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    The Girl I Used to Be
    The Girl I Used to Be
    The Girl I Used to Be
    Audiobook5 hours

    The Girl I Used to Be

    Written by April Henry

    Narrated by Amy McFadden

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJul 20, 2017
    ISBN9781541478824
    The Girl I Used to Be
    Author

    April Henry

    April Henry is the New York Times bestselling author of many acclaimed mysteries for adults and young adults, including the YA novels Girl, Stolen and The Night She Disappeared, and the thriller Face of Betrayal, co-authored with Lis Wiehl. She lives in Oregon.

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    Reviews for The Girl I Used to Be

    4/5

    118 ratings14 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A true suspense. Loved every minute of it. A good book.
    • 5/5
      This was a fast-paced murder mystery. The story is told by Olivia, who used to be Ariel. She was three-years-old when her parents were killed. It was originally assumed that her father killed her mother and then dropped Ariel off at a Walmart three hours from the scene of the crime. When she was recognized, she was raised by her mother's mother until her grandmother suffered a heart attack and died when Ariel was seven. Ariel spent years in foster care with one side trip when she was adopted, renamed Olivia, but then returned to foster care when her adoptive mother couldn't deal with Olivia's behavior. Now seventeen, Olivia is an emancipated minor working in the deli at a chain grocery store. When the news breaks that her father's jaw has been found, her world shifts. Her father was not a murderer who fled but another victim. It is now apparent that her mother and father were killed at the same time. It must have been their murderer who dropped her off at Walmart.Olivia heads back to Medford, the place where she and her parents lived when they were killed, to attend her father's funeral. She meets the next door neighbor who was her grandmother's best friend and the cast of characters who were friends of her parents and who are now suspects in their deaths.Olivia tries to keep her identity a secret so that she can investigate without drawing the attention of the possible murderer who might try to rectify the mistake he made by leaving her alive. She is recognized by the neighbor and by a boy who was a childhood friend. She also gets to know the many suspects. All of them seem guilty and all of them could have a motive for killing her parents.I enjoyed this story and didn't figure out who the murderer was until Olivia did. Fans of mysteries will enjoy this story.
    • 3/5
      It was okay. The buildup and trying to guess whodunit was the best part. The delivery was a little anticlimactic and the reason why was anticlimactic.
    • 4/5
      That was pretty good. It didn’t sound all that exciting when I read the description, but turns out it was a lot more story and I expected.
    • 4/5
      Olivia returns to her former home after the police inform her that they found her father's jawbone in the woods, near where her mother's body had been found. For years people had presumed he'd been the one to kill her mother. But now that with everything called into question, and the investigation was being reopened. Hiding her true identity, Olivia hopes to find out about the parents she can't remember and who really happened that day in the woods.

      This was a quick read, easy to follow and the reveal works well. Fans of Ms. Henry will want to read this one also.
    • 5/5
      Wow! Do you love mystery and trying to solve the case? April Henry is absolutely amazing at pulling the reader in and keeping you guessing until the end. Her books remind me of a YA version on CSI! The Girl I Used to Be is about Ariel and her pursuit of her parents’ killers. For years, it was thought that her father killed her mother, but then one of her father’s bones are found. Ariel has spent her life with foster families and once adopted, renamed Olivia. Olivia needs answers and will not quit until she finds them! Awesome mystery! #LFMS #yareads #iteach7th #teachersofig #teachers #HottingersHighlights #booklove #booknerd #middleschoolela #middleschool
    • 4/5
      I thought that this was really good. I have had this book for years but it somehow got lost in my pile at some point. I am glad that I decided to dust it off and give it a try because it turned out to be quite an enjoyable read. This was my first experience with April Henry's writing and I am rather impressed. This was a really fast read and I loved the fact that the mystery kept me guessing until the very end. I found this to be an overall enjoyable read. Olivia is a seventeen-year-old living on her own as an emancipated minor. She has spent years in the foster care system before going out on her own. Her life wasn't always like this. She had a family until her mother was killed when she was only three years old. She then lived with her grandmother until her death a few years later. Everyone always assumed that her father killed her mother since he hasn't been seen since that fateful day so many years ago. Oh, and her name was Ariel back then but that was really a lifetime ago. When new evidence that proves her father could not have been the killer, everything Olivia thought she knew is called into question.I was really curious about what really happened to Olivia's parents. Olivia/Ariel was there that day but she was so young that she just doesn't remember. It was really interesting to watch her try to piece everything back together and figure out what really happened. There were so many possibilities and I never knew which way things would end up going. I have to admit that I didn't figure it out until everything was revealed which is just how I like it to go. There was a lot of excitement towards the end of the book and things were rather intense for a while but I was pretty satisfied with how everything was resolved. I liked Olivia/Ariel. Considering everything that she has been through, she really has a lot to be proud of. She is a hard worker and is completely self-reliant. She was very focused on her task in this story and wouldn't let herself be distracted by romance, even though there is a touch of that in this story. I really liked how she was with Nora, the older woman that used to live next door to her grandmother. I would recommend this book to others. I found it to be a fast-paced mystery that kept me guessing. This was the kind of book that can really hard to put down. I look forward to reading more of April Henry's work in the future.I received a digital review copy of this book from Macmillan Children's Publishing Group via NetGalley.
    • 4/5
      A 3 year old is found after her mom's body is found murdered in the forest. For years she believes the theory that her father was the culprit. When she is 17, her dad's jaw bone is found making it clear that he was also murdered. She goes to his funeral and stays in the town trying to investigate what really happened to her parents. Arielle/Olivia is a protagonist to cheer for but this story lacks some of the page turning thrill of April Henry's other books.
    • 5/5
      Olivia is 17. When she was three her mom was murdered and everyone thought her father did it. But now new evidence is found that her father was also murdered that day. This brings Olivia back to her old town to try to find out what really happened. Through many twists and turns Olivia is able to piece things together, but not before almost being killed in the process. Good mystery. Fast read.
    • 3/5
      This was just an okay teen mystery/suspense read. I think the story fell apart a bit and dragged from the middle to the end. Many aspects of the plot were redundant, and I felt the author kept repeating some of the facts already given in the beginning. I won't give anything away, but one of the murders was totally unnecessary and irrelevant to the plot, but that's just my opinion...
    • 5/5
      From the moment I started reading "The Girl I Used to Be" by April Henry, I fell into Olivia Reinhart's life and could not escape until the very last page. This is the type of book I just love reading, where the suspense and mystery pull you along until finding the answers is all you can think about. I became obsessed, right along with Olivia, in her quest to find out what really happened to her parents fourteen years earlier. This is a fast-paced, exciting read that you won't want to miss, with an independent and likeable heroine you'll be rooting for from start to finish.

