Amy Reed

“A call-to-action to everyone out there who wants to fight back.” —Bustle “Scandal, justice, romance, sex positivity, subversive anti-sexism—just try to put it down.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Cuts straight to the core of rape culture—masterfully fierce, stirring, and deeply empowering.” —Amber Smith, New York Times bestselling author of The Way I Used to Be Three misfits come together to avenge the rape of a fellow classmate and trigger a change in the misogynist culture at their high school transforming the lives of everyone around them in this searing and timely story. Who are the Nowhere Girls? They’re everygirl. But they start with just three: Grace Salter is the new girl in town, whose family was run out of their former community after her southern Baptist preacher mom turned into a radical liberal after falling off a horse and bumping her head. Rosina Suarez is the queer punk girl in a conservative Mexican immigrant family, who dreams of a life playing music instead of babysitting her gaggle of cousins and waitressing at her uncle’s restaurant. Erin Delillo is obsessed with two things: marine biology and Star Trek: The Next Generation, but they aren’t enough to distract her from her suspicion that she may in fact be an android. When Grace learns that Lucy Moynihan, the former occupant of her new home, was run out of town for having accused the popular guys at school of gang rape, she’s incensed that Lucy never had justice. For their own personal reasons, Rosina and Erin feel equally deeply about Lucy’s tragedy, so they form an anonymous group of girls at Prescott High to resist the sexist culture at their school, which includes boycotting sex of any kind with the male students. Told in alternating perspectives, this groundbreaking novel is an indictment of rape culture and explores with bold honesty the deepest questions about teen girls and sexuality.

The Nowhere Girls

How alone a person must feel to cry out to someone they can't even see.

No matter what you do, people will find a way to put you in a box.

Sometimes it's the freaks of nature who end up being the strongest.

What's worse? Lying about who you are, or not knowing you are at all?

"The thing is," Rosina says, "people don't want to hear something that'll make their lives more difficult, even if it's the truth. People hate having to change the way they see things. So instead of admitting the world is ugly, they shit on the messenger for telling them about it."

But Erin has empathy, lots of it, so much it hurts sometimes, so much that other people’s pain turns into her own pain and makes her completely incapable of doing anything useful for anyone.

How nice it would be to be that free, that unencumbered by the whims and weaknesses of other people.

Mom always reminds her how lucky she is to be so bright; few Aspies are so exceptional, so special. As if they need to be. As if that's the only way to be forgiven for the rest of what they are. 

There is so much room inside her, so much space to fill. So much emptiness. Even here, she feels it. Even here, where God is supposed to make her whole.

The world is a sick place. It is a place where hurting people is too easy, and where helping them is too hard. 

The Nowhere Girls quotes

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