The Girl I Used To Be: ARC Review

Publication Date: May 3rd, 2016
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Format: e-ARC
Source: Netgalley
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When Olivia's mother was killed, everyone suspected her father of murder. But his whereabouts remained a mystery. Fast forward fourteen years. New evidence now proves Olivia's father was actually murdered on the same fateful day her mother died. That means there's a killer still at large. It's up to Olivia to uncover who that may be. But can she do that before the killer tracks her down first?

                                      

**Thank you to Netgalley and Christy Ottaviano Books for granting me access to this title in exchange for an honest review.

The first chapter of this book had me hooked. A girl in handcuffs was running through the forest from the killer that killed her parents many years ago. Of course I wanted to know the whole story, so I kept reading. But unfortunately, everything lost its luster once the story really began.

I really liked Olivia's character. She was different because she had been through so much, but even though she had experienced hardships and horror, she didn't let them stand in her way. The other characters with the exception of Nora were forgettable because the author did not really flesh them out enough.

The main issue I had with the story was how convenient everything was for Olivia. I mean, she moves to the town her parents used to live in and her mother's house is open for rent. Of course Olivia wants to move in for the memories. Then she goes to a funeral and starts asking questions about the murders and nobody questions her! If a random person started asking me who I think killed my family members and why, I would be creeped out and instantly suspicious of their intentions. But literally EVERYONE does not mind sharing information with Olivia even though she is a perfect stranger. It was just not believable because normal people, especially family of the victims would not be willing to share such sensitive information.

Then the ending was very underwhelming. The killer was revealed and it was not exciting at all. The whole time that Olivia was trying to figure out who killed her parents was just boring. There were no leads, no clues, just a bunch of people pointing fingers at each other. It lacked a lot of excitement that murder mysteries are supposed to have.

Even the synopsis was misleading. It mentions that Olivia needs to uncover the killer before he/she kills her first but she was never in any danger throughout the whole book until she mistakenly stumbled upon the killer. I wanted Olivia to be always looking behind her shoulder because there was an indication that she might be in danger, but nothing like that happened. 

On the plus side, it was a very quick read, but if you like reading exciting murder mysteries, this one might not be for you.