I am not much of a thriller reader but when I read this blurb and saw the main character was bi, I had to pick it up! There are two timelines. One is over the course of a day and the other is a flashback timeline of all of Nora’s identities leading up to the present.

This book really held on to me and didn’t let go until the end. I read this in one sitting which only took about three and a half hours! Nora is such an unbelievable character and the side characters really had their time to shine. I absolutely adored Iris, Wes, and Lee.

Iris is Nora’s current love interest and she is badass. She is feminine and clever and I really enjoyed reading about her. She isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty and she really matches Nora.

Wes, my sweet boy. He is Nora’s ex-boyfriend and she calls him her “franked-friend”. They reconstructed their friendship and have an unbreakable bond. Even when Wes is upset with her. Wes has his own heartbreaking story and it was a topic I felt handled well by the writer.

Lee is Nora’s half sister and she will do anything, and I mean anything, for Nora. It was so beautiful to read about their relationship. Lee experienced the same as Nora as a child and she will do what she has to in order to protect Nora moving forward.

This was an easy five out of five stars for me. I haven’t read anything in one sitting for awhile. Maybe I will have to read more thrillers or just more of Sharpe in general.

Nora had so many intense scenes and experienced a lot of trauma in her adolescence. There are definitely dark themes such as violence, abuse, assault, and death. Please check trigger warnings. I provided a link to the list shared by the author.

Thank you to Hachette Children’s Group and Netgalley for the arc! This title was released February 4, 2021.

Three friends arrive at the bank one morning to deposit some money and end up being caught up in a robbery gone wrong. The story is told from the point of view of Nora who, we discover as events unfold, is not who we think she is. The daughter of a con artist, she has had to play many roles for her mother throughout her life. Will the things she learned to face in her childhood help her get her and her friends out of danger? This is a brilliant, if sometimes painful, read. I could not put it down.

Ooh, this took my fancy as soon as I heard about it. It had such potential and, luckily, lived up to it! While the blurb makes Nora out to be a con artist, she's more someone raised in the life who has the tricks. But she's got a long and complicated past, and a tricky situation right now to deal with.

Both those elements are key to the book, and going through her past adds more and more as we get into it. The first couple of past sections didn't seem too interesting until she talks to one of the bank robbers. Then it suddenly starts to tie together *and* we see the way she's using how she grew up to manipulate those in the bank.

Plus we get the amazingness of her being stuck in the bank with Wes, her ex, and Iris, her girlfriend. AND Iris has chronic pain. I could rave about great bi rep or pain rep all day, as neither of those are things we regularly see in books. I also LOVE that Nora and Wes are best friends still, and that he's protective of Iris, and there's just so much goodness there. It's found family wonderfulness.

Also, getting to see Nora mess with people's heads (especially with the number of plans - I love that it isn't one person's plans, and that nothing goes right) is just fun.

Honestly a fun thriller that tackles some serious issues (such as abuse of a child, sexual abuse, gaslighting). I highly recommend it. 4.5 stars

A really twisty and intriguing YA novel. I thoroughly enjoyed it and getting into the main character’s back story over the course of the book. This is going to make a brilliant film.

The Girls I've Been is a breathtaking rollercoaster of a thriller. It starts with 3 teens depositing cash after a fundraiser when a bank robbery occurs. The teens have complex relationships to each other, which are played out as flashbacks inserted between the current situation and revelations about our protagonists true and previous identities. Nora has been raised as a grifter with her con-artist mother and the survival skills she has learnt come into play, giving her the edge in manipulating the bank robbers in a bid to ensure the survival of herself and her friends. Nora is not her true name, but with each identity she has assumed growing up, she has developed a new skill, which is about to become very handy...
Nora is a great character; abused and neglected from an early age she has managed to retain some ability to love and care for the people around her, her best friend and ex-boyfriend Wes, her friend and new girlfriend Iris and her sister Lee. You feel connected to her and are rooting for her survival. This story does not stop for breath, you race from one revelation back to the bank robbery, which, for many reasons is not going according to plan and then back again into her past for the next girl she was forced to be. These identities and the clinical understanding of manipulation allows Nora to get some control despite having a gun waved in her face; she is bold, cold and she wants her friends out of there...

This book was exactly what I didn’t know I needed as I tried to process a lot of life changes and struggles. Nora O’Malley is extremely smart and extremely dumb, full of love and unable to trust anyone, and not exactly closely tied up in her morals or ethical code. Living a secret life to escape a horrendous past, Nora is trying to forge a semblance of a normal life. But normal life collides with her dramatic past when she gets caught in a bank heist, and the only way to get her girlfriend and her ex-boyfriend slash Franken-friend out alive is to go back to the con artist she learned to be, and use her wits, her limited resources and her friend and girlfriend to stay alive.

