Don't You Trust Me?

May 30, 2016
From an early age, Morgan recognizes that she is a “cold one,” amoral and uninterested in anyone but herself. Even her parents grow afraid of her. En route to boarding school, the 15-year-old meets Janelle, a look-alike teen, whose parents are shipping her to relatives in Albany to put distance between her and an older boyfriend. Morgan seizes her chance to escape, helping Janelle sneak off with the boyfriend in exchange for the girl’s plane ticket to New York. Like all great con artists, Morgan has abundant confidence in herself and disdain for everybody else—she never worries that her new, rich relatives might suspect she’s not the real Janelle. Once embedded, Morgan makes friends (and a ton of money) passing off various charity scams as community service required for high school graduation. Readers who overlook a number of implausibilities (how are Morgan’s low-income parents able to afford boarding school?) will be swept up in a narrative driven by the high-stakes game Morgan is playing, wondering whether she will be smarter than she is greedy and if she’ll get away while she still can. Ages 12–up. Agent: Irene Goodman, Irene Goodman Agency.

May 15, 2016
Fifteen-year-old "white-bread-white" Morgan is one of the "cold people": she lacks a conscience; love and fear don't apply to her; she's indestructible; and she never does anything for anyone unless there's something in it for her.When Morgan's parents send her to the New Beginnings School for "troubled teens," she finds a way to work the situation to her advantage. At the airport, she convinces another girl, Janelle, to switch places with her. It's a good deal: Janelle can run away with her boyfriend, while Morgan can take Janelle's place with relatives the latter hasn't seen since childhood. Morgan fits right into her affluent new "family," and, as Janelle, she easily convinces them she's changed her name to Morgan. Morgan creates a new life in which she manipulates the entire, mostly white community into thinking she's a selfless, upstanding citizen. When others cotton on to her deceit, she deflects their suspicions with more lies, but her grandiosity threatens to be her downfall. Readers may find themselves questioning the over-the-top naivete of the secondary characters, especially that of Morgan's psychiatric social worker "aunt," but it serves to punctuate how convincing Morgan is. The first-person narration combined with Morgan's compulsive lying will have readers wondering whether or not she's at all reliable, a device that effectively compounds the tension.A chilling reminder that sociopaths aren't always coldblooded serial killers; sometimes they're the girl next door. (Thriller. 13-18)

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July 1, 2016

Gr 7 Up-Morgan is not like most 15-year-old girls. She's a master manipulator with no conscience, no fear, and no consideration for anyone but herself. Morgan's parents decide to send her to a new boarding school. At the airport she meets Janelle, a girl her age whose parents are sending her across the country to live with relatives in order to stop her from seeing a boy. The protagonist convinces Janelle to let her take her place-that way Janelle can escape into her boyfriend's arms and Morgan can escape boarding school. Once she lands in upstate New York, Morgan takes her plan a step further and infiltrates Janelle's family, fooling them into believing she's their actual niece. Morgan realizes her time is running out when she intercepts a phone call from the real Janelle. Kindl paints an unapologetically immoral character in Morgan, giving her a limited backstory and surrounding her with weaker supporting characters. Readers won't wait long for the conflict to begin, and the short chapters will have them racing toward the conclusion. They will be on edge waiting for Morgan to be caught in her own game, but the clunky, action-filled plot will deter their satisfaction. VERDICT Fill shelves with more clever scheming imposter novels, such as Jennifer Nielsen's The False Prince, Michele Jaffe's Ghost Flower, or Jenny Valentine's Double.-Stephanie DeVincentis, Downers Grove North High School, IL

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2016
Grades 8-12 Kindl (Keeping the Castle, 2012) shifts from historical fiction to the present day, though 15-year-old Morgan might be mistaken for a witch. From childhood, when a carnival shyster identified her as one of the cold ones, she's known she's a bit, well, evil, though she sees her bad-seed tendencies as a plus. About to be shipped off to boarding school, she agrees to swap places at the airport with a lovelorn teen who's being sent to relatives she hasn't seen in a decade. Albany turns out to be a honey pot where Morgan gets clothes, riding lessons, and opportunities to dupe the unsuspecting out of cash, and it's hardvery hardnot to get greedy. Artistic works with sociopaths at their center are hard to pull off, but here it worksthink Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity. Kindl nails Morgan's voice as well as her curiosity about how normal people think and react. However, the devil is in the details: situations range from unlikely to improbable. Overlook those flaws, and it's easy to be pulled in, just how Morgan likes it.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)