NetGalley ARC | That Kind of Girl

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating | ⭐⭐⭐

Roxie is an amateur sleuth who has a knack for finding lost things, no questions asked. Her rich classmates at their expensive private school pay her a lot of money when they need something retrieved. So when Kirsten Montgomery-Wiggins, a big bully queen bee who is good at making others' lives miserable, asks Roxie for help even though they are absolutely not friendly in any way, she accepts. All Roxie has to do is track down a supposedly stolen phone that ws taken by a blond girl who no on knows. Easy enough until Kirsten is murdered and Roxie is the one who discovers her body, making her the prime suspect.

Our second narrator is Inez, who lives on the outskirts of town in a trailer park. She's a little older than Roxie, working as a part-time maid and part-time sex worker. She keeps fiding blood everywhere - crusted in her earrings, on her shoes, clothes, etc., and doesn't know how she will get rid of it all. All Inez truly wants is to try to scrape together enough money to provide a better life for herself, but one night goes horribly wrong and now she could be heading to prison for murder if she's caught.

This is definitely not a typical YA read. It's got a much darker, grittier feel to it, while still being teens and young adults dealing with their situations the best way they can, given the fact that their brains are not fully developed yet. I feel like that led to a bit of an identity crisis for the book and what it wanted to be. There are a lot of important topics addressed, but sometimes not in a way that aided the plot or moved things along.

Both narrators had unique voices and backstories. The age gap helped, as Inez was at a different place in her life than Roxie, despite both being drawn into the same murder investigation. I really liked seeing the investigation from both points of view, because it was decidedly unclear who was truly involved in what and I suspected different characters at various points. I empathized a lot with Inez and would have liked to have had more from her, and less from Roxie.

There are a lot of secrets and trauma here, and power imbalances make for some fury from me on behalf of these young women. It's a much deeper book than I was expecting and I liked it.

Recommended.