Girls Girls Girls

by Shoshana von Blanckensee

A 2025 CALIBA Golden Poppy Awards Finalist

A PANTS POD BOOK CLUB PICK

One of ELLE's Best Queer Books of 2025

"Jam-packed with queer angst and queer joy . . . and a truly incredible amount of heart. I devoured this novel." —Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One

"A teary-eyed love letter to the San Francisco that remains and to its establishments that are long-gone. But above all [Girls Girls Girls] tenderly tells the story of a vulnerable young queer person in an unfamiliar place, just trying to create a new version of home." —San Francisco Chronicle

It’s the summer of ’96 and best friends (and secret girlfriends) Hannah and Sam are driving across the country from Long Beach, New York, to the fabled queer paradise of San Francisco, free from the harsh gazes of their neighbors and the stifling demands of Hannah’s devout Orthodox Jewish mother. In San Francisco, they will finally be together as a real couple, out in the open, around other queer people . . . even if the move means leaving behind Hannah’s beloved Bubbe.

When the financial strains of West Coast living push the girls to start stripping at The Chez Paree—yet another secret Hannah must keep from her family—Hannah feels trapped. Sam wants her at the club, but Hannah hates stripping nearly as much as she hates disappointing Sam. Then Hannah meets Chris, an older butch lesbian, who is immediately taken with her. Desperate to stay in San Francisco and away from the leering men at the club, Hannah proposes an escort arrangement.

But as Hannah falls deeper into Chris’ world and Sam starts to meet new queer friends, a rift forms between them. Without Sam, who is Hannah? And what does San Francisco mean to Hannah alone—a space rich with queer possibility or an intimidating, unfamiliar place just as lonely as the one she’d left behind? An achingly tender and resonant story of survival, first love, and growing up queer in the '90s, Girls Girls Girls is a piercing exploration of the choices we make in the thrilling and often confounding search for ourselves and home.

Genres: Queer, Fiction, LGBT, Lesbian, Historical Fiction, Coming Of Age, Audiobook

379 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 17, 2025

About the author

Shoshana von Blanckensee lives in Berkeley, California, with her partner and kids. She is an Oncology Nurse by day, and a writer by any available moment. Girls Girls Girls is her debut novel.

Reviews

[♥︎ Heather ⚔ (New House-Hiatus) · Rating 5 out of 5]

'𝓦𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮 𝓲𝓼 𝓱𝓸𝓶𝓮? 𝓘𝓽’𝓼 𝓷𝓸𝔀𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮, 𝔀𝓱𝓲𝓬𝓱 𝓶𝓮𝓪𝓷𝓼 𝓲𝓽 𝓬𝓸𝓾𝓵𝓭 𝓫𝓮 𝓪𝓷𝔂𝔀𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮. 𝓘𝓽’𝓼 𝔀𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓻 𝓘 𝓪𝓶. 𝓘’𝓶 𝓱𝓸𝓶𝓮.'

"𝓘 𝔀𝓪𝓷𝓽 𝓽𝓸 𝓫𝓮𝓵𝓸𝓷𝓰 𝓼𝓸 𝓶𝓾𝓬𝓱, 𝓘 𝓮𝓷𝓭 𝓾𝓹 𝓷𝓸𝓽 𝓫𝓮𝓵𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓪𝓽 𝓪𝓵𝓵"

This was soooo good!? What? I'm really getting spoiled so early in the year with such great arcs to read!

*Edit to change to 5 stars.🩷*

Set in 1990s San Francisco, we follow Hannah, our FMC, a queer Jewish teenager grappling with first love, family secrets, and the burgeoning awareness of her own sexuality. At only eighteen, she doesn't fully know who she is or what she wants and seeing her growth as she goes through the good and bad of self-exploration was moving.

I have this bad habit of skimming over the blurbs of arcs and it's like key words stick out to me and I forget the rest lol. I'm not sure if the synopsis to this story even hinted at the emotional rollercoaster it was going to take me on, but I'm so glad I picked this one up and I'm blown away again by another debut novel this year.

This story tackles so many different things. Being Jewish, being gay in the 90s, not being able to talk about being queer or thinking you have more than platonic feelings for your close friend. Starting a relationship and having all of these emotions and not knowing what to do with them.

