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A review by kell_xavi
The Girls I've Been by Tess Sharpe
dark
tense
fast-paced
3.0
A botched bank robbery turns into a hostage situation with Nora, her best friend (Wes), and her girlfriend (Iris) among the captured, which leads Nora to relive years of hiding and trauma in her childhood with a con artist (and psychologically abusive) mother.
The pull of this book is not the past, but the healing process. Iris, Lee, and Wes are strong supports to Nora, and there are complex bonds across love, trust, lies, and truths that wind and unwind and twine together in the course of the book. There’s a a sense of reciprocity and symbiosis that Sharpe, the characters, and I, too, valued.
The first two thirds spool out at a good pace as the three friends try to form a plan against two cruel men with guns and Nora recalls the first few long-cons she was bait in. The last third is harder to read and more dramatic as the violence increases in both timelines, and though I continued to care about the emotional core, the story is angsty and cluttered here in a way I didn’t like as much, though it resolved okay.
The pull of this book is not the past, but the healing process. Iris, Lee, and Wes are strong supports to Nora, and there are complex bonds across love, trust, lies, and truths that wind and unwind and twine together in the course of the book. There’s a a sense of reciprocity and symbiosis that Sharpe, the characters, and I, too, valued.
The first two thirds spool out at a good pace as the three friends try to form a plan against two cruel men with guns and Nora recalls the first few long-cons she was bait in. The last third is harder to read and more dramatic as the violence increases in both timelines, and though I continued to care about the emotional core, the story is angsty and cluttered here in a way I didn’t like as much, though it resolved okay.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Violence, and Child abuse
Moderate: Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Murder, and Vomit
Minor: Abortion, Cursing, Infidelity, and Gaslighting