The Girl She Was Before by Jess Kitching @kitching_jess @kingsleypublis1 #TheGirlSheWasBefore #bookreview

The Girl She Was Before by Jess Kitching

Published by Kingsley Publishers

Publication Date 31st October 2021

First of all, I wish to express my thanks to Cindy Lapa of Kingsley Publishers for the review copy of this book which was offered through the Book Connectors group. All opinions here are my own and unbiased.

Book Description:

Nat lives a picture-perfect life, but it wasn’t always this way. A victim of horrific bullying when she was a teenager, Nat will do anything to keep distance between the girl she was before and the woman she is now.

But when her best friend is murdered and people begin to point their finger at her, Nat’s new life quickly unravels.

To Nat, it’s no surprise the crime happened at the same time as the return of her biggest tormentor, Chrissy Summers. A woman with a violent streak who destroyed lives when she was younger and isn’t afraid to do it again.

Face to face with the past she so firmly keeps behind her, Nat’s sanity wavers as her determination to reveal Chrissy as the monster she knows her as rises to dangerous heights.

The question is, can Nat prove Chrissy is a killer, or will Chrissy get to Nat and her family before she has the chance?

My Thoughts:

My first thought on starting this book was of surprise that this one had previously escaped my radar; it's exactly my kind of read. The author takes us straight into the action with two women being forced off the road in their car, the driver intimidated into what turns out to be a fatal error of judgment and her passenger left with life changing injuries. It turns out that this will be just the first of some pretty unnerving and unpleasant events in the coastal town of Coral Bay.

The action then flips back to the local high school a couple of decades earlier. A young girl is struggling to fit in, her home life and lack of support there leading to her being singled out by the school bullies. The name calling and physical intimidation happen on a daily basis to the point where she seeks solitude in the school library during breaks. It seems that Coral Bay is a haven for bullying and nastiness, and one name keeps cropping up as the ringleader: Chrissy Summers.

Back to the present, we find Nat and husband Lucas living their best life in Coral Bay. Nat is an artist and online influencer, Lucas a teacher at the local school. Their lifestyle is the envy of many, even employing a live-in nanny. Nat's world is shaken when she discovers that her friends Hallie and Bree have been involved in a car crash leaving one of them dead and the other fighting for her life. The police endeavour to investigate the goings-on in the town but in Nat's mind there is only one person they need to be questioning: Chrissy Summers. Everything was fine until she returned to town. 

Anyone who has experienced bullying in any form will be able to relate to the feelings Nat is going through so perhaps this book should come with a trigger warning. The way Chrissy and her supporters get away with so much and have everyone on their side and in their pockets will feel oh so familiar. It is understandable how Nat fixates on Chrissy and how she feels that even after all this time nobody is listening to her, but there is also a logic to Lucas's argument that nobody cares about what happened during high school days anymore. One of them will be proven right by the end of the book. 

I took a dislike to both detectives in this story, and I didn't particularly like any of Nat's friends either. All of them seem two faced and unreliable. The person I did feel for was Sunaina who was clearly all out on Nat's side but got the messy end of the stick despite standing by her. I was also disappointed that Lucas seemed to revert to his teenage self and failed to support his wife when the going got tough. I would expect more from my spouse than he was prepared to give.

Overall a pretty accurate representation of small-town mentality where someone always wants to be top dog and the rest of them just want to be part of the popular gang. Well-written but whether I could say I enjoyed it due to the content I'm not quite sure so it's hard to rate this one.

About the Author:

Jess Kitching is an avid reader, writer and binge-watcher. Originally from Bradford, England, she currently lives in Sydney with her fiancé Jack. Her two goals in life were to move to Australia and have a book published. To be able to say she has done both is something she still can’t wrap her head around.