It dives deeply into first love, into family issues, grief, death, life lessons - at times some pretty questionable things happen, and it gets a little dark.

This is a poignant coming-of-age story that beautifully captures the complexities of young love, friendship, and identity.

Shoshana's prose is lyrical and poetic but it's also so raw and unfiltered. The descriptions of San Francisco and New York are so descriptive and vivid that it was so easy to transport myself there and the nostalgia that just popped off the page.

I'm such a 90s girl... I was not the age of these girls during that time, but I love being transported back. The dialogue is sharp and authentic, capturing the awkwardness and intensity of teenage relationships with remarkable honesty.

What an emotional ride, there's really so much packed within these pages. Epic emotional highs and lows - this is one that will stay with me for a long time. I honestly can't recommend it enough.

💖Sapphic Romance
🍭Coming of Age
💖1990's Era
🍭New York to San Francisco Setting
💖Self Discovery
🍭Family Struggles
💖Nostalgia
🍭Lyrical Prose

Expected Release Date 06/17/25

Many thanks to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam for the complementary advanced digital copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 🌈💐

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ Connect with me on Instagram ˗ˏˋ★‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

[Jillian B · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s 1996. Hannah is fresh out of high school and ready to escape her cookie cutter town, homophobic classmates, and Orthodox Jewish mother. So she and her girlfriend move to one of the only places where queer community can be found in twentieth-century America—San Francisco.

Life in the new city isn’t easy. They share a tiny studio apartment in a skeevy area and turn to stripping to make ends meet. But while Hannah’s girlfriend is making new friends and thriving, Hannah feels confused and alone. The person she spends the most time with is an older woman who pays her for sex, who Hannah isn’t even sure she likes. And then some news from her beloved grandmother, Bubbe, adds a further complication to her fragile new life.

Some of the many things I loved about this book:
-The author actually did live in 1990s San Francisco as a queer person. She also worked as a stripper during that time. Her clear familiarity with the book’s setting lends it a real sense of authenticity. All of the restaurants and cafes mentioned in the book are/were real places that existed during that era.
-The character of Bubbe is so incredibly fun. I wish she were real so I could hang out and gossip with her.
-The book depicts the way found families and queer communities formed before social media. The main character’s friendships are based on proximity. I think this may actually spark nostalgia or longing for some readers in this disconnected world.

This is overall an excellent coming of age novel that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Thank you to Random House Canada for hosting a book club event where I received a free copy of this book!

[Denise Ruttan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely fucking loved this book. I just may have to preorder my own copy. It feels weird to me to know that fiction set in the 1990s is now categorized as historical fiction, but I need more fiction set in this time period. I went to high school in the 1990s in a conservative suburb in Oregon, so I related quite a bit to the characters, though I'm bi and not Jewish.

Girls Girls Girls is a coming-of-age story about a Jewish girl named Hannah who lives in Long Beach, New York, a closeted lesbian who's never fit in and fights against the boxes she's been stuck in. She is in love with her best friend Sam, the only other queer she knows. She constantly clashes with her mother, who turned Orthodox when her father died. She knows she's Jewish, she just doesn't want to be Jewish like her, and she knows she's a woman, but she doesn't want to be a woman like her mom. Her grandmother and herself have a tight bond.

She makes a pact with Sam to move out to San Francisco in a van when they turn 18. Struggling to make ends meet, they turn to stripping, which Sam is good at and Hannah feels trapped by. Gradually, her codependent relationship with Sam fades away as the two girls grow apart. Hannah comes out of her shell, bounces from an escort job to work on an all-queer painting crew, gets over her culture shock and finds herself in the city just as she gets crushing news from home.

The writing was beautiful and I felt as if I really got to know Hannah and her struggles with young love and identity, her found family and the journey she took with her birth family and accepting herself. This was clearly a book of the author's heart and it made sense that the author's also an oncology nurse for a day job.

This is the kind of book that will stay with me for a long time. It made me think and moved me. One of my most anticipated releases of 2025.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the gift of an early preview. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[lexie · Rating 4 out of 5]

oh queer coming of age stories you WILL be the death of me!

