That's Not My Name

This was my first time reading Megan Lally, and I was completely hooked from the first page. That’s Not My Name is chilling, suspenseful, and full of twists that kept me guessing the entire time. The writing is sharp, the pacing is perfect, and the characters are so well developed—I couldn’t put it down! I’ll definitely be checking out more by this author. Highly recommend if you love psychological thrillers that mess with your mind in the best way.

That’s Not My Name is a tense, dual-POV thriller that kept me flipping pages late into the night. The story opens with a chilling mystery: a girl found on the side of the road with no memory, and it ramps up from there.Told through the alternating perspectives of the amnesiac girl (possibly named Mary) and Drew, the boyfriend of a missing girl named Lola, the book weaves two timelines that gradually converge. The tension is thick, and Megan Lally does a great job of keeping the reader guessing. Who can be trusted? What’s real and what’s manipulation?I really appreciated how the story balanced suspense with emotional depth. The characters felt raw and believable, especially as they struggled through fear, grief, and hope. The pacing was solid, with a few slower moments, but overall the momentum held strong.My only reason for not giving it five stars is that the ending felt just a touch rushed, and I wanted a bit more resolution, but it was still satisfying and well done.A great pick for fans of twisty YA thrillers with heart, trauma recovery, and a strong mystery thread.

I need to write what I think about this book before the feelings and the plot fade, and, since I finished it last night, it means this is going to happen very very soon, lol! 😂I LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!! ❤️Go get it! Seriously. 🙄Here's my spoiler free review that is going to convince you!1) The book is very well written, it flows really well, except for a couple of slow and slightly boring moments that describe the boyfriend's emotional pain. I couldn't put the book down and it hasn't happened in a while.2) The characters are well developed and you get fond of them.3) The plot and consequently the plot twists are very well thought and studied, with lots of details that are going to help you try to guess what happened.4) Even if the plot twist is not a huge one because it's (at least partially) predictable, it's still really good. This is the proof that to write a good book you don't necessarily need a cRaZy plot twist that nobody could have ever guessed because EXTREMELY unlikely (I hate that!)5) The ending is moving. I almost had tears. I almost never cry for books or movies, but this made me emotional in an enjoyable way, not necessarily sad I would say. I don't know... 🤔The description of the characters feelings makes you emphasize with them a lot.6) That book has everything: feelings, good characters, good plot, thrill and action. What else do we need?I hope you are going to read it, I can't recommend this book enough! 🫶🏻

Sigh, I wavered between 3.5-4 ⭐️ rating for a few reasons. First of all, this book is very much a YA read. The author is definitely a liberal. And some of the characters were quite annoying. Trying to be funny when they were anything but. Okay, so those are the things I didn’t like about the book. I did very much like the mystery though. The author redeemed herself by the way she dropped breadcrumbs of the twist at the end. In addition, I’m a mother of two teen girls. I can’t even begin to imagine what a parent(s) would be going through should something this catastrophic happens to their child. She even brought me to tears twice and I’m not a crier. Oh how I wish the book ended differently (as I’m a sucker for a HEA) however it did give some hope and relief. The story begins with a girl waking up in a ditch near a deserted road in the middle of the night. She’s bruised up and bloody. Has no idea how she ended up there and worse no idea who she is. A cop finds her and calls an ambulance. Yet she refuses to go the hospital…..why? That didn’t make a stitch of sense. Especially since she didn’t know who she was. The officer brings her to the station and tries to research who she might be but comes up blank. An older man comes running into the precinct to claim his daughter as missing when he sees her. He claims she is his missing teen daughter Mary who was in a car accident. The officer takes every precaution and insists the man must show proof, which he (Wayne) has no issue with and even allows the officer back to his cabin in the woods to check it out and make sure Mary is who Wayne claims she is. But there are many odd things that don’t make sense. Like Mary doesn’t have any clothing, they can’t locate Mary’s vehicle and Wayne is ridiculously possessive of her. She has a feeling her name isn’t Mary but Wayne has all this evidence that she is. So she waits for her memory to return. Then there is Drew, Max and Autumn. These are friends of a girl named Lola that has been missing over a month. Drew is Lola’s boyfriend and being blamed for her disappearance- which in a way he is. He’s annoying at best. So are the other two, however you feel for Drew bc he is being painted this awful person by people he’s known his entire life. He has to find Lola to clear his name but also bc he still cares about her. After pointless chapters of bickering, the three of them finally pool their heads together and begin to play detectives to track down Lola when a lead comes in (that Autumn’s dad (who is the towns sheriff) chooses to ignore bc he wants Drew to be the prime suspect). Sadly, there are good police officers and bad ones. Autumn’s dad is not one of the good ones. The savvy teens end up in the same town Lola was last seen…..do they find her before it’s too late?? Does Mary get her memories back? Why does Wayne want to keep a girl as his daughter if she’s really not?? All these questions and then some get answered. And the best part is the author tells you the answers the entire time throughout the book. You just have to connect the dots…….,