Just a Girl

Gr 9 Up—Mesrobian offers another honest and emotionally charged look at the secret lives of teenage girls. Here, the author examines the abuse that girls withstand from others and sometimes inflict on one another, as well as the double standards that exist between them and their male peers. Rianne is a high school senior with a bad reputation. Widely known in her small town as a slut and nicknamed Hat Trick Girl even by her closest friends, she is struggling to make it to graduation and dreading what comes afterward. With a difficult home life, a crumbling friend group, and no serious job or college prospects, she views starting a life with Luke, a handsome hometown boy who sees past her reputation, as a good plan. Unfortunately, Rianne isn't sure she can stay faithful, at least not after she meets Sergei, a much older foreign exchange student from Russia who looks at her with new eyes and promises to take her away from her tiny town and into the wild world. Gritty and real in ways that many female protagonists are not, Rianne is more of an antihero in her quest to create a good life for herself, despite her nearly constant and seemingly avoidable failures to do so. The dialogue is refreshingly accurate; the offhand snipes between friends are particularly sharp and familiar, and the occasional pop culture references and use of slang don't feel at all contrived.