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The Nowhere Girls

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About The Book

“A call-to-action to everyone out there who wants to fight back.” —Bustle
“Scandal, justice, romance, sex positivity, subversive anti-sexism—just try to put it down.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Cuts straight to the core of rape culture—masterfully fierce, stirring, and deeply empowering.” —Amber Smith, New York Times bestselling author of The Way I Used to Be


Three misfits come together to avenge the rape of a fellow classmate and trigger a change in the misogynist culture at their high school transforming the lives of everyone around them in this searing and timely story.

Who are the Nowhere Girls?

They’re everygirl. But they start with just three:

Grace Salter is the new girl in town, whose family was run out of their former community after her southern Baptist preacher mom turned into a radical liberal after falling off a horse and bumping her head.

Rosina Suarez is the queer punk girl in a conservative Mexican immigrant family, who dreams of a life playing music instead of babysitting her gaggle of cousins and waitressing at her uncle’s restaurant.

Erin Delillo is obsessed with two things: marine biology and Star Trek: The Next Generation, but they aren’t enough to distract her from her suspicion that she may in fact be an android.

When Grace learns that Lucy Moynihan, the former occupant of her new home, was run out of town for having accused the popular guys at school of gang rape, she’s incensed that Lucy never had justice. For their own personal reasons, Rosina and Erin feel equally deeply about Lucy’s tragedy, so they form an anonymous group of girls at Prescott High to resist the sexist culture at their school, which includes boycotting sex of any kind with the male students.

Told in alternating perspectives, this groundbreaking novel is an indictment of rape culture and explores with bold honesty the deepest questions about teen girls and sexuality.

Excerpt

The Nowhere Girls US.
Prescott, Oregon.

Population: 17,549. Elevation: 578 feet above sea level.

Twenty miles east of Eugene and the University of Oregon. One hundred thirty miles southeast of Portland. Halfway between a farm town and a suburb. Home of the Spartans (Go Spartans!).

Home of so many girls. Home of so many almost-women, waiting for their skin to fit.

*  *  *

The U-Haul truck opens its sliding door for the first time since Adeline, Kentucky, unleashing the stale air from the small southern town that used to be Grace Salter’s home, back when her mother was still a dutiful Baptist church leader (though not technically a “pastor,” because as a woman in a church belonging to the Southern Baptist Convention, she could not technically claim the official title, nor its significantly higher pay grade, even with her PhD in Ministry and more than a decade of service). Everything in Grace’s life changed when Mom fell off that horse and bumped her head and suffered the concussion and subsequent spiritual experience that, according to Mom’s version of events, freed her mind and helped her hear the true voice of the Lord and, according to Grace’s version of events, got them booted out of Adeline and ruined their lives.

Couches, beds, and dressers are in their approximate positions in the new house. Grace’s mother starts unpacking the kitchen. Dad searches on his phone for pizza delivery. Grace climbs steep, creaking stairs to the room she has never seen before today, the room Mom and Dad only saw in photos their real estate agent sent them, the room she knows is meant to be hers because of the yellow wall paint and purple flower decals.

She sits on the stained twin mattress she’s had since she was three and wants nothing more than to curl up and fall asleep, but she doesn’t know where her sheets are. After five days of nonstop driving, fast food, and sharing motel rooms with her parents, she wants to shut the door and not come out for a long time, and she certainly doesn’t want to sit on boxes of dishes while eating pizza off a paper towel.

She lies on her bed and looks at the bare ceiling. She studies a water-damaged corner. It is early September, still technically summer, but this is Oregon, known for its year-round wetness, something Grace learned during her disappointing Web searches. She wonders if she should try to find a bucket to put on the floor in anticipation of a leak. “Be prepared.” Isn’t that the Boy Scout motto? She wouldn’t know; she had been a Girl Scout. Her troop learned how to do things like knit and make marzipan.

Grace turns her head to look out the window, but her eyes catch texture beneath the peeling white lip of the frame. Carved words, like a prisoner’s inside a cell, through layers of peeling yellow, then blue, then white, the fresh words sliced through decades of paint:

Kill me now.

I’m already dead.

Grace’s breath catches in her throat as she stares at the words, as she reads the pain of a stranger who must have lived and breathed and slept in this room. Was their bed in this very same place? Did their body already carve out this position in space where Grace’s body lies now?

How intimate these tiny words are. How alone a person must feel to cry out to someone they can’t even see.

