That's Not My Name
Megan Lally, 2024
Mystery, thriller & crime Young adultContemporary fiction
A twisty YA thriller about a girl with no memory, a missing girlfriend, and the small town where their stories collide. A sharp, uneasy small-town thriller, quick and satirical, with memory gaps and moral queasiness threading through the twists.
About identity, memory and morality.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy YA thrillers built on mistaken identity, small-town secrets, and characters whose memories can't be trusted. The twisty amnesia plot asks you to track shifting versions of events, so it can feel disorienting if you want a clean, linear mystery.
Why read it
It gives you a quick, uneasy mystery about memory and culpability, with a satirical edge that keeps the small-town secrets from feeling familiar.
A page from the book
The person who saved you can be the one you can't face.
I ghosted the girl who saved my life because she looked a little too much like the girl I threw to the wolves. Megan Lally.Megan Lally is a YA author; That's Not My Name, her debut thriller, was published in 2024.
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Questions readers ask
- Is That's Not My Name for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy YA thrillers built on mistaken identity, small-town secrets, and characters whose memories can't be trusted. The twisty amnesia plot asks you to track shifting versions of events, so it can feel disorienting if you want a clean, linear mystery.
- What is That's Not My Name like?
- A sharp, uneasy small-town thriller, quick and satirical, with memory gaps and moral queasiness threading through the twists. About identity, memory and morality.
- What should I read after That's Not My Name?
- If you liked That's Not My Name, try The Inheritance Games (Jennifer Lynn Barnes), First Lie Wins (Ashley Elston) and All the Lies (S.T. Abby).
A taste of the feed
A question about leaving, answered with damnation and a wine list.
Where are you going?” I asked him. After everything it has taken to get to this point, he couldn’t just walk away. “To hell, eventually,” Jameson answered. “Probably to the wine cellar, for now.
The Inheritance Games · Jennifer Lynn Barnes
The first time a lawman doubts which side he's on.
I’ve never once in my career wondered if I was on the right side of the law. Until today,” he says quietly. Revenge killings always make us question our standing.
All the Lies · S.T. Abby
A patient's bargain: one illness offers a fight, the other only erasure.
She wished she had cancer instead. She’d trade Alzheimer’s for cancer in a heartbeat. She felt ashamed for wishing this, and it was certainly a pointless bargaining, but she permitted herself the fantasy anyway. With cancer, she’d have something to fight. There was surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. There was the chance that she could win. Her family and the community at Harvard would rally behind her battle and consider it noble. And even if it defeated her in the end, she’d be able to look them knowingly in the eye and say good-bye before she left.
Still Alice · Lisa Genova
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