FREE GIRLS
A heartfelt coming-of-age debut about a girl starting over while keeping secret that she’s spent the last year in juvenile detention. Perfect for fans of Nicola Yoon and Leah Johnson.
Sixteen-year-old Jasmine Cooper is back after twelve months at Guiding Hearts Home for Troubled Girls, and nothing is the way it was. Her mom has remarried and now there’s a big new house, a shiny new family, and a fancy new school. Jas feels completely out of place, and things only get more complicated when her mom insists that her “fresh start” include hiding the truth of where she’s been and cutting off people from her past.
A heartfelt coming-of-age debut about a girl starting over while keeping secret that she’s spent the last year in juvenile detention. Perfect for fans of Nicola Yoon and Leah Johnson.
Sixteen-year-old Jasmine Cooper is back after twelve months at Guiding Hearts Home for Troubled Girls, and nothing is the way it was. Her mom has remarried and now there’s a big new house, a shiny new family, and a fancy new school. Jas feels completely out of place, and things only get more complicated when her mom insists that her “fresh start” include hiding the truth of where she’s been and cutting off people from her past.
As Jas settles into her new life bonding with her seemingly perfect stepsister, making a close-knit group of besties, and maybe even falling for the cute girl in class, it starts to feel like her second chance might actually be real.
But when a friend from the detention center reaches out to reconnect, Jas worries that everything she’s built could fall apart. How long can she keep her past a secret? And how many times can she spin the truth before she forgets who she really is?
- Flatiron Books
- Hardcover
- July 2026
- 288 Pages
- 9781250320261
Buy the Book
$19.99
About Kristen McCallum
Kristen McCallum received her MA in English from The University at Albany-SUNY. A writer and creative strategist from Mount Vernon, NY, she credits growing up with the adventures of her Jamaican family as the beginning of her fascination with stories and the ways they could be shared. The founder of SafeWordSociety, an initiative that highlighted the depth and beauty of lived experiences in historically-marginalized communities, Kristen has consulted for The Obama Foundation and Peoplmovr, among others. Free Girls is her debut novel.
Praise
“Moving and powerful, Free Girls is a triumph of a debut. With her unstoppable voice and complex and loveable characters, McCallum reminds readers that you can always rewrite your story—and that finding your truth is the first step to finding yourself.” —Andrea Mosqueda, author of Just Your Local Bisexual Disaster
“Free Girls is for the young girls who feel like they’re ‘not whole, barely together’ and are fighting to collect the shattered pieces. It’s for the girls who feel unseen and unheard. It’s for the girls who believe they can only fail. A heartfelt and heart-wrenching novel about forgiveness, family, and finding a path toward honoring your truth. At every turn, Jasmine is a character to root for—not in spite of her history, but because of it. With such an empowering debut, I can’t wait to see what Kristen McCallum does next.” —Arriel Vinson, award-winning author of Under the Neon Lights
“There’s a real art to capturing the bittersweetness where ‘wanting to and knowing you can change’ collides with ‘this is how the people closest to you have decided you are.’ McCallum masterfully expresses this aching, evergreen feeling through Free Girls’.” —Lio Min, author of The L.O.V.E. Club
“Jasmine’s journey toward self-discovery had me rooting for her the whole way from heartache to hope. With crisp dialogue and unflinching prose, Free Girls is an outstanding debut from Kristen McCallum.” —Natasha Díaz, award-winning author of Color Me In
“A pitch-perfect representation of a teen who never promised to be perfect, but is absolutely deserving of redemption and grace. Jasmine could have been me. Jasmine could have been you. Jasmine is every teen who is one fun time, one random misstep, one spur-of-the moment decision away from life-changing consequences. Kristen McCallum’s Free Girls is the tale teens, teachers and parents should read together, to begin necessary conversations on the complexities of making through adolescence.” —Lakita Wilson, author of Pretty Girl County