[maddie. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Man, I really thought I was going to love this one. Von Blanckensee sets up some really compelling conflicts for her protagonist: Hannah loves but also feels alienated from her homophobic family, who she ditches in favor of an imagined queer community that she can't quite connect with, and reluctantly takes up sex work under pressure from her girlfriend Sam (a character I can only describe as detestable) and the looming threat of poverty and homelessness. The only people she can really connect with are her grandmother and Sam, but these connections are no relief to her—she can't admit anything to her grandmother, who is dying of cancer, and Sam is controlling, judgemental, a social butterfly and a chronic cheater who takes naturally to everything Hannah struggles with.

But none of those conflicts come to much of anything. Hannah's family and abandoned best friend forgive her easily when she reconnects with them, and she and Sam end the story as best friends again with only the barest acknowledgement of how terrible Sam has been. (Seriously, she does maybe one nice thing the whole book, and it's in the last fifty pages!) Despite everyone's warnings, nothing bad happens to Hannah in the tough neighborhood she lives in, the slum lord she rents from is nice if slightly condescending, and the walk-in closet sized apartment is clean and cozy. Feeling awkward and embarrassed is about as it gets for her stripping, and she conveniently finds a a fulfilling above-minimum-wage job as soon as the escorting situation with butch sugar daddy Chris falls out (and, even more conveniently, this job provides her with the cool gay friends she's been searching for). I'm reminded a little of another ARC I read recently, Woodworking by Emily St James, which I had a similar complaint about. It's hard for me to feel satisfied by a book that brings up all these heavy topics but doesn't dig into them—it just feels a little defanged.

Another aspect that didn't quite sit right with me was the depiction of Chris, who is portrayed as pathetic, even disgusting. Part of the problem is that she's awkward and dishonest and twice Hannah's age, and part of the problem is that she thinks she knows Hannah far more intimately than she really does—but part of the problem, too, is that she's butch and working class and that she struggles with addiction. (To be fair to von Blanckensee, Hannah's eventual love interest is also butch and working class, and she's portrayed very positively though she doesn't take up nearly as much of the narrative as Chris does.) Chris also sexually assaults Hannah, which is not depicted graphically but is dealt with only minimally. She owns up to it and apologizes in a short conversation, and it is mentioned maybe once or twice otherwise. Maybe that wouldn't bother other people, but it did bother me.

Nonetheless, while it was a little disappointing, I did enjoy reading this. The first hundred pages or so (when the aforementioned really compelling conflicts were set up) were really great, and I read the whole thing in maybe two days. I found the prose very smooth, nothing to complain about. Some of the relationships—with April and with Bubbe, for example—were sensitively and movingly handled. And, as with Woodworking, for some people the un-gritty-ness may be a plus. Could be a good read for people who have moved on from purely feel-good YA novels and cozy romance reads but aren't ready for or interested, say, in Michelle Tea or Sarah Schulman.

Anyways, thnx to netgalley and the publishes for the arc! Mwah!

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know, there are some books that really speak to me, and then there are the ones that reach into my soul and yank something loose. This one yanked.

Girls Girls Girls by Shoshana von Blanckensee isn’t just my first five-star read of the year, it’s an instant favorite. No hesitation. No doubt. And considering it’s only mid-February, that’s saying something.

To explain just how much this book meant to me, I need to take you back to baby queer me in the ‘90s.

Picture this: I’m 16 years old in 1996, and my brother brings home a pile of books from a used book warehouse. Among them, I find an ARC of Ain’t Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice by April Sinclair. It’s about a young Black girl navigating her sexuality, moving to San Francisco in the ‘70s, and stepping into a world of self-discovery all while dealing with her family’s expectations back home. That book changed my life. For the first time, I saw a certain part of myself on the page. I saw a possible future. I still own that book, I'm 44 now, and I treasure it. The following year, in 1997, I had my first real girlfriend.

Reading Girls Girls Girls transported me right back to that feeling like I was 16 again, discovering a piece of myself through a book. But where Ain’t Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice showed me a possible future, Girls Girls Girls showed me a possible past.