I am *so here* for this book. Nora is complex, flawed, damaged, and incredibly loveable. I love her. I want to wrap her up in blankets and protect her from all harm. Iris, her girlfriend, is a precious cinnamon roll who has hidden a knife under the icing and will stab you if you try to hurt Nora. And Wes, the ex, the friend, the family member, is a bewildered and betrayed but beautifully portrayed boy trying to forge a friendship with someone he needs in his life, who can’t stop lying to him. The three of them together will come up with a series of plots and plans to rescue themselves out of a dangerous situation, all while trying to process the fact that Nora – who promised she wouldn’t lie any more – has been lying about her relationship with Iris – and was only found out after Wes walked in on them last night.

The novel is told non-linearly, as the progression of their morning hostage/heist at the bank is interspersed with elements of Nora’s backstory, both her early childhood at the knee of her con-artist mother, using Nora as a hook in her sweetheart cons, and her later adolescence with older sister Lee, trying to process the trauma and abuse that she experienced through her mother’s series of cons. Nora is flawed and damaged and intensely complex, and although she is trying to move past her con-woman (con-child?) upbringing, she’s going to need to re-engage those skills if she wants everyone to get out of this alive. That tension between her upbringing and her adolescence, the secrecy and lies that permeate every aspect of her life, is beautifully portrayed, and her relationship with Iris is wonderfully drawn. Her complex, layered friendship friendship with Wes is similarly detailed and believable, as shared experiences and rocky pasts help them to forge a future which works for them both.

On the outside is older sister Lee, who walked away from their conwoman mother as soon as she turned 18, but came back to save Nora from her abusive stepfather as soon as Nora called. A private investigator, her interactions with the police force and as a hostage negotiator are interspersed with Nora’s internal dialogue, and they add elements of levity to a very tense tale.

My favourite character in this is definitely Iris, who Nora only wants to protect, but whose brilliance (and skirt with pockets!) plays a vital role in this role-reversal heist. Her endometriosis and chronic pain is also a welcome addition to the tale, because I am so here for invisible disability rep, as well as casual mention of menstruation.

I really enjoyed the whole of this book, and the escapades from Nora’s past and present that unfurl over the course of 330-ish pages. Unbelievable? Yes, of course. But why should that stop the book from being an absolute thrill of a ride?

This was a gripping and enjoyable read (though unfortunately I was approved for this ARC *after* the book was already released therefore I had already paid for a copy!). I loved the queerness and the timelines!

i can honestly say i’ve not read a book like this, and i loved it! i loved the format of the chapters - with the details of each stage of the story in italics as well as the flashback chapters that gave an insight into nora’s life. it was gripping and intriguing - i never wanted it to end.

** this review will also be posted on my instagram - @librariangeorgia **

This book is everything I wanted in a contemporary thriller read. It’s written in a way that makes it destined to be a hit when adapted for the screen later this year.
What I loved most of all was the almost dejavu feeling of familiarity I got from falling into the narrative. Not in a rip-off way, but that comfortable I’m in safe hands, sort of way. It took me a day to too afterwards to pin point what it was. I’d recently watched the episode Monday of XFiles. The only connection really being that they’re were both set in a bank during a robbery. However, I would argue that it’s testament to Sharpe’s writing that I connect the book to one of the best episodes of a much loved show.

The characters are amazing and I must emphasise that I adore the introduction of a character with endometritis and the commentary of periods. It’s subtle and yet incredibly powerful.

What I truly loved was that it works as a stand alone novel. I feel satisfied. However, if a sequel were to emerge I’d be happy.
One things for certain; between this and Evolution of Clare, Sharpe is a writer I will automatically read from now on.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review – thanks as always to Netgalley for sending this to me!

Keep an eye out for my Youtube review coming soon!

I’m sure we’re all familiar with the metaphor of the frog in the pot of boiling water. The idea being that if you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it’ll hop right out, but if you turn the water up slowly, the frog won’t notice it’s being cooked until it’s too late.

Reading this book was like hopping into that saucepan of tepid water, going ‘this is nice, isn’t it?’ and then someone jamming the lid on top and immediately turning it up to 200 degrees.

I mean that in the best possible way.

