  | Girls like her Author: Sumrow, Melanie | |
| Price: $24.48 | ||
Summary:
A wealthy businessman is dead and fifteen-year-old Ruby Monroe is in a Dallas jail awaiting trial for his murder. Ruby has no one she can count on--no one, except her state-appointed caseworker, a woman named Cadence Ware. As the layers of truth are peeled away and time is running out, Ruby and Cadence will both have desperate choices to make--choices that could mean the difference between Ruby spending her life in prison or her name being cleared.
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (04/15/24)
School Library Journal (00/06/24)
Booklist (05/01/24)
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (+) (00/07/24)
Full Text Reviews:
Booklist - 05/01/2024 Sumrow uses her experience as a lawyer with the Dallas Court of Appeals to add sobering authenticity to this gripping legal drama of negligence, abuse, and child prostitution. At its heart is a 15-year-old girl who is both victim and murderer. White teen Ruby Monroe doesn’t have much hope that she’ll avoid life in prison for murdering a rich, influential businessman. The prosecution intends to make an example of her by having her tried as an adult, and she doesn’t see how disclosing traumatic memories to her defense team will make a difference. But with gentle persistence and understanding borne of her own past abuse, social worker Dr. Cadence Ware gradually uncovers Ruby’s life story. The truth, however, leads them on a different path. A nonlinear time line and fictionalized materials—newspaper articles, court transcripts, letters, interview notes, and pieces of a torn-up document that foretell a plot twist—add interest and suspense to Ruby’s story of falling through the cracks and, unlike so many others, eventually being found. - Copyright 2024 Booklist.
