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A raw, gripping, authentic, and boldly original novel about a fifteen-year-old Texas girl set to stand trial for murder--and the one person who might be able to help her clear her name. 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. In Ruby''s experience, that''s not anyone she can trust. Cadence is familiar with the cold reality of Ruby''s situation, even before Ruby was arrested. Angry and alone, homeless and hungry, breaking the law just to survive, she is the kind of girl no one wants to listen to, especially not the prosecutor who wants to put her away for life. But no one knows the story--the real story--of what happened the day Ruby met the man who would end up dead. 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. Told through a collection of letters, meeting notes, news articles, court transcripts, and more, Girls Like Her is a riveting and unflinching tale of the truths so often lost in the American justice system, and one girl''s fight to be heard.
About the author
Melanie Sumrow is the author of the novels The Inside Battle, a 2020 New York Public Library Best Book for Kids, and The Prophet Calls, a 2018 Writers' League of Texas Book Award finalist. Before turning her attention to writing, she worked as a lawyer for more than sixteen years, many of her cases involving children and teens. She received her MFA from Hamline University's writing for children and young adults program and lives in Dallas. You can visit her online at melaniesumrow.com.
Summary
Winner of the Golden Kite Award
A raw, gripping, authentic, and boldly original novel about a fifteen-year-old Texas girl set to stand trial for murder—and the one person who might be able to help her clear her name.
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. In Ruby’s experience, that’s not anyone she can trust.
Cadence is familiar with the cold reality of Ruby’s situation, even before Ruby was arrested. Angry and alone, homeless and hungry, breaking the law just to survive, she is the kind of girl no one wants to listen to, especially not the prosecutor who wants to put her away for life.
But no one knows the story—the real story—of what happened the day Ruby met the man who would end up dead. 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.
Told through a collection of letters, meeting notes, news articles, court transcripts, and more, Girls Like Her is a riveting and unflinching tale of the truths so often lost in the American justice system, and one girl’s fight to be heard.