*  *  *

Across town, Erin DeLillo is watching Season Five, Episode Eleven, of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The title of this episode is “Hero Worship.” It’s about a traumatized, orphaned boy who becomes emotionally attached to Lieutenant Commander Data, an android. The boy admires Data’s superior intelligence and speed, but perhaps even more, he wishes he shared Data’s lack of ability to experience human emotions. If the boy were an android, he wouldn’t be so sad and lonely. If he were an android, he wouldn’t feel responsible for the careless mistake that tore his ship apart and killed his parents.

Data is an android who wants to be human. He is watching them from the outside. Like Data, Erin is often confounded by the behavior of humans.

But unlike Data, Erin is more than capable of feeling. She feels too much. She is a raw nerve and the world is always trying to touch her.

Mom says, “It’s a beautiful day! You should be outside!” She speaks in exclamation points. But Erin’s skin is almost as pale as Data’s and she burns easily. She doesn’t like being hot or sweaty, or any other discomfort that reminds her she lives in her imperfectly human body, which is why she takes a minimum of two baths a day (but definitely not showers—they feel too stabby on her skin). Her mother knows this about Erin, and yet she keeps saying things she thinks normal moms of normal kids are supposed to say, as if Erin is capable of being a normal kid, as if that is something she would even aspire to be. Mostly, what Erin aspires to be is more like Data.

If they lived by the ocean, Erin might not have the same reluctance to go outside. She might even be willing to subject her skin to the stickiness of sunscreen if it meant she could spend the day turning over rocks and cataloging her findings, mostly invertebrates like mollusks, cnidarians, and polychaete worms, which, in Erin’s opinion, are all highly underappreciated creatures. At their old house near Alki Beach in West Seattle, she could walk out her front door and spend entire days searching for various life-forms. But that was when they still lived in Seattle, before the events that led to Erin’s decision that trying to be “normal” was way more trouble than it was worth, a decision her mother still refuses to accept.

The problem with humans is they’re too enamored with themselves, and with mammals in general. As if big brains and live birth are necessarily signs of superiority. As if the hairy, air-breathing world is the only one that matters. There is a whole universe underwater to be explored. There are engineers building ships that can travel miles beneath the surface. One day, Erin aims to design and drive one of those ships, armed with PhDs in both marine biology and engineering. She will find creatures that have never been found, will catalog them and give them names, will help tell the story of how each being came to be, where it fits within life’s perfectly orchestrated web.

Erin is, unapologetically, a science geek. She knows this is an Asperger’s stereotype, as are many other things about her—the difficulties expressing emotion, the social awkwardness, the sometimes inappropriate behavior. But what can she do? These are parts of who she is. It’s everyone else who decided to make them a stereotype.

One thing Erin knows for sure is that no matter what you do, people will find a way to put you in a box. It’s how we’re programmed. Our default is laziness. We categorize things to make them easier to understand.

That’s what makes science so satisfying. It is complicated and massive, but it is also so tidy, so organized. What Erin loves most about science is the order, the logic, the way every bit of information fits into a system, even if we can’t see it yet. She has faith in that system the way some people have faith in God. Evolution and taxonomy are comforting. They are stable and right.

But there’s the pesky problem of chance, which never ceases to trouble Erin, and which she has made it her life’s goal to figure out. The whole reason there are humans, the whole reason there’s anything more than the very first single-celled organism, is because of mutation, because of something unpredictable, surprising, and unplanned—the exact kind of thing Erin hates. It’s what makes chemists and physicists and mathematicians look down on biologists as inferior scientists. Too much relies on powers outside our control, outside the laws of reason and logic and predictability. It’s what makes biology a science of stories, not equations.

The thing about evolution that Erin needs to get to the bottom of is how sometimes it’s this unexpected and unplanned thing that is the most necessary. Freak accidents are what make evolution possible, what made one fish start breathing air, what made his progenies’ flippers turn into feet. So often, the key to survival is mutation, change, and most of the time that change is nothing more than an accident.

Sometimes it’s the freaks of nature who end up being the strongest.

*  *  *

In the small but steadily growing Mexican part of town, there is one extended family consisting of five adults, two teenagers, seven children under the age of fourteen, and one wilted matriarch with quickly advancing dementia and questionable citizenship status. This does not include the additional cousins, second cousins, and cousins-once-removed scattered across Prescott and several surrounding towns. Rosina Suarez is the only child to a single mother, a widow whose husband died only five months after they were married, six months before baby Rosina was born. Instead of a father, Rosina has an extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins who move in and out of her house as if it were their own. Her mother’s two sisters-in-law, who live in the identical townhouse apartments to the left and right of Rosina’s, have been blessed with living husbands and large families. Their children do not complain or talk back or wear dark clothing, do not paint their faces with unflattering makeup or shave the sides of their heads or listen to loud music from the 1990s that consists mostly of girls’ screaming.

