by Megan Lally

OOOOH! The end of this book Blew. My. Mind. This switched perspective book is fast-paced, dark, and oh, so thrilling.

That’s Not My Name begins with one of our lead characters, finding herself running down a dark, road in the woods with no memory of who she is. She is picked up by a police officer and hours later her father shows up to the station, worried sick, and so happy he’s found his little girl. It turns out, her name is Mary, she is homeschooled, she lives with her father, and she must’ve been in a car accident.

We then get to Drew, who is our other main character. His whole town thinks he had something to do with his girlfriend, Lola’s, disappearance. Even the town sheriff stoops to near incompetent levels of harassment toward the teen. Drew decides to do some investigating of his own to find out what happened to Lola so he can clear his name…and his conscience.

Even though Mary still hasn’t regained any memory of how she ended up injured and alone on the side of the road, she still has a feeling something isn’t right. Her father is too overbearing (calm down, Dude, it’s just a V-Neck not a silk teddy) and the description of who she is doesn’t feel right. Mary certainly doesn’t feel like an introvert that hates being around people. She feels like she likes being active, but her father says she’s a Netflix and chill girl. Her father says he “forgot” that she was allergic to strawberries, isn’t that something a parent would never forget? As Mary’s days go on, it’s abundantly clear that something is very wrong. Is it just the stress of her accident or does this man not know her at all?

Drew tries to stay active in finding Lola by posting flyers of her everywhere he can. When things continue to only point toward him, Drew takes matters in his own hands and steals the recordings from the town police department’s tip line, with the help of the Sheriff’s daughter. Drew and his friends comb over the tapes and they finally get one good lead on Lola. A woman from a town a few hours away states she saw the girl in the photo, wearing the same jacket, eating at a diner with a man. She says the girl wasn’t in distress, they actually seemed comfortable around each other. Drew and his friends immediately drive to the town to speak with the woman and this is where the book really takes off. I won’t go further to avoid ruining the book for you.

I love books like this one, because throughout the whole book, I was certain I had the ending already figured out. But I was wrong. Even reading my brief description above, I bet you think you know what’s going on…But you are wrong too!

The title of the book also brings me great joy. Who doesn’t read this title and start singing the Ting Ting’s song?…Great, now it’s stuck in my head again.

They call me Her, they call me Stacy.

That’s Not My Name really was one of my favorite books I’ve read so far this year. I think I audibly gasped when I got to the end of this book. Bravo, Megan Lally!

Let’s get to pros and Cons:

Pro: Fast-paced, easy read, didn’t want to put it down.

Con: Stop that, I literally have none.

Pro: I never would’ve guessed that ending.

Con: What did I say, I’ve got nothing!

Overall Rating: 10/10 annoyingly catchy songs!