layers of truth are peeled away and time is running out, Ruby and Cadence will both have desperate choices to make-choices that could mean the difference between Ruby spending her life in prison or her name being cleared.

Told through a collection of letters, meeting notes, news articles, court transcripts, and more, Girls Like Her is a riveting and unflinching tale of the truths so often lost in the American justice system, and one girl's fight to be heard.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Keeps you guessing until the very last page. Sumrow's brilliantly-conceived novel is a harrowing journey into child sex trafficking and the United States legal system—and a complicated character study in which how someone is perceived is just as consequential as who they are. Masterful." — Eliot Schrefer, Printz and Stonewall Honor-winning author of The Darkness Outside Us

"Girls Like Her is a compelling study of the impossible choices faced by millions of young girls today. In this heartbreaking and hopeful story, Melanie Sumrow reminds us to look and listen to those who need it most." — Brandy Colbert, award-winning author of The Blackwoods

“A gut punch.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)

"Sumrow crafts suspense through a compelling, patchwork narrative that combines fictional press releases, letters, notes, legal memos, and close third-person prose. Skilled pacing transforms a typical ripped-from-the-headlines premise into a nail-biting investigation of financial precarity and child sex trafficking." — Publishers Weekly

"Reads like true crime. An eye-opening depiction of the criminal justice system’s treatment of young, vulnerable citizens." — Kirkus Reviews

"Sumrow add[s] sobering authenticity to this gripping legal drama. A nonlinear timeline and fictionalized materials that foretell a plot twist add interest and suspense to Ruby’s story of falling through the cracks and, unlike so many others, eventually being found." — Booklist

“Keep[s] readers hooked with a desire to find out Ruby’s side of the story, and what the verdict of [her] trial will be. For fans of emotionally intense reading, like Ellen Hopkins’s Crank and books by Tiffany D. Jackson.” — School Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

2024-03-23
A ripped-from-the-headlines story shines a light on children who are tried as adults.

On January 7, 2022, millionaire Eric Hanson was murdered. Within hours, 14-year-old Ruby Monroe was arrested for the crime. So begins Ruby’s story, which alternates between narrative chapters, court transcripts, newspaper articles, and letters. Ruby spends months in Dallas County Juvenile Detention Center, but when the judge grants the prosecutor’s request to have her case transferred to adult court, she’s moved to the women’s jail. Ruby’s previous distrust of her public defender and the social worker brought in to help build her defense has stymied their efforts to prevent the transfer. But now, with a July 2023 court date looming, Ruby slowly opens up to the social worker about earlier events in her life. As the layers are peeled away, it becomes clear that the story involves more than a simple robbery that went awry and resulted in a shooting. The events leading up to Ruby’s arrest and the depiction of her time in jail are jarring and graphic. Much of the story reads like true crime, although Ruby’s letters to her friend Maya feel more like a device to fill gaps in the storyline than an authentic teen voice. Main characters are cued white; Maya has brown skin.

An eye-opening depiction of the criminal justice system’s treatment of young, vulnerable citizens. (content warning, author’s note, resources) (Fiction. 14-18)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159413932
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/25/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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