Rosina’s family is from the mountains of Oaxaca, with deep indigenous Zapotec roots, with short, sturdy bodies and smooth dark brown skin, round faces and flat noses. Rosina’s father was a mestizo from Mexico City, more European than Indio, and Rosina is tall and thin like him, towering over her family, an alien among them in so many ways.

As the eldest and only daughter, Rosina’s mother has inherited the duty to house and look after her grandmother, who has a tendency to wander off when no one’s looking. And because Rosina is her family’s eldest daughter, it is also her duty to look after the entire brood of cousins, in addition to her regular shifts at her uncle José’s restaurant, La Cocina, the best Mexican restaurant in Prescott (some would say the entire extended Eugene metropolitan area), and the center of the family’s economy. Rosina spends the two and a half hours between the end of school and the start of her shift at the restaurant at her other uncle’s house watching her seven young cousins while Abuelita somehow takes a nap on a chair in the corner despite the screaming horde of children, and Rosina’s eldest cousin, Erwin, who is a senior at Prescott High and, in Rosina’s opinion, the biggest waste of breath in the state of Oregon, sits around playing video games and popping his zits, with periodic trips to the bathroom, which Rosina suspects are masturbation breaks. Rosina’s second-oldest cousin is a boring girl with no interests who is almost thirteen and perfectly qualified to take her place as primary babysitter. But Rosina is, and always will be, the oldest girl, and it is, and always will be, her responsibility to be her mother’s assistant and take care of the family.

How is Rosina ever going to form a band if she’s busy every afternoon changing diapers and keeping the toddlers from sticking sharp knives in electrical sockets? She should be rocking, she should be screaming into a mic onstage, not singing lullabies to her unappreciative little shit cousins while they smear boogers on her favorite pair of black jeans, which she has to hang outside to dry because the dryer’s broken again, where they’re going to get faded and absorb the smell of so many neighbors’ tortillas frying.

The front door opens. One of the babies squeals with delight at the appearance of his mother, returned from working the lunch shift at the restaurant. “I’m out of here, Tía,” Rosina says, leaping up from the couch and out the door before her aunt can even close it behind her. Rosina steps over the scattered pieces of hand-me-down junk that pass as toys, jumps on her secondhand bike, and gets the hell out of there without noticing the spit-up on her leg and something brown on her shirt that is either smashed banana or baby poop.

*  *  *

A mile east is a neighborhood without an official name, but which most Prescott residents openly refer to as Trailer Town. It is home to double- and single-wide trailers and small houses tilting off their foundations, yards that have been overgrown for so long, the weeds are as tall as young trees. In one of these trailers, a popular boy is kissing the salty neck of a girl whose neck is used to being kissed. She is not his girlfriend. She is used to not being anybody’s girlfriend.

The little electric fan inside the trailer is on full blast, but the heat of both their bodies inside the metal box is making the girl sleepy and a little nauseous. She wonders if she had anything she was supposed to do today. She wonders if the boy would notice if she took a little nap. She resigns herself to the answer as she closes her eyes and waits for him to finish. None of these boys ever takes very long.

There was a time when, like so many girls, she was obsessed with princesses, a time when she believed in the power of beauty and grace and sweetness. She believed in princes. She believed in being saved.

She’s not sure she believes in anything now.

*  *  *

In a very different neighborhood, a very different girl closes her eyes and lets go, feels the boy’s head between her legs, painting pleasure on her body with his tongue, just like she taught him. She smiles, almost laughs with the joy of it, how it takes her by surprise, how it bubbles up and makes her weightless.

She has never questioned her entitlement to this. She has never questioned the power of her body. She has never questioned her right to pleasure.