The Girls I’ve Been is a masterclass in tension. It keeps going throughout and never loses momentum. I think a lot of that is down to the fact that the book is told in a very short window of time, just a handful of hours in the same setting – but it manages to maintain that sense of tension during the dual timeline, even when we’re skipping back years into the past. It’s so much more difficult to keep that same level of intensity in a flashback scene, because we know that of course the main character has made it out to get to the present day, but the author does a fantastic job of keeping every scene simmering with tension as you bite your nails and frantically speed through to get back to the present day. The flashbacks have a different tone to the main story – more like a constant thread of unease, like the music that plays in a horror movie to put you on edge – but it’s just as powerful. That being said, I also appreciated that we did get a chance for a few gasps of air, quieter moments to build the relationship between Nora and Iris, as we get a few quick glimpses into the history of their relationship. These pauses were much-needed, just to recover, because this book is the definition of a rollercoaster and it never stops. I didn’t mean to devour 90% of it in one go, but it felt like I had no choice. This book was made to be read all in one nail-biting rush. I believe it’s being made into a movie starring Millie Bobby Brown, and I think it’s going to be a great one – it was built for that format, I think, with its constant action and quick changes between timelines and events.

The story revolves, for the most part, around a tightly-knit group of characters. Obviously the main focus is Nora, her girlfriend Iris, and her ex, Wes. We’re supported by Nora’s mother and sister, and the mother in particular plays an integral role in the book. It’s a very focused story, which gives the characters a lot of time to shine and keeps things well-balanced. I will admit that I never got hugely attached to Wes – he seemed sweet, but didn’t leave much of an impression on me – and I never fully felt like I had got to grips with the older sister, Lee, but I was fascinated by the mother, and Nora’s girlfriend, Iris, is my new fave. Iris, who’d never been in a life-or-death situation in her life, who rose to the occasion, hoisted up her vintage skirts and got stuck into the action even while fighting debilitating period cramps caused by her endometritis. (That’s another detail I just loved, incidentally: the inclusion of period talk in YA. I feel like so many books just pretend periods aren’t a thing, so I loved that a) they’re mentioned, and b) Tess Sharpe acknowledged this condition and how agonising it can be, when so many sufferers are dismissed by doctors.)

The villains, I felt, were a little less developed. Some of them aren’t even named, and it was a little hard to be intimidated by them at times when they had such distance from the narrative, but the situation itself was severe enough to make up for the reduced intimidation factor. I would have enjoyed if we’d connected to them a little more, but obviously there’s not enough time for everyone to share the spotlight, and when it comes down to it, the bad guys here take a back seat. They’re obstacles for Nora to tackle, and she does it so well.
So much of YA is about coming of age and discovering who you are, and in this book we get to watch Nora do this on fast-forward, in real time. After trying on different identities like jackets throughout her childhood, Nora has been left a little lost, still trying to work out exactly who she really is outside of her mother’s depraved influence. Deprived of the luxury of time to figure herself out, she has to hit the accelerator and work it out fast – and she rises to the occasion beautifully. At the end of the day, the people in her way are a secondary concern.

It’s been a while since I’ve read a Tess Sharpe book. One of her previous YA contemporaries, Far From You, has been lauded as a sapphic classic, and it’s a powerful read – but this book steps it up. In addition to the unusual structure, which incorporates lists and inventories that made it feel almost like a video game at times, there was a definite stylistic shift from the last Tess Sharpe I read. Her writing style has subtly altered, and now has a slightly literary quality that reminded me of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. If you like VE Schwab’s style and aesthetic, I think this one will work for you, especially if you’re drawn to characters like Lila Bard or Addie LaRue but are perhaps looking for a little more brutality with your badassery. Nora is a fighter, she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty, and I was totally here for it.

Overall, The Girls I’ve Been is tense, pacey, and doesn’t pull any punches. It’s an awesome, addictive read and I’m definitely going to be recommending this one in future!

I really loved this book with it's fast paced storyline and storytelling with flashbacks to show how Nora became the girl she is now. The story telling of the intense heist and the intermittent flashbacks gave the book even more urgency as you rushed to find out what was happening

The three main characters were beautifully fleshed out with a deep understanding of what made each of the tick but Nora was by far the most interesting with such a fascinating back story. I'd love for more to be written with these characters and their strong bond

I must admit that I felt a slight lull towards the middle of the book with the heist, but it soon after ramped it up with the back story

The ending left me wanting more, with it feeling a little too open ended so am hoping for a sequel! I think this will be great as the Netflix adaptation that is upcoming!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher who provided an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book has had a lot of hype, and based on the description it seemed right up my street.
However, I just couldn't get into this book.

It started strong, and I was really intrigued. But there was a lot of going back and forth to different time lines, and different characters and I got a bit lost. I loved the present day story within the bank, but every time it went to a flashback I disliked it.

