From Printz Honor winner and William C. Morris Award finalist Jessie Ann Foley comes the story of one girl’s battle to define herself as something other than her reputation.
Synopsis
Mia is officially a Troubled Teen—she gets bad grades, drinks too much, and has probably gone too far with too many guys. But she doesn’t realize how out of control her parents think she is until they send her away to Red Oak Academy, a therapeutic boarding school in rural Minnesota. While there, Mia starts confronting her painful past, and questions the purpose of Red Oak. After all, if the Red Oak girls were boys, they never would have been treated the way that they are. Amidst the revelations that cause her to question the way that society treats young women, circumstances outside of her control force Mia to discover what happens when she makes herself vulnerable enough to be truly seen by the rest of the world.
My Rating ***
TRIGGER WARNINGS: Sexual Assault, Suicide, Drug and Alcohol Use, Self-Harm.
Review
You Know I’m No Good, the latest novel from author Jessie Ann Foley, is a challenging and thought-provoking read. It is a YALSA Best Fiction For Young Adults 2020 nominee and Chicago Public Library Best of the Best 2020 title. This stunning contemporary YA novel (designed by Catherine San Juan) examines the ways in which society is stacked against teenage girls and gives an insightful look into what one young women will do to even the odds.
At the beginning of the book, Foley introduces us to Mia Dempsey: a high school junior who started having sex, drinking, and doing drugs when she was 14 years old. Her high school counselor calls her academically “gifted” and uses this as an excuse for her poor behaviour and dangerous life decisions. However, as we learn more about Mia throughout the course of the book we come to realise that there’s more to her story than her “troubled teen” reputation.
After punching her stepmom in the face, Mia has run out of second chances, so her dad and stepmom decide to send her to Red Oak Academy, a strict boarding school for troubled girls in Minnesota. It is a traumatic exit, she is essentially kidnapped and all of a sudden her vices are gone and she’s left with just her own self-deprecating thoughts and a handful of other ‘troubled girls. Her new roommates – impulsive Madison, who stalked her ex-girlfriend; Vera, who self-harms; and Trinity, who shared naked photos of herself on social media – provide a feeling of friendship and solidarity for Mia whose only social interaction before Red Oak were drug dealers and boys she used to hook up with. The girls friendly banter often helps lift the mood as Mia struggles to process her traumatic past (her mother was murdered by her boyfriend when Mia was just 3) and examines how to escape Red Oak.
Foley’s writing deals with a lot of important contemporary teenage issues including mental health, dysfunctional families, and close female friendships. This book is also a very thoughtful examination of sexual assault, trauma, and misogyny. Throughout the first-person narrative, Mia is fierce and smart, but she is also vulnerable and lashes out in anger. The other characters are interesting and memorable, with both tender hearted moments of friendship as well as emotionally charged breakdowns. My favourite part of the book is the fact that Foley allows Mia to question her life decisions and as a result we see her come to terms with her past as she puts her dangerous reputation behind her and learns from her mistakes.
Have you had the chance to read Foley’s newest? What did you think?
Reviews and Further Praise
"For teens--especially girls--still finding that place between vulnerable and armored, this will be a balm."- Booklist
A captivating portrait of a girl at war with herself, this novel grapples with complex social issues in the guise of one young person's trauma... Recommend this to readers who want a more contemporary, inclusive alternative to Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted."- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
When I love a book, I just inhale, absorb, consume. This book is so good and beautiful and true. - Carrie Mesrobian, William C. Morris Award Finalist
"Arresting dialogue and tender moments showcase the girls' distinct and lively personalities while offering striking examples of the way society ignores teenage girls' experiences." - Publishers Weekly An instant winner, reminiscent of the classic Speak, with a caustically funny and searching teen protagonist.-School Library Journal
"This is a thoughtful examination of sexual assault, trauma, and misogyny.. Remarkably moving."- Kirkus Reviews
A Note From the Author
The seed for You Know I’m No Good was planted all the way back in 2007, when, for three days in a row, one of my freshman students didn't show up to class. On the fourth day, I contacted our counseling office, where I learned that Penny* had been taken from her bed in the middle of the night and sent to a school for “troubled teens” in the remote Arizona desert. Penny had grown up in a wealthy family on Chicago’s affluent North Shore, and I knew that her parents had high expectations for her success. She was hardworking and diligent, vulnerable and funny. She was also loud and unfiltered; always blurting her opinions in class, breaking dress code, gushing about her crushes—and the truth is, I adored her. She struck me as a freshman who was, like most freshman, still trying to figure herself out. None of her behaviors, at least during school hours, struck me as wildly out of the ordinary for a girl her age. I wondered, if Penny had been a boy, would she have faced the same consequences? Over the past thirteen years, I started and stopped this novel many times. It required more research than any project I’d ever attempted, and of the more than dozen therapeutic boarding schools I approached to interview, only one agreed to speak with me, and only one more allowed me to visit. All further information had to be gleaned from reading articles and tracking down interviewees on social media.
I thought these obstacles, plus the intensity of the world-building the book required, were the reason why this book was, despite being my fourth novel, by far the most difficult to write. I lied to myself until the very end.
Because when I completed the final draft, I closed my laptop, rested my head on my desk and cried. It was suddenly so obvious to me: the process of writing this book was so painful because all along, I wasn’t just writing about Penny: I was also writing about myself. To paraphrase the great Joan Didion, we don’t think about something and then write it; we write it so that we can find out what we’re thinking. Didion was an essayist, but the same rule applies to fiction; perhaps even more so. With fiction, one can place a veil between the story and the truth; one can change the setting without changing the substance; one can write about the truth of one’s experiences without ever having to name them directly. By hiding inside the fictional characters and settings I’ve created, I can throw myself off the scent of my own pain. I wrote You Know I’m No Good for the girls—and the boys—who need to hear its message and feel less alone. I wrote it for Penny. I wrote it for the friends I’ve lost. I wrote it for my three young daughters in the hope that its message will play a tiny part in changing things for the better for young women from one generation to the next. I wrote it for my younger self. I wrote it for every kid who’s been called “troubled,” and took this label as a life sentence, an inevitable marker of how things had to be. And because of this, I know one thing for sure: the tears and the darkness, the torn-up drafts, and the thirteen years of circling closer and closer to what I needed, finally, to say: it was worth it.
I hope you'll think so, too. Thank you for reading.
About the author
Jessie Ann Foley's debut novel, The Carnival at Bray, was a Printz Honor Book, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book, a YALSA Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults title, and a William C. Morris Award finalist. Her second novel, Neighborhood Girls, was an ALA Booklist Editors' Choice and a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults title. Sorry for Your Loss, her third novel, was an Illinois Reads selection. You Know I'm No Good is her fourth novel. Jessie lives with her husband and three daughters in Chicago, where she was born and raised.
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