*  *  *

There are a handful of hills in Prescott, and Prescott High School student body president, straight-A+ student, pre-pre-med at (fingers crossed!) Stanford University, lives on top of the tallest one. At the moment she is driving last year’s Ford midlist floor model (her father owns the dealership—“Prescott Ford: Most Fords sold in the 541 area code!”) into her family’s three-car garage, after finishing her volunteer shift at the old people’s home (though of course she would never call it that out loud). “Retirement community” is less offensive, which is important; she doesn’t like offending anyone. She would never in a million years tell anyone how old people actually kind of gross her out, how she has to fight off the inclination to vomit through most of her shift, how afterward she sometimes cries with desperate relief as she steps into the hot shower and washes the smell of them off her, a combination of mothballs and soft food. She picked this particular volunteer opportunity because she knew it would be the most challenging, because she knows this is the key to success—embracing challenge.

In her head, she counts up her volunteer hours. She files this number away with her other favorite numbers: her GPA (4.2), her number of AP classes (ten so far, and counting), and the countdown of school days until graduation (one hundred eighty. Ugh.). She vowed long ago to not end up like her mother, a Prescott native who almost made it out, but who skipped college to marry her high school sweetheart. Sure, her mom ended up rich, but she had a chance at something more. She could have been someone besides the wife of a car salesman and the head of her neighborhood book club. She gave up the opportunity to be someone just as her fingers were about to brush against it, just a second before she could have grabbed it and run and never looked back.

*  *  *

Two miles west, a girl searches the Internet for easy ways to lose twenty pounds.

*  *  *

A quarter of a mile east, someone checks for the third time that the bathroom door is locked. They look at themselves in the mirror and try not to cringe, carefully apply the lipstick they stole from their mother’s purse, stuff toilet paper in the bra they shoplifted from Walmart, cross their eyes so the blur will turn them into somebody else. “I am a girl,” they whisper. “My name is not Adam.”

*  *  *

On the other side of the highway, a girl has sex with her boyfriend for the second time ever. This time it doesn’t hurt. This time she moves her hips. This time she starts to understand what all the fuss is about.

*  *  *

In the next town over, two best friends kiss. One says, “You have to promise to never tell.” The other thinks, I want to tell everyone.

*  *  *

One girl watches TV. Another plays video games. Others work part-time jobs or catch up on their summer reading lists. Some wander aimlessly around the mall in Eugene, hoping to get noticed.

*  *  *

One girl looks at the sky, imagines riding the clouds to somewhere new. One digs in the earth, imagines an underground tunnel like a freeway.

*  *  *

In another state, an invisible girl named Lucy Moynihan tries to forget a story that will define her for the rest of her life, a story no one claimed to believe.

Reading Group Guide

A Reading Group Guide to

The Nowhere Girls

By Amy Reed

About the Book
Grace Salter is the new girl in town, whose family was run out of their former community after her southern Baptist preacher mom turned into a radical liberal after falling off a horse and bumping her head. Rosina Suarez is the queer punk girl in a conservative Mexican immigrant family, who dreams of a life playing music instead of babysitting her gaggle of cousins and waitressing at her uncle’s restaurant. Erin Delillo is obsessed with two things: marine biology and Star Trek: The Next Generation, but they aren’t enough to distract her from her suspicion that she may in fact be an android. When Grace learns that Lucy Moynihan, the former occupant of her new home, was run out of town for having accused the popular guys at school of gang rape, she’s incensed that Lucy never had justice. For their own personal reasons, Rosina and Erin feel just as deeply about Lucy’s tragedy, so they form an anonymous group of girls at Prescott High to resist the sexist culture at their school, which includes boycotting sex of any kind with the male students. Told in alternating perspectives, this groundbreaking novel is an indictment of rape culture and explores with bold honesty the deepest questions about teen girls and sexuality.

Writing Prompts/Discussion Questions

The following questions can be used as writing prompts, or, alternatively, they can be used as targeted questions for discussion and reflection.

1. As the novel opens, Grace discovers the carved words which state, “Kill me now. I’m already dead.” How does the discovery of Lucy Moynihan’s powerful words shape Grace’s approach to being new at her high school? Do you believe she may have behaved differently had this discovery not happened?

2. Given the use of multiple narrators, chapters are labeled as “Grace,” “Erin,” “Rosina,” or “Us.” In what ways are the “Us” chapters unique? What do you think their inclusion offers to this story?

3. What are your earliest impressions of Grace, Erin, and Rosina? What do each of these young women bring to their collective friendship? How would you characterize the relationship between them, and how does it change over the course of the novel?

4. Early in the novel when discussing Lucy with Grace, Rosina states sarcastically, “‘Who gives a crap about some girl getting raped? She wasn’t important. None of us is important.’” What is it about the culture within their school and community that causes Rosina to seem so hopeless in this regard? How does that change throughout the course of the novel?

