We chat with author Meredith Adamo about Not Like Other Girls, which follows a girl who risks everything to find her former best friend in this powerful debut mystery about trauma, girlhood, and what we deserve.
Hi, Meredith! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi! I’m Meredith (she/her), and I was born and raised in Rochester, New York, where I once ended up on the local news for struggling to dig my car out of the snow—and where I set my debut novel, Not Like Other Girls. My cats and I now call North Carolina home, and we all enjoy the warmer weather. I can most often be found listening to audiobooks on 2.0x speed (minimum) or grocery shopping.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I always loved reading—I grew up as the only child of a single mom, so books offered me the perfect way to entertain myself—but I think I was in second or third grade when I realized that I could write my own mysteries like the Nancy Drew books I loved so much. I remember I wrote this story about a kid who gets trapped in a haunted toy store forever one Halloween night, which is a little concerning in retrospect, but it made my grandma so proud that she made all of her friends read it, too.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond.
- The one that made you want to become an author: How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found by Sara Nickerson. (It’s now out of print, so I will never, ever part with the copy I’ve had since 2002.)
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: A Heart in a Body in the World by Deb Caletti.
Your debut novel, Not Like Other Girls, is out April 30th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Twisty, swoony mystery with teeth.
What can readers expect?
Not Like Other Girls is a lot of things at once: a mystery about a missing girl, a fake dating romance, and a coming-of-age contemporary that may or may not make you cry.
But really, this book is about a pricky, imperfect, funny girl named Jo who’s been made an outcast by her peers but doesn’t yet realize that she deserves so much better. It’s about how she investigates the disappearance of pretty, nice Maddie Price, her ex-best friend; how she reclaims her sexuality through consensual experiences with Hudson, her not-so-fake boyfriend; and how she must reckon with a night from her past that she’d rather not think about.
Where did the inspiration for Not Like Other Girls come from?
This book started with the trope it was named for. I thought it’d be funny to write a book where the main character starts off thinking that she’s not like other girls, but realizes by the end that she’s just like them—and because I have long adored the snarky teen sleuth (looking at you, Veronica Mars!), I thought it’d be fun to stick that not-like-other-girls girl in a mystery where her ex-best friend has disappeared. My own personal friend breakup is one of the greatest heartbreaks of my life, so I wanted to explore not just what happened to Maddie, but what happened between Maddie and Jo to end their friendship and send their lives on such drastically different paths.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
This will likely shock anyone who’s read the book, but Cody—Maddie’s boyfriend, and Jo’s childhood friend who leaks her private photos—was one of the most interesting characters to explore. To be clear: Cody sucks. (This is established by page 5, so it’s not a spoiler.) And even though Jo knows he sucks, I think so many of us can relate to her complicated feelings about the loss of their friendship and her grief that he stopped seeing her as a person and now sees her as an object.
While Not Like Other Girls tackles a lot of heavy topics, I always like to add my pitch that it’s also fun and funny—especially Jo and Hudson’s fake (and then not fake) relationship. The first few chapters after they officially decide to fake date as a way to get Jo access to the in-crowd for her investigation were my favorites to write, and I’m so proud that all of my jokes managed to survive each round of edits.
This is your debut published novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
Parts of this journey have been very, very long, but everything since selling Not Like Other Girls has felt so fast! I wrote this book for many years before I ever let another soul read it, and I knew Jo was a special character . . . but my mystery was kind of a mess. This is the first novel I’ve ever written, so I was learning how to write a book while trying to write this book. It was still a bit broken when I started querying in late 2021, but the amazing in-house editor, Genevieve, at Writers House fell in love with Jo (for which I am forever grateful!), and for six months, I overhauled the manuscript for a revise and resubmit with her and my now-agent, Andrea. I signed just a week or so after sending the manuscript back, and after a few more tiny rounds of edits, we went on sub, and Not Like Other Girls sold at auction in just three weeks! I’ve spent about seven years with this book, and I can’t believe it’s finally going to belong not just to me, but to readers—and I couldn’t be more thrilled to share it.
What’s next for you?
First round edits on my second book are due from my editor imminently, so I’ll soon be diving back into that manuscript. I can’t say too much about it yet—mostly out of fear that I’ll end up scrapping it!—but I will say that it’s a YA mystery with a sometimes unlikable main character, a bisexual love triangle, and a complicated mother/daughter relationship. Very, very, very complicated.
Lastly, are there any book releases that you’re looking forward to picking up this year?
SO MANY. Trish Lundy’s The One that Got Away with Murder and Marisa Kanter’s Finally Fitz are two recent releases I’m waiting by the mailbox for, and I cannot wait for Genoveva Dimova’s Foul Days, Justine Pucella Winans’s One Killer Problem, Chatham Greenfield’s Time and Time Again, Kelsea Yu’s It’s Only a Game, Leah Stecher’s The Things We Miss, Alexis Castellanos’s Guava and Grudges, Erin Luken’s This Dark Paradise, and Julie Leong’s The Teller of Small Fortunes—plus, I’m so ready for new Kathleen Glasgow, Kara Thomas, and Jandy Nelson!
