The Nowhere Girls

September 1, 2017

Gr 9 Up-This gritty and timely novel examines the culture of sexism and rape through the eyes of three girls and a chorus of the universal "Us." Grace, the new girl in town, just wants to blend in to the point of invisibility. Having been forced out of their conservative Southern Baptist Church when her preacher mother becomes "too liberal," Grace is still reeling from the ostracism and is struggling to figure out who she is and what she should believe. Rosina, the daughter of a very conservative Mexican American single mother, spends her days babysitting her younger cousins and working in her family's restaurant. What she really wants is recognition as a gay punk rocker who needs more from life. Erin, a teen on the high-functioning side of the autism spectrum, consumes herself with marine biology and Star Trek while wrestling with appropriate emotions and reactions and an overly involved mother. "Us" iterates the thoughts, fears, and conflicts of a chorus of unnamed characters. When Grace discovers that her new room was also the room of Lucy, the girl who accused a group of popular boys of gang rape last year, she convinces Erin and Rosina to help her get justice for Lucy. Neither one is particularly enthusiastic about the idea, but slowly an anonymous group of "Nowhere Girls" begin to attack the sexist culture of their school despite negative reactions. The strong characters do not detract from the equally strong plot but move it forward with compassion and strength as they address with frank honesty what it means to be female in today's world. The empowerment of the girls in this book will resonate with young adults. VERDICT A must-read for every teen.-Janet Hilbun, University of North Texas, Denton

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2017
Enraged by unpunished sexual assaults and the unchallenged rape culture at their high school, three new friends resolve to take action. White high schooler Grace Salter has just moved to Prescott, Oregon, and finds messages of pain and anguish scratched into the walls of her new room. Overtaken by curiosity, she does the unthinkable for a new girl at school and talks to two girls during lunch: Rosina Suarez, a Mexican-American queer punk rocker, and Erin DeLillo, a white girl with Asperger's who admires the android Data from Star Trek. They both explain that the former occupant of Grace's room was effectively run out of town after accusing three popular jocks, two of them current students, of gang-raping her at a party. Grace is incensed and, together with Rosina and Erin under the collective pseudonym the Nowhere Girls, rallies other girls in the school to rise up against misogyny, rapists, and the power structures that protect both. Reed's refusal to shy away from the entrenched realities of sexism as well as the oft-overlooked erasure of intersectionality within feminism yields a highly nuanced and self-reflective narrative that captures rape culture's ubiquitous harm without swerving into didactic, one-size-fits-all solutions or relying on false notions of homogenous young womanhood. Scandal, justice, romance, sex positivity, subversive anti-sexism--just try to put it down. (Fiction. 13-17)

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