Great premise, but just didn't like the format and subsequently didn't connect to characters.

The Girls I've Been is a powerful read and an original and innovative twist on the usual con artists stories. It's a compelling read with a strong and diverse cast of characters who engage you from the first page and draw you in to the story.

I thought this was a fun, thrilling and ambitious YA read. A heist which mostly takes place over a couple of hours, interspersed with flashbacks which gradually reveal why and how the young adults in this book might be able to outwit a couple of bank robbers. Initially it was really gripping - I loved the format and how high the stakes were. My only criticism really is that I was expecting a bigger twist at the end and that what turns out to be the finale is a little flat after so much building promise. I think this will make a fantastic Netflix adaptation.

I was initially unconvinced by this - I'm not a huge YA fan, and I grabbed The girls I've been without realising that's what it was. The opening scene gave me something of a sinking feeling, but the action began unusually early, and I quickly put aside my doubts and allowed myself to get hooked by the story.

This is essentially a bank heist thriller, but told around it is the story of Nora's unusual childhood, and the events that have led her to where - and who - she is today. Nora, her ex boyfriend (Wes) and current girlfriend (Iris) go to the bank to make a deposit, and get caught up in a heist. The bank heist plot is pacy and humorously told, but the more satisfying thrills - at least until the final showdown - are in the backstory. The characterisation is great, and although there is a romantic subplot (not my thing) it doesn't distract from the story. After the first few pages I never felt bored by it, which is saying something. It helps that the main love pairing is between the two girls, and that Wes is both an excellent friend to both of them, and an excellent ex to Nora. So refreshing!

Speaking of refreshing: add chronic illness representation to bisexual representation, queer femme representation, non-boring romance, male-female friendship, strong sisterly bonds, girls rescuing each other and a non-antagonistic ex boyfriend! I could go on, but possibly not without spoilers. Just ... read it.

If I have one criticism, it is that the characters' ages don't really work. I think they are supposed to be 17/18, but if it wasn't important that they all still live with their parents/caregivers, it would have made more sense for them to be 20/21. 17/18 year-olds are simply not this mature about relationships, nor this introspective/self-aware. You could argue that their lives have forced them to grow up sooner than usual, but given that this is fiction, and YA at that, I'm going to call it a slight weakness of the novel.

4.5/5 stars.

Thanks to Hachette and NetGalley for the ARC.

I started 'The Girls I've Been' last on Tuesday night and then spent the entire working day on Wednesday with it on my mind. I was literally counting down the minutes until I could pick it up again. It was tense - but in the very best way possible!

I am loving all the YA thrillers coming out at the moment. I dip into most genres but normally I would say contemporary romance is my fav (here for all the cheese). HOWEVER thrillers may be slowly taking that title at the moment.

It wasn't until half way through the book that I realised this was going to be turned into a Netflix film with Millie Bobby Brown! I can so imagine her in this - it is going to be great!

This is an absolute stay-up-all-night page turner. Fast-paced and powerful, you will be swept up by the action and the strength of the characters. With high drama, explosions, guns, long-cons and high stakes, this is a psychological thriller that grabs you and doesn’t let you go until the very last word. It also makes you think and is fiercely full of heart. It celebrates finding your people and fighting to hold on to them tight. The perfect book for teens looking for something action-packed and a bit different. Great for fans of Emily Barr.

Wow, this book will grip you from the very first page! Tess Sharpe's 'The Girls I've Been' teaches a very important lesson - if you are planning on robbing a bank, be sure not to take a bad-ass teenager hostage or you are in for it.

Nora is no ordinary teenager. Neither is Samantha, or Katie, or Hayley, or Ashley... Nora has been a lot of different girls over the years but for the last five, she has been attempting normal. She has a treasured sister, girlfriend, Iris, and best friend, Wes (slash ex-boyfriend. It's complicated.), providing the love and family Nora has been missing. But once a con-artist, it is hard to leave that life behind which Nora discovers when her and her friends are taken hostage in a bank. Cue some very intense action with flashbacks to Nora's past, working with her mother to play rich and gullible men, and how this influences how she acts this high-pressure situation.

The pacey flashes between past and present, keeping the bank-heist action moving whilst letting us understand Nora's actions and motivations, driven by her traumatic past. There are some pleasing twists and moments of manipulation along the way which make Nora a thrilling protagonist to follow. She is realistically flawed and more endearing for the journey we see her go on. The character development for Iris and Wes is also an added layer of trauma and struggle to the story, making the unity of the teenagers as a loving family unit a satisfying plot point amongst the hardship.