5. When speaking about what happened to Lucy, Grace overhears other female students accuse Lucy of being “attention seeking” and “causing trouble”. Why do you think attitudes like this are often prevalent when discussing those who bring awareness to being victims of rape and sexual assault?

6. What is it about Star Trek: The Next Generation that Erin is so drawn to? In what ways does this show fill a void in her life? Like Data, her favorite character in the show, we learn that Erin is confounded by how people behave, but unlike Data she “feels too much.” Why is it so difficult for Erin to understand the world? In what ways is it difficult for others to understand her in return?

7. In considering Grace’s mother’s sermon, readers learn that “Grace has never heard her mother speak with this much passion, with this much joy. They are hearing her, feeling her. She is reaching inside and touching the parts of them where a little piece of God resides.” How is this reaction different from her mother’s experiences with her previous congregation? In what ways does this shift impact Grace?

8. While discussing Lucy’s rape at the first meeting of the Nowhere Girls, Sam confesses, “‘We all ignored her when she came back to school. Nobody helped her. No one stood up for her.’” Though some girls admit to knowing what kind of predators Eric and Spencer are, why did so many girls choose not to believe Lucy after she came forward about being gang raped?

9. Explain the significance of the title, The Nowhere Girls. In what ways does it accurately describe the events and relationships portrayed in the novel?

10. Discuss The Real Men of Prescott blog posts. What did you find most disturbing about them? How do you feel knowing that a “manosphere” community and “men’s rights movement” exist? In your opinion, what are the best ways to defend against these types of misogynistic endeavors?

11. At times, fear both incapacitates and motivates Grace, Rosina, and Erin. Consider how they each deal with these emotions. In what ways do they acknowledge these emotions? How are they able to turn to others for help? What are the consequences of their reactions?

12. In reflecting back on her own experiences, Erin thinks, “Silence does not mean yes. No can be thought and felt but never said. It can be screamed silently on the inside. It can be in the wordless stone of a clenched fist, fingernails digging into palm. Her lips sealed. Her eyes closed. Her body just taking, never asking, never taught to question silence.” Though she doesn’t articulate it, her silence and lack of giving consent makes this brutal act against her a rape. Do you believe her experience to be a unique one? Why does Erin refuse to be seen as a powerless victim?

13. Compare the parent and child relationships in the story: Erin and her mother, Grace and her parents, Rosina and her mother. To what extent are the relationships of these characters shaped by the world around them? To what extent do their relationships shape that world? How are Erin, Grace, and Rosina defined by their parents’ choices?

14. During a heated discussion about Rosina’s friends, Rosina’s mother tells her, “‘Oh, you think you’re so much better than me. You’re so much better than your family? If you’re so sick of us, why don’t you just leave?’” In your opinion, why does Rosina choose to remain at home?

15. Examine and discuss the role of Principal Slatterly and the school staff in perpetuating a toxic culture at their school.

16. Discuss the Nowhere Girls. How does this secret group become a catalyst for change within the framework of the school, the community, and the girls themselves? In what ways do you think the group’s participants are better off for having joined forces, now that they’re no longer choosing silence and advocating for themselves as part of this sisterhood?

17. Examine the novel’s cover. In what ways are the images a symbolic representation of the events that transpire throughout the course of the book?

18. Considering Erin’s, Grace’s, and Rosina’s perspectives, in what way is The Nowhere Girls a story about things that have been lost? What do you think each of them finds along the way? Of the three girls, who did you believe to be the most courageous? Use textual evidence to support your opinion.

19. Thinking about what you learned from the experiences of the characters in The Nowhere Girls, what advice would you give to young women facing similar situations?

20. Using the phrase “This is a story about . . . ,” supply five words to describe The Nowhere Girls. Explain your choices.

Extension Activities

1. Though The Nowhere Girls is a fictional story, much of what Reed shares in her novel is inspired by events that have happened in schools and universities across the country. Investigate recent rape court cases where teen or young adult perpetrators have gone to trial for their actions. What are the common outcomes of these cases? After your research, write a reflection of what you’ve learned and your response to this knowledge.

2. Music is used throughout the novel as a way for the characters to connect with one another and the world at large. Select a favorite character from The Nowhere Girls and create an original playlist representing that character’s experiences throughout the novel. Create original artwork for the album cover, and under each song title offer a short explanation for the selection.