I don’t think I’ve read a book that captures this pocket of the ‘90s this well in the last 20 years. Or is it 25? Omg i just stopped and did the math. it's 28?! *sigh* What even are years anymore when the ‘90s still feel like a decade ago? Anyway…

At first glance, these two books share a common thread: young queer women feeling trapped by their hometowns and running off to San Francisco, hoping to find themselves and their community—while still tethered to their families’ love and expectations. But beyond that premise, the stories are wildly different.

Girls Girls Girls follows Hannah, a young Jewish girl who escapes to San Francisco in the mid-‘90s with her best friend and first love, hoping to finally explore their queerness freely. The first part of the book beautifully captures the intense, complicated love between two high school girls in the ‘90s. When they get to San Francisco, it’s harder than they were expecting. They’re broke. They’re struggling. And they soon discover the easiest and fastest way to make money while trying to survive in a new city.

A big part of the story takes place in a strip club, and prostitution plays a significant role in their journey. While the book isn’t overly sexually graphic, there’s a lot of focus on these aspects, making it something I’d consider more for both adults and mature/older young adult readers.

Hannah’s relationship with her grandmother, Bubbe, is also woven throughout the story, and let me tell you, it wrecked me. I was SOBBING into my pillow at midnight, unwilling to put the book down and just go to sleep.

And the writing? Stunning. Beautiful. Zero notes for improvement. How is this her first novel?! I found her Instagram and saw that it took her something like 20 years to finish writing it. I desperately hope I don’t have to wait another 20 years for her next book because this...this is one of the best queer novels I think I’ll ever read.

My deepest thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for an advanced copy of this incredible book so that i may share my honest thoughts and feelings.

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first half of this book felt so fresh and exciting and gripping - pulling you through Hannah's often questionable (but also often understandable) decisions as she follows her best friend/girlfriend on a queer journey out west in the 90s. Then, the story takes a turn I wasn't expecting as we're pulled back into the family dynamics she's been avoiding back east, and the grief of it just wrecked me (naturally, I started my morning reading through the saddest part of the novel... you'll know it when you get there). As a queer kid who was also very attached to my grandmother but compelled to leave my home town to explore part of myself I could never fully realize at home, I really connected with this book. The writing was great - even if I thought the ending was a bit too sweet, I get why it would end on such a hopeful note - and I'm stunned that von Blanckensee nailed it while working a day job in healthcare! (probably happening with writers more than I'm aware). I hope so many more people find their way to this novel and give it the praise it deserves.

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Where is home? It’s nowhere, which means it could be anywhere. It’s wherever I am. I’m home.'

I loved this book. It's definitely right up my street, lesbian coming of age that follows Hannah who is Jewish as she runs away from Long Beach, NY to San Francisco to be with Sam, her childhood sweetheart.

They quickly run into issues with finding work or somewhere to live, so they start stripping and Hannah also begins working as an escort for Chris, an older butch lesbian.

I loved seeing how Hannah grappled with her queerness and Jewishness, and her relationships with her mom, bubbe, and sister, which felt like the true heart of the story.

Parts reminded me of Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rupi Thorpe in terms of examining how sex work can be a matter of survival while not shying away from the toll it can take on the person doing it.

I especially enjoyed seeing Hannah start to make more connections in the queer community and come out of her shell a bit more. It made me a bit sad to think of cities having become even more unaffordable for queer people and queer venues like lesbian bars dying out.

This is such a good book overall, a wonderful debut, and I definitely recommend it!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC

[maya · Rating 2 out of 5]

had a lot of trepidation about this one after the annoying foreword that holds the readers hand to explain they’ll see the words “butch/femme/dyke” as if these are antiquated terms no longer regularly used by lesbians. i did not like a lot of this, but around the 60% mark i did enjoy some of the writing - sucks that what is done really well in this book is the parts that have fuck all to do with lesbianism tho 🤷🏻‍♀️

extremely juvenile writing style that made this clunky. i get this is auto fiction to a certain extent, but i just have a really hard time believing an 18 year old who lived her entire life 20 mins away from new york city in the mid-90s would be so sheltered from gay culture and community. the dialogue and language around sex work and drug use was very after school special. :( all conflict is resolved easily without much work involved, and no one seems to face consequences for their actions in a way that was also very YA / too saccharine for me 💔

[Rachel Stienberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

cried in my car outside of a Starbucks reading this one

[Wouter van Noort · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is this really a debut? Are you kidding me? It’s engaging, empowering, and insanely cute all at once. Yes to more queer coming-of-age stories! I can’t wait to read whatever Shoshana von Blanckensee writes next, and yes, I have to say her full name, because how awesome is that?

