This was extremely disjointed. It was mostly a teen drama with a sprinkling of a disappearance mystery, which took the backseat multiple times. Too many characters, a lot of sexual content for YA (this is definitely for OLDER teens), and the ending was deeply unsatisfying. The dialogue was also clunky, repetitive, and hard to enjoy. There were redeeming aspects, I do appreciate the hard hitting topics that was addressed and how relevant it is to today’s teens, but this book would have worked better solely as a teen drama. If there was no missing teen and amateur sleuthing I would have enjoyed this so much more. I do not agree with the comparison to A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder, this isn’t even in the same ballpark.

Thank you Simon Audio for the ALC in exchange for my honest opinion!

I really enjoyed this and found myself racing through it. I liked Jo, the main character, very much, and the kind of kaleidoscope of shifting relationships. Jo's pain and hurt werevery true to life, and her emerging relationship with her friend Hudson was sweet and believable. I found the mystery element a bit confusing and contrived. Honestly, I think Jo's journey to recognize and emerge from the effects of trauma, plus her complicated friendship with another girl, would have been enough without the rather artificial framework of the mystery. But overall I thought this was an effective and quite powerful YA novel about trauma.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A thoughtful, engaging mystery with themes of friendship, sexual assault, consent, and respect, perfect for fans of Jennifer Mathieu and Mindy McGinnis. Jo’s witty, candid narration style worked well with this genre, and the audiobook narrator especially did a great job with bringing this to life. Sometimes more serious conversations in YA can share important information while also undermining the intelligence and experiences of teens—not the case here. It was great seeing Jo’s complex thought processes, which from personal experience, cut deep. The ending was not what I expected, but it ended up being one of my favorite choices from the author. A strong debut, and I can’t wait to see more from Meredith Adamo!

At its absolute best (and it's a very good best), NLOG is a powerful and intimate portrait of a teenage girl trying to find herself. Something happened to Jo one summer that fundamentally changed her, and as the reader slowly peels back her layers, she's able to name and come to terms with it. Her trauma comes to the forefront because her ex-best friend Maddie has disappeared. While the story surrounding Maddie's disappearance was interesting enough, it was the coming of age, self-love journey and reckoning that kept me reading until the very end.

Jo has had a lot of people define her and whisper about her. And as a reader, I formed my own opinion of her based on the other characters and her inner monologue. But who is she exactly? And what was the trauma that irrevocably changed her? While I saw the trauma aspect coming, I didn't see how the mystery would unfold. I felt that sometimes there were too many things happening at once within the narration that made me confused and hard to fit the pieces together. However, this is still an incredible book that I highly recommend.

This book is about Jo finding Maddie. But it's also about how Jo finds herself (and a support system).

Thank you to NG and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨/5

for the lovers of Good Girl’s Guide to Murder!! this book was a chaotically perfect teen mystery with the perfect amount of wholesome romance and mystery but also brought up serious topics like SA, friendship breakups, and family drama. This book will have you hooked, but also rooting so hard for Jo bc girlie deserves the world!!

This one was just okay and I think it's because I am not used to reading young adult books. It held my interest well enough but the main character wasn't very likeable in my opinion. I thought the mystery of the missing girl was going to be more intense than it was.

5 ★ don’t sleep on this book and don’t judge it by its title. if you ever wanted a book that was the lyrics of olivia rodrigo’s ‘the grudge’ meets the lyrics of taylor swift’s ‘would’ve could’ve should’ve, look no further than not like other girls. this book is a combination of many things — it’s a slow-burn mystery, a fake dating romance, and a intricate coming of age story. most importantly, though, it’s about the complexities of girlhood and trying to find strength in yourself and and coming to terms with what happened to you after sexual assault. recovering from rape is different for everyone, and we see that with jo’s experience, as most of the book, jo doesn’t realize what happened to her was rape. her assault isn’t actually revealed until later into the story, but it’s clear from her thoughts that something happened to her. there are many heartbreaking moments throughout this book, and admittedly, sometimes i paused reading to hug my kindle.

meredith adamo has crafted a masterpiece with not like other girls. i’d recommend you go into this book seeing it as a ya contemporary rather than an edge-of-your-seat mystery. it’s such an honest and heartfelt story, and its characters are ones that i’ll remember for a long time. i’m not one to reread books, but this is the type of book i would reread over and over again. easiest five stars i’ve ever given out. i would read everything adamo ever writes. <3

highly recommended, especially for fans of the way i used to be as jo & eden go through a similar experience with their assault and how others treat them because of it.

beach read 2k24 #4 / book club bingo

infinity/5 stars. read this book now