The Girl She Used to Be
David Cristofano
I open my eyes and realize there is no way to turn this around. Before, there was one good guy and one bad guy; now I’m lost in a world of distrust and corruption and the odds of my survival have slipped to about one in a thousand. The only person left I can trust is myself—and I have no idea who I am.
Melody Grace McCartney has been in the Witness Protection Program since she and her parents observed a violent murder on the morning of her sixth birthday. By the age of 13, Melody had already exhausted six identities. Through years of countless cities, occupations, and names, the only thing that Melody knows is that there is certainty in numbers. In numbers, there is stability and consistency. Math never lies. Now 26, Melody is about to be relocated again when she encounters Jonathan Bovaro. He’s charming, rich, and the son of the man who is the reason behind her seclusion and the murder of her parents. Jonathan tells her that she is safe while she is with him, but after twenty years of hiding in the dark, can this man actually show Melody the light?
The Girl She Used to Be is a prime example of when people make very (very, very) bad decisions. The book starts off promising, but with each chapter, the ludicrous choices begin to pile up faster than traffic on US 101 in California during rush hour. Although we lament Melody’s loss of a “normal” childhood because of the secret she’s forced to keep, her twenty-year plight becomes a bit tedious and whiny as she is being relocated for the umpteenth time due to boredom (she gets a tad itchy at about the 18-month mark). Sadly, Jonathan “Johnny” Bovaro doesn’t come across any more likable or sympathetic. His good intentions are clouded by a quick-trigger violent streak and his optimism of his Mafia family is laughable (hasn’t he seen The Godfather? Even Zootopia should have clued him in—the arctic shrew mafia boss is cinematic genius by the way).
All in all, David Cristofano’s novel isn’t the worst book I’ve ever read, but after an interesting enough start, it begins to fall apart about midway through and then just ends up in a tangled pile of spaghetti. The actions and judgments of the story’s two main characters make the story implausible (surely adults aren’t THIS naïve) and hard to wrap your arms around. Interestingly, Cristofano starts each chapter not with a title, but with an equation. Unfortunately, his numbers just don’t quite add up.
Rating: 3/5
*Book cover image attributed to www.thriftbooks.com
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