2017 USA Best Book Awards Finalist in Fiction: Religion 2017-2018 Reader Views Literary Awards Finalist in Novel 2017 Today Show winter book selection
"Overall, this is a deftly constructed coming-of-age story with well-drawn characters and the narrative momentum of a thriller. Gschwandtner (Carla's Secret, 2013, etc.) is a gifted storyteller who ably balances the past and present throughout the novel and never puts a foot wrong.A potent exploration of youth, innocence, and the abuse of authority."
—Kirkus Reviews
"'We swim in the soup we've made,' the protagonist of LB Gschwandtner's compulsively readable novel, The Other New Girl, observes. The ingredients of this dark and disturbing coming-of-age novel include adolescent cruelty, religious hypocrisy, and the sadder-but-wiser perspective of the adult who dares to look back. Gschwandtner asks the question 'Do we ever really get over high school?' Like me, other readers may ponder that question for themselves as they race through this harrowing and heartbreaking tale of the after-effects of power misused. I was riveted."
—Wally Lamb, author of six New York Times best-selling novels, including I'll Take You There, We Are Water, Wishin' and Hopin', The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, and She's Come Undone, and was twice selected for Oprah's Book Club
“The Other New Girl is much more than a suspense-fueled coming-of-age novel. L. B. Gschwandtner employs mystery and metaphor to excavate relationships within a unique community. The truths she ultimately exposes—unadulterated by environment, era, or age—prove to be universal…The Other New Girl is a suspenseful, absorbing, literary exploration of life, death, and the stuff that happens in between.” — Foreword/Clarion Reviews
"A coming-of-age story, woven with the pace of a thriller. The protagonist is wonderfully relatable, her wise but somewhat salty outlook appeals to the outsider in us all. The prose is fresh while we reminisce with the characters; we learn from them as they reveal their navigation of adolescent rites of passage, Quaker philosophy, bullying, and young love. A nuanced and satisfying read."
—Eileen Dougharty, story performer and writer
"LB Gschwandtner has created a complex tale of loyalty and betrayal, of youthful alliances and conflicts, and the incredible tension between doing the right thing, and protecting one's sense of self. Susannah Greenwood is not the newer girl; Moll Grimes is. And their relationship, the way this story builds in a setting fraught with the moral and strict demands of both their peers, the stringent Dean, Miss Bleaker, and their own hearts, makes for a fine, moving story."
—Robert Bausch, author of Far as The Eye Can See and The Legend of Jesse Smoke
"This is the work of a master storyteller who introduces the reader to well-drawn characters, and brings the narrator's moral dilemma to a stunning climax."
—Lary Bloom, non-fiction writer, writing teacher, and co-founder of Writing at the Mark Twain House
"Unlike many books that tease with the promise of what?s to come, LB gives it to us up front. Her story takes place in a co-ed Quaker boarding school where students are often left to flounder before coming up for a gulp of the narrator's rarified air. The girls' dean, Miss Bleaker, knows all and sees all—or does she?"
—Suzanne Levine, poet, author of Haberdasher's Daughter and Eric Hoffer Award finalist "An impressively crafted novel that reveals author L. B. Gschwandtner's genuine flair for creating memorable characters and a consistently engaging story.” —Midwest Book Review