The Girl I Used to Be

The Girl I Used to Be, by April Henry, is a young adult mystery novel published in 2016. It takes place in a contemporary, small-town setting and taps into the current widespread interest in true crime narratives. The novel was named to the International Literacy Association’s Children’s Choice List and won the Anthony Award, in addition to being a finalist for several other awards.

Plot Summary

Olivia Reinhart is an orphaned teenaged girl living in Portland. She spent nine years in the foster system before emancipating herself to escape that situation. Olivia is actually Ariel Benson, whose mother (Naomi Benson) was famously murdered by her father (Terry Weeks) 14 years ago; Ariel was three years old at the time. After stabbing Naomi to death, the killer took Ariel to a Walmart several hours away and then parked her father’s truck at an airport. Ariel was taken in by her grandmother, who died when Ariel was seven. After that, Ariel was put into the foster care system and adopted by Tamsin Reinhart, who changed Ariel’s name to Olivia. Olivia was a troubled, traumatized child who acted out, and Tamsin quickly revoked the adoption and returned her to the system.

The novel opens with a flash forward of Olivia running for her life in the woods. The next chapter returns to the novel’s “present,” in which Olivia is visited by a Detective and Chaplain who tell her that her father’s remains have been found in the same forest where her mother died. This news changes everything—her father was not the murderer; he was a victim. Olivia’s sense of self is fractured due to the trauma of the murders, her belief in her father’s guilt, and her long alienation from her family. The news prompts Olivia to return to Medford, her childhood home. She keeps “Ariel” as a secret and instead enters the community as Olivia. The first day she’s there she attends her father’s memorial, decides to move to the town, and resolves to find her parents’ killer.

As Olivia learns more about the people in her parents’ lives, the complex interplay of relationships, and the secrets people are keeping, she finds the potential list of suspects widening rather than narrowing. Her attempts to remember more about the actual attack prompt disorienting “doubled” memories that overlay her experience in the present. She is befriended by Duncan, a childhood playmate, who agrees to help her with her investigation; later in the novel, they enter a romantic relationship. Ultimately, Olivia does not solve the murder—instead, the murderer reveals himself to her after discovering her identity. He is Stephen Spaulding, the town’s chief of police. He was hunting without a permit when he accidentally shot Terry. Naomi came across Spaulding standing over Terry’s body; he killed her to keep the shooting a secret. In the present, Spaulding kills Olivia’s beloved neighbor, Nora Murdoch, and then takes Olivia to the woods to kill her as well.

Olivia flees from him, escaping into the woods. She texts Duncan to tell him where she is and what’s happening. She stays in hiding, only to be confronted by a wall of fire Spaulding set in the dry woods. She hides in a stream to protect herself from the flames, but Spaulding finds her when she surfaces. He shoots Duncan, who has arrived to rescue Olivia, and then is crushed by a flaming tree limb. Olivia and Duncan both survive the encounter in the woods; Spaulding is in more serious condition, but he confesses to the murders and survives. Olivia reveals herself as Ariel to her family and is welcomed by her relatives.