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Reviewed by Keith Mbuya for Readers' Favorite
When Georgia Thayer, a medical social worker in Columbia, South Carolina, urges her sixteen-year-old foster daughter, Tessa, to attend a nighttime party hosted by her classmate, she has no idea how much trouble awaits the kids. Working the night shift, Georgia is shocked when Sara Clark, a girl from the party, is rushed into the emergency department at her hospital in critical condition. According to Fletcher Hawthorne, the father of the party’s host and a candidate for the office of the state attorney general, Sara had been hit by a car driven by his son’s friend. Both Hawthorne’s son and the friend, like almost everyone else at the party, were barely sober during the accident, thanks to an abundant supply of drugs. It turns out Hawthorne was hiding the truth about the accident to protect his candidacy. He has no idea that someone else, a kid dubbed the weird girl, knows the whole of it. How long will the truth stay hidden? And the drugs at the party might be the start of a fentanyl crisis. Will the town survive it? Find out in The Weird Girl by Carla Damron.
If you are looking for a psychological thriller novel flavored with drama, crime, gritty realism, suspense, and a touch of romance, The Weird Girl by Carla Damron is a great pick. Damron immersed me in the characters’ troubled worlds with deliberate prose and vivid imagery. It felt like I was right there in Columbia next to the characters, watching and experiencing every moment unfold. Damron captures the domestic challenges parents face with their children, the harsh social dynamics teenagers have to navigate, and the struggles of society dealing with addiction and drug trafficking with laudable clarity. I was shocked by Lily Grace’s naivety and felt sorry for her with all the bullying she endured at school. The author shows the damage that overprotection can cause to a child. As I followed Georgia and Tessa putting up a fight against the social services case worker to stay together, I understood what it feels like to be in the foster care system, and to live knowing one person can either ruin or make your life better.