      **I received a free copy of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**
    • 3/5
      This is a realistic fiction novel about a girl who is determined to find who murdered her parents.Olivia has lived in and out of foster homes and is now an emancipated adult at seventeen. A knock at the door changes everything she ever thought about her family’s history. At three, her mother was stabbed repeatedly and died while she, Olivia, and her father were out chopping down a Christmas tree. Olivia was dropped off at a Wal-Mart hours away, and her father has never been found. They now know where he is. For the last fourteen years, it’s been assumed he killed his girlfriend, left his daughter in a safe place, and then disappeared. Well, they found his jawbone. Apparently, he’s been dead as well. So, who did it?Olivia returns to her hometown but doesn’t want anyone to know who she is. As she was adopted and now goes by Olivia Reinhart, no one will recognize her name. As far as Olivia is concerned, Ariel Benson, died with her parents. The house she lived in with her Grandmother until she died will belong to her, so she rents it. She remembers very little from the incident but hopes living in the town, living in her Grandmother’s house, and talking to people will yield clues from others and from her own revived memories. I’ve read several April Henry stories. I always think of them as being in the same category as an after-school special. They are always quick stories, decently written, interesting enough to keep one’s attention, and ending quickly but having little character development or depth. This is one of those flashback novels. It starts with her running from the killer and then backtracks to what instigated her desire to track down a killer. If you want a quick, mindless read on a Friday afternoon, I would suggest this novel.
    • 2/5
      Recommended?: Sort of. It was entertaining enough, but I had serious issues with the way mental illness was treated, both in how fast and often the accusations of someone being “crazy” flew, but also because in the end, the deaths were blamed on mental illness, because crazy people kill, AMIRITE? And that trope is one of my most hated tropes. So while the story as a whole was a fun look at how the stories we tell about murders can be terribly wrong, I had a hard time pushing through the part.Things I loved: The use of YouTube to access old video of her family’s appearance on America’s Most Wanted, and how technology drove her research a lot. Some of the side characters were really well drawn. It was a fun murder mystery (I mean, if you can call a “murder mystery” fun, which I can and do, but I can see how that’s a little weird, too), and I really liked the way she kept pushing through everything to find the truth.Things I loathed: The treatment of mental illness. The weirdness about a failed adoption that not only didn’t make a lot of sense in the details, but also didn’t add anything to the story and was pretty much a terrible representation of adoption that felt like it was just there to give her a more painful backstory and to prey on the fears a lot of adopted kids have that their new family will give them up. (And frustrating treatment of single mothers, to boot.)
    • 3/5
      2.5 StarsI started out really liking this book. Olivia was a great character and the side characters had some enjoyable dynamics. I didn't particularly care for the romance, it seemed forced, but I did enjoy the friendships cultivated. The "who done it" aspect was intriguing as was Olivia slowly unraveling her past. However, I read the first half of this book on a flight and didn't pick it up to finish until my flight home two weeks later. And during that time, I never once thought of the book or the characters. That's not to say it was a boring or slow paced book. To the contrary, the plot keeps you turning the pages. But there was just nothing memorable about it. I thought there was so much more to be explored. And at only 240 pages, I felt the ending was abrupt and completely unrealistic. I do tire of the teenage girl taking dangerous matters into her own hands and somehow outsmarting the adult criminal. . I would have liked a more flushed out story, but The Girl I Use to Be did bring forth an enjoyable read.