3. Empowering young women who stand up for themselves and each other is a hallmark of The Nowhere Girls. Using the Internet and databases available from the library, research feminist organizations, clubs, and societies, especially those that are organized by teens. What are the biggest benefits of such organizations? What are the particular challenges faced by organizers? If you were to engage in a similar activity, what information from your research and from reading The Nowhere Girls would you utilize to guide your work?

4. Create a campaign slogan and logos for a support group similar to that of the Nowhere Girls. Alternatively, using a variety of mediums, create an original piece of artwork which is symbolic of one of the major themes of The Nowhere Girls.

5. There are a number of national and local resources that can help rape victims and their families by providing support resources. Select one of the organizations from the resource list below and learn more about the services provided by considering the following:

Who runs this organization?

How long has it been in operation?

How is it funded?

What are the stated goals?

What do they offer those in need of assistance?

Resources

National Sexual Assault Hotline: 800-656-HOPE and online.rainn.org

En espańol: rain.org/es

RAINN: www.rainn.org

RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) is the nation’s largest anti-sexual-violence organization. RAINN created and operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline in partnership with more than 1,000 local sexual assault service providers across the country. RAINN also carries out programs to prevent sexual violence, help victims, and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice.

Planned Parenthood: www.plannedparenthood.org

America’s most trusted provider of reproductive health care and a respected leader in educating Americans about reproductive and sexual health.

Our Bodies Ourselves: www.ourbodiesourselves.org

Our Bodies Ourselves (OBOS) is a global feminist organization that distills and disseminates health information from the best scientific research available as well as women’s life experiences so that individuals and communities can make informed decisions about health, reproduction, and sexuality.

Advocates for Youth: www.advocatesforyouth.org

Advocates for Youth partners with youth leaders, adult allies, and youth-serving organizations to advocate for policies and champion programs that recognize young people’s rights to honest sexual health information; accessible, confidential, and affordable sexual health services; and the resources and opportunities necessary to create sexual health equity for all youth.

Stop Sexual Assault in Schools: www.ssais.org

SSAIS is spearheading the movement of awareness of sexual harassment and sexual assault in

K-12 schools in order to prevent it, support victims, inform students about their rights, and empower them to protect their peers.

PAVE: http://pavingtheway.net/

Promoting Awareness | Victim Empowerment (PAVE) is the only national nonprofit that works both to shatter the silence and prevent sexual violence through social advocacy, education and survivor support.

This guide was created by Dr. Rose Brock, an assistant professor in Library Science Department in the College of Education at Sam Houston State University. Dr. Brock holds a Ph.D. in Library Science, specializing in children’s and young adult literature.

This guide has been provided by Simon & Schuster for classroom, library, and reading group use. It may be reproduced in its entirety or excerpted for these purposes.

About The Author

Brian Relph

Amy Reed is the author of the contemporary young adult novels BeautifulCleanCrazyOver YouDamagedInvincibleUnforgivable, The Nowhere Girls, and The Boy and Girl Who Broke the World. She is also the editor of Our Stories, Our Voices. She is a feminist, mother, and quadruple Virgo who enjoys running, making lists, and wandering around the mountains of western North Carolina where she lives. You can find her online at AmyReedFiction.com.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (July 9, 2019)
  • Length: 432 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781481481748
  • Grades: 9 and up
  • Ages: 14 - 99
  • Lexile ® HL750L The Lexile reading levels have been certified by the Lexile developer, MetaMetrics®

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Raves and Reviews

"Empowering, brutally honest, and realistically complex" –Buzzfeed

“A call-to-action to everyone out there who wants to fight back.” –Bustle

“Cuts straight to the core of rape culture—masterfully fierce, stirring, and deeply empowering.” –Amber Smith, New York Times bestselling author of The Way I Used to Be

“Subversive anti-sexism—just try to put it down.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“A thoughtful, literary portrayal of female sexuality in a culture that often rejects it.” –Booklist, starred review

“Gritty and timely.” –School Library Journal, starred review

“A must-read.” –VOYA

Awards and Honors

  • Chicago Public Library's Best of the Best
  • Kansas NEA Reading Circle List High School Title
  • NYPL Best Books for Teens
  • Florida Teens Read Master List
  • Bank Street Children's Book Award
  • Amelia Bloomer List
  • Amelia Elizabeth Walden Finalist (NCTE/ALAN)
  • CA Westchester Fiction Award Winner
  • Nutmeg Book Award Nominee

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