That's Not My Name by Megan Lally
Published 2023 · Thriller & Suspense, Young Adult, Mystery & Crime
How hard is That's Not My Name to read?
That's Not My Name scores 25 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 22 out of 100
- A young adult thriller in clear contemporary prose, the kind of fast-paced read reviewers describe as short and gripping. Its vocabulary sits close to It Ends with Us in plainness.
- Sentence structure: 24 out of 100
- Short, propulsive chapters in a dual-point-of-view thriller point to direct, straightforward sentences. Its syntax resembles Beach Read's accessible contemporary structure.
- Abstraction: 24 out of 100
- The premise is concrete: a girl with amnesia, a missing girlfriend, a town suspecting a boy of murder. Ideas about identity arrive through plot events, as in a genre thriller.
- Information density: 28 out of 100
- Two linked mysteries and a twist give the reader clues to track, but the book is short and plot-driven. Its density is close to The Housemaid's manageable reveals.
- Narrative indirection: 32 out of 100
- The amnesiac narrator and the claim that she is 'Mary, or so he says' invite readers to doubt what they are told. Reviewers praise a surprising twist, yet the story is largely stated directly.
- Symbolic density: 15 out of 100
- Thriller conventions drive the story, with plot mechanics doing the work rather than motifs. The book reads closer to Beach Read than to symbol-heavy literary fiction.
- Ironic distance: 16 out of 100
- Reviewers describe an earnest, emotional tone with a bittersweet ending. The sincere voice leaves little gap between what the text says and what the author means.
- Resolution withholding: 28 out of 100
- The thriller promises a twist and an answer to who the girl is and what happened to Lola. A bittersweet ending suggests closure with some emotional residue.
- Structural complexity: 32 out of 100
- Two alternating points of view, Mary's and Drew's, make for a simple dual-strand structure. Its complexity is modest and well below Anna Karenina's parallel plots.
How That's Not My Name is regarded
That's Not My Name holds a literary regard score of 17 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.
Where the story of That's Not My Name takes place
- Small-town America, 2020s (2022 to 2023), the main setting