If you follow me on social media, you probably noticed I’ve been posting and promoting A Girl Called Ruthless by Melody Pendlebury. You may recognize Melody from some of my other blogs as the founder of The Publishing Room, which I used when publishing my first book, and a known children’s book author!
I’ve been following Melody as an author since she started writing children’s books, and she inspired me to embrace myself more as a writer and author. We’ve become a lot closer recently when I was honored to be a beta reader for her debut novel! I had never been a beta reader before but was so intrigued to find out what it entailed. Essentially, you’re one of the first readers of the book. You get one of the very first drafts, and your purpose is to read the book through to the end and give your feedback from the reader’s point of view. Since beta readers don’t have to be professional readers or writers, it helps an author to get honest advice and feedback from an average reader.
When I tell you this book is SO GOOD, I mean it really is SO GOOD! This is precisely the kind of book I would have read when I was younger, and I enjoyed reading it (more than once) even now as an adult. A Girl Called Ruthless is about an 11-year-old girl, Ruthless, living up to her name. Whether she’s slaughtering pirates, running an underground gambling operation, intercepting Russian spies, or claiming her title of student body president, she is always onto something. When she gets in trouble during her run as student body president, she doesn’t let that stop her. Instead, she sets the bar even higher and runs for Mayor! Of course an 11-year old couldn’t pull this off alone, so she gets help from her best friend, Owen. Using the old ‘two kids in a trench coat’ ruse, they start to gain fans! However, when you’re pretending to be an adult, dangers of the adult world come with it, and her mother’s past seems to be coming for her. Ruthless must now learn how to live with her new reality and use it to turn her life into a success story – and continue to live up to her name.
I’ve read this book now 3 times, and let me tell you, I’m just as SHOOK the 3rd time reading as I was the first time! As a strong, independent woman myself, Ruthless is everything I imagine myself to be. I believe there is so much to relate to in this story, and with every line you never want to stop reading. Just when you think one plot ends, another begins. I can usually figure out where a story or plot is going, but with this I never could have guessed. THAT’S GREAT WRITING!!
If you look at other reviews of the book on Amazon, GoodReads, or BookBub, you’ll see a few others noted some parts of the book are “dark”. I could agree that parts of it may be meant for an older kid demographic, however, I think everything is well-written and honest. I truly feel it represents the kinds of conversations kids like Ruthless WISH adults would have with them instead of treating them like kids all the time.
If you can’t tell by now, I 1000000000/10 recommend this book!! It is currently available on Amazon, because it was OFFICIALLY RELEASED TODAY (August 21)!! Go get your copy now and let me know what you think!
If you want to know more about the author, Melody, please visit her site here. You can also find her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!
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