PositiveLos Angeles Review of BooksThe frantic investigation of the present relents in chapters describing Paloma’s time at the \'Little Miracles Girls’ Home.\' These moments bring an atmosphere of comparable calm and steadiness ... At times noir, psychological thriller, and ghost story, the figure of Mohini connects the novel across time and genre. Mohini in the present points to Paloma’s internal distress and the difficulty of investigating a murder in which evidence and victims tend to vanish. In the past, the story of Mohini provides a space for the girls to work out the contours of the powerful forces at play around them ... In the end, My Sweet Girl offers little in the way of repair, redemption, or feel-good anything. But the horror of the ending allows for answers that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. The novel crafts a clear argument that the world of white humanitarianism, as represented by Mrs. Evans, requires that chosen recipients be interchangeable, singularly unique, or disappear as needed.
