Girl, Unframed

3/5

Sydney lives with her grandmother while her mother, Lila, is off being a famous actress. This summer, she is heading to San Francisco to spend time with Lila and is understandably not thrilled. Lila’s main focus in life is the spotlight being on herself. Sydney has mostly lived in the shadows, content with her group of friends. Now 16, Sydney is realizing that attention (men’s attention) is being directed toward her and it doesn’t always feel safe. Sydney’s summer is spent experiencing first love, unwanted attention, and danger. 

I have mixed feelings about this book. It is a glimpse at the harassment and objectification women face every day. It looks at a young woman discovering herself and how she wants to be seen in the world. It brings up important conversations and provides representation for young girls like Sydney, grappling with these same complex feelings. 

Despite the necessary topics this book holds, I had a hard time connecting with it. I didn’t love the characters. I wish they had a bit more development. Lila especially embodied the LA actress stereotype. I think I had a hard time following everything because Sydney experienced so much in one summer. She was receiving unwanted attention everywhere she went. She was dealing with her mother’s shady boyfriend, which turned into an entirely different mystery plot on its own. She was figuring out how to maintain her friendships amidst an identity crisis. A lot happened, and the resolution felt anticlimactic. Girl, Unframed is marketed as a thriller, but for the most part, it felt like a YA romance that turned into a thriller in the last 10%. There wasn’t a clear resolution for me. Everything remained messy. Perhaps this makes it a bit more true to life, but for a novel examining the objectification of women, I would have hoped for more concluding conversations surrounding that.