A thrilling read with so many layers of nuance. And if you think Nora is an angel, you've not been paying attention. 4 rollercoaster ride stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher who provided an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley, Hodder Children's Books and Tess Sharpe for my arc of The Girls I've Been in exchange for an honest review.

Published: 4th Feb 2021

The Girls I've Been is a twisty thriller in which most of the book spans only a few hours of a day. Nora is at the bank feeling extremely awkward meeting up with her new girlfriend and the ex boyfriend who walked in on them the day before, she's even brought donuts to break the ice. But as they head into the bank together the worst thing happens, two men show up to rob the bank and Nora, Iris and Wes are suddenly captives. But Nora is the daughter of a con artist and she's learnt from birth how to best people, and the bank robbers don't know who they're holding hostage.

This was a fun, YA thriller soon to be a movie starring Millie Bobby Brown. I loved the way it played out over a couple of hours switching between the current situation in the bank and Nora's past lives and the different girls she had been. I loved the dynamic between her, Iris and Wes and the bi representation was great!! Nora is such a strong and resilient character and at no point did I ever feel scared for her because she is such a fighter, incredible! It will make a great movie!

The Girls I've Been by Tess Sharpe was on of my most anticipated books of 2021. Having only read Far From You by her previously, I didn't know if I was going to be a fan of her work in general, or just that one book, but The Girls I've Been is already a strong contender for my favourite books of the year list.

Nora just wants to deposit the fundraising money at the bank, but she knows it's not going to be that simple. When she turns up to meet her current girlfriend and her ex-boyfriend in the car park, she knows things will be awkward, after Wes walked in on Nora and Iris making out. Maybe she should have told him about their relationship after all. But things go from bad to worse when the three find themselves hostages in a bank robbery. Along with the other customers and staff, they are locked in back offices, where Nora unveils bit by bit of herself to reveal the girls she's been - past personas she's had to adopt under her mothers instructions to con their way through life, relationships, and men who would never suspect them. And as Nora's past comes out, the bank robbers realise they have more than they bargained for holding her hostage.

The blurb of this book drew me in from the very start. Bisexual MC, bank robbery, past secrets, hidden identities and long cons. Sign me up.

But it was so much more.

Nora is the perfect protagonist for a story like this. She is strong, witty, level headed but sharp tongued, can assess a situation in two seconds and already has a plan forming. And you soon work out her whole life acted as training for her in that regard. Ever since she was born, her mother has been picking new names, new hairstyles, new characteristics for her to adopt and new marks to latch onto, lie to, steal from, and con, until they can drive into the sunset and resume a new identity in a new town.

I also love the way that Nora's sexuality was presented. She has a girlfriend, she had a boyfriend, she uses the word bi. There isn't any discourse about how one of her partners was just a phase, there was no one commenting about her sexuality or her relationships - and really, it's not the most pressing thing in a bank robbery - but between Nora, Wes and Iris, there was never a snide comment from one of the other two. It's a really great representation of a bisexual main character, and the queer rep is great all round. Iris isn't out to her mother yet, so they discuss that aspect of being queer, (and I can't quite remember if Iris uses the term lesbian or bisexual to be quite honest, but I think she was only into girls), and Nora's sister Lee is also into the ladies, and that is broached to Nora when she's still quite young, and that is dealt with great too.

I absolutely loved the friendship between Nora, Wes and Iris. They each show a deep bond and true fondness for each other, even when they're pissed off with one another, there is evidence of years worth of friendship, trust, and love between them. I think the relationships between them all are relatable and realistic and I could read so much more of their antics.

Also Wes and Iris are fully fleshed out, 3D side characters who each have their own shit going on and their own lives. I won't go into their back stories, but they each deal with some pretty pressing matters, and it's messy and they make mistakes and say the wrong thing and don't know what to do, because they're kids! But I really loved these two, and the three of them all together made me love this book so much.

In terms of action within the plot, we're into the bank robbery pretty much straight away. We slowly find out what these two men want and why they're at this bank, but throughout that there's enough drama and danger to keep you on the edge of your seat. And interspersed in all of that going on, are flashbacks to Nora growing up, assuming different identities and being trained by her mother into becoming a master manipulater and con artist. These flashbacks are woven through the novel at perfect intervals, slowly taking you up until the big moment, the moment that is alluded to throughout the whole book, the moment where these two robbers take a moment to consider who is really stood in front of them.

I can't speak highly enough of this book. It is gripping and tense, there's mystery and reveal, but there's also adorable moments and scenes that will make you want to weep. It really has it all, with a stellar cast and a phenomenal main character. I can't wait for more people to read this and I personally can't wait to read more of Tess Sharpe's work.