If you were the only one left one morning in your town, you might freak out a little. When ominous messages appear for you to find, you’d likely freak out more. Ally Condie’s The Only Girl in Town attempts to be more than it should though. Hooking the reader with a scary mystery setting, Condie uses alternating “Once” and “Now” chapters to bring the real story behind July Fielding’s loneliness. July found herself in a bullying triangle and she didn’t become the upstander that she should have been. There’s also a love interest that doesn’t work out. But the mystery is more confusing than thrilling. The repetitive message of “Get Th3m Back” could be seen July’s need for retribution and the reader must prod along to find out why. But it was also read as longing for companionship as July wondereds if she can wish people back into her life like she wished for her cat to appear and it did. July’s own mental state becomes the focus as a reader realizes the metaphor at play and then follows her as she literally runs to a possible suicide. So why set readers up in the initial form of a mystery? Is she getting the readers back because, shocker, she doesn’t jump? Saying this is a spolier, I know, but when would a publisher let the character’s suicide actually succeed in YA? Other reviewers have commented that if you haven’t experienced depression or severe loneliness, you won’t get this book. If the fault is all mine, I can own it. But I just can’t give it a high recommendation.