Take Three Girls

Name: Take Three Girls
Author: Cath Crowley
ISBN: 9781742612744

Age Rating, Reading Level & Content Guide

by Cath Crowley

Reading Level 8 ME · Moderate · Emotional Ages 13+ Balanced Read

Inky Award longlist

The text is written at an 8th grade reading level, the subject matter is intended for teens (ages 13+), and the content has moderate intensity with some emotionally heavy themes. Its HootRating code, ME, means moderate content, mostly emotional.

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About This Book

What happens when three very different girls get tangled up in secrets and lies on a mean website? ADY, the girl who’s not as confident as she seems, KATE, the brainy music lover taking daring risks, and CLEM, the star swimmer with a broken heart—all find themselves caught in a tricky web of gossip. Can their friendship survive the storm, or will the online drama pull them apart?

Themes

FriendshipAdolescenceIdentity & Self-Discovery Social Justice

Quick Assessment

Three girls at a boarding school navigate friendship, romance and identity after a toxic gossip website targets each of them with lies. Parents should know the story deals with cyberbullying, rumor-spreading and a romance that goes wrong, handled with honesty and humor rather than graphic detail. It works well for older teen readers who can talk through how online gossip hurts real people.

Why we rated Take Three Girls ME (Moderate)

Take Three Girls is written at a Level 8 reading level across 448 pages. Upper Grades (Ages 13+) is the typical interest range for this book — readers in that age band have the maturity and attention span suited to the story, separate from whether they can decode the words.

We rate Take Three Girls as ME (Moderate, mostly emotional) because the content sits in the "Moderate" range — moderate conflict that may involve loss, scary scenes, or interpersonal stakes. The strongest signals come from emotional weight, social complexity — these are the dimensions parents should evaluate against their reader's tolerance.

Specific content flags noted by reviewers: Cyberbullying.

Thematically, Take Three Girls explores friendship, adolescence, identity & self-discovery, and social justice — these threads give the book room to mean different things to different readers.

Good fit for

✓ Children in the Ages 13+ range — the maturity and attention span match the story's pacing.
✓ Kids drawn to stories about friendship, adolescence, identity & self-discovery.
✓ Readers (and parents) who care about award-recognized writing — Take Three Girls carries an award.

Maybe not for

! Readers who get easily upset by emotional or moderately dark scenes — the conflict here is real, not just background flavor.

For Parents

Content Intensity

ME · Moderate · Emotional

Emotional

Moderate ←

Physical

Gentle

Social

Moderate

Thematic

Mild

Reading the HootRating code: the first letter is the content intensity (C = Gentle · L = Mild · M = Moderate · I = Intense · V = Very Intense); the second, when there is one, is the kind of content that drives it (E = Emotional · P = Physical · S = Social · T = Thematic). Reading level and age range are rated separately. How we rate

Real stakes and emotional weight. May include sustained danger, loss, or bullying.