Girls Like Her
by Melanie Sumrow
read by January LaVoy
Clarion Books, 2024. 9 hours, 4 minutes.
Review written April 2, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2025 Odyssey Award Honor Audiobook
Wow. Odyssey Award Honorees are always worth listening to. Every time. This one had me riveted from the moment it started.
It starts off telling about a prominent citizen who’s been murdered. And that police have arrested a suspect. Then we meet the 15-year-old girl who killed him, already in juvenile hall for months, meeting with a new social worker before a hearing where the prosecution wants to have her tried as an adult.
The prosecution gets its way in that hearing, so Ruby is moved to a women’s jail. And she knows that if she doesn’t win her case, she will be in prison for life. The book uses multiple formats to tell the story – some news clippings (with a news show sound effect), some court transcripts from her trial, some notes from the social worker, some letters Ruby writes to a friend on the outside, but the bulk of the book is Ruby’s meetings with Cadence, the social worker, as she tries to get Ruby to open up and tell her story.
And it’s a hard story. Ruby was kicked out by her mother when she was 13. She fell in with someone she thought loved her (still thinking that in prison), but was sex trafficked by him. (I don’t think I’m giving too much away here. The reader/listener has the idea much sooner than Ruby does.) But we don’t find out what happened the day of the murder until the end of the book.
The production quality of this audiobook is excellent, with plenty of sound effects to give you cues about the different types of material used. The narrator’s voice adjusts to the different materials and speakers so much I thought there was more than one person reading until I looked it up at the end.
It’s a powerful story, but sad. The author has worked as a lawyer, so it all has the ring of truth, and she has listed some resources at the back. May our justice system do better for girls like her.
Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/girls_like_her.html
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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.
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