[this_eel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick read regarding things I’m absolutely insane about but for some reason it failed to make me insane. Three star (appreciative but unenthusiastic) as opposed to three star (derogatory but interested).

I read this as an arc and I only tell the truth xoxo gossip eel

[Lara Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked but didn’t love, and I can’t quite figure out why! A Jewish lesbian coming of age story, so on principle this should’ve been a top book of the year for me. I think Hannah’s relationships with Sam and Amber, especially as they are complicated and challenged and revisited toward the end of the novel, comprised the book’s emotional core for me at least — less so the cross-country journey, the stripping, Hannah’s building of her own life or navigation of her family dynamics, which for some reason felt less *real*. Which is odd, because those things are indeed vital to the project of this book and the arc of the plot and of Hannah’s growth. Not fully sure what to make of that yet.

thanks netgalley for the arc :)

[jocelyn • coolgalreading · Rating 4 out of 5]

probably a 3.75? i really liked this, there was something missing i can't white explain to give it that extra oomph i think it's bc it in part felt more YA to me in writing style, which i don't gravitate towards, but this was a strong debut!thanks to the publisher for my gifted copy 🫶🏻

[Kelsey Stanley · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a few minutes I find myself alone. Not alone together anymore. Kneeling with what’s left. A body. How does it work? How has she slipped from it and where exactly has she gone? She’s gone to perpetual summer, I tell myself. Urine soaks the pad underneath her, and my knees are hot and wet where I kneel beside her. My ear is pressed against her chest. I’m listening for a beat I won’t ever hear again.

[Navya Yagalla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow this was so insanely good. Such great passages on community, making a home somewhere new, and growing into yourself. For being a debut novel I thought this knocked it out of the park. Semi-autobiographical works always seem to do that! Incredible narration and storytelling. This has no reason to be a page turner but I really could not put it down. So much tenacity and grit in these characters it’s hard not to get attached. This was one of those books where it is so refreshing that it has a happy ending. Yay for finding your people!

[Miss✧Pickypants ᓚᘏᗢ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this queer coming-of-age adult fiction with strong YA vibes set in San Francisco in the 1990's. If you are familiar with Mötley Crüe's song from the 1980's with the same title that pays tribute to strippers and strip clubs and wondered if perhaps that might be a coincidence, I don't think it is. Stripping does feature prominently in the plot but doesn't come across in a gritty, dark way.

The story also contains other adult themes such as sex-work and drug use but as with the stripping, seemed a bit understated (the YA vibe mentioned above). The primary story is about Hannah's journey across country as well as her own personal growth and discovery about who she is. What makes the story truly shine is the inclusion of the relationship between Hannah and her beloved Bubbe. It's beautiful, heartfelt and touching.

Anyone interested in the 1990's or who enjoys a good coming-of-age tale will take delight in this debut novel.

[Misha · Rating 5 out of 5]

(rounded up from 4.5)

I love a good historical fiction, queer, coming of age story, but they're so often deeply painful and traumatic because (surprise, surprise) it's never really been a good and safe time to be queer anywhere in the world in the past. This story, however, is more coming of age and looking to spread your wings and be yourself than recounting trauma endured due to being queer.

Hannah feels stifled by her life in Long Island and by her conservative Jewish mother and peacemaker older sister. She and her best friend (and secret girlfriend) Sam decide to drive to San Franciso and make a life there as soon as they're legally adults and live a life that is more open and free there. It's the nineties, and San Francisco is full of queer people and expensive for two broke girls, so they get into jobs in strip clubs and sex work to give themselves breathing room while navigating their relationship, which once seemed so self-contained and perfect and now feels confining. There is heartbreak and growing up and learning how to be yourself while making rent and navigating a new life, while the old one keeps calling and being disappointed in you.

Hannah is young, self-centered, and engaging as a protagonist. She's desperate to belong as part of a community, but incredibly self-conscious about not fitting in and being part of this self-assured and comfortable community of queer people in a big city. Add in some good old-