e-ALC, 07:07:32
Narrated by: Tyla Collier
Release Date: July 7, 2026
Published by: Macmillan Audio
Read from: July 9-12, 2026
Stand-alone
Source: Netgalley (I received this ALC from the publisher and Netgalley. This did nothing to influence my review.)
Content Warning: Confinement, Forced Institutionalization, Toxic Relationship, Toxic Friendship, Police Brutality
For Readers of: 2sLGBTQ+, ARC, Audio, Coming of Age, Contemporary, DEAR, Sparkly Cover, Most Anticipated, Racial/Ethnic Diversity, Realistic Fiction, YAA heartfelt coming-of-age debut about a girl starting over while keeping secret she’s spent the last year in juvenile detention. Perfect for fans of Nicola Yoon and Leah Johnson.
Sixteen-year-old Jasmine Cooper is back after twelve months at Guiding Hearts Home for Troubled Girls, and nothing is the way it was. Her mom has remarried and now there’s a big new house, a shiny new family, and a fancy new school. Jas feels completely out of place, and things only get more complicated when her mom insists that her “fresh start” include hiding the truth of where she’s been and cutting off people from her past.
As Jas settles into her new life bonding with her seemingly perfect stepsister, making a close-knit group of besties, and maybe even falling for the cute girl in class, it starts to feel like her second chance might actually be real.
But when a friend from the detention center reaches out to reconnect, Jas worries that everything she’s built could fall apart. How long can she keep her past a secret? And how many times can she spin the truth before she forgets who she really is?
*MY THOUGHTS*
This was not what I was expecting. It usually takes me a minute to get into Coming of Age books, but this one? I was hooked from the very beginning. I wanted to know what she did, how she was handling it, and everything. I couldn’t put this one down.
Ok so the main thing I liked about this was the main character. She had some troubles in the beginning, but as the story went on and as we recounted more and more of her time at the facility, it was evident she was growing. I was hella impressed with her and all that she did. She hated it, but I really felt like her being in the center helped keep her out of trouble. And it was still realistic. She didn’t go there and immediately turn into an angel, she still had some mess-ups, and I thought that was important too. Just a little reminder that she is actually still just a kid and not every decision they make will make sense.
With that being said, I wanted to shake her for making friends with the one person who was toxic af. I was so disappointed. It’s like she attracted them. (Or they’re attracted to her) She went from one toxic person to another. I was mostly mad because I saw it as soon as things started happening. I was mad she got sucked into her orbit. And to make it worse, she didn’t want to be be bothere by any of them, but she still let it happen anyways. But yeah, that person was terrible. And I was mad at ol girl for not learning anything. She was still doing the same shit and manipulating things the way she probably was before she got to the center.
There is a bit of a romance in this as well. Well there’s one current one and one that fizzled as some events happened. I won’t go too into them, but I will say this. I didn’t feel like she needed to be in either situationship when she was still re-building. But I get it, things happen…. But like there needed to be some real accountability happening. Because in both cases she made some terrible ass choices to ensure that other person “still liked them.” She also seemed to do that with her school friends too. I wanted her to stand up to them and leave them all behind.
This was suprrising to me for so many reasons. It’s been a long time since I read a book with such heavy hitting topics, so this really helped me remember that I loved them at one point. My hope is to find more like this and get more people to read them all
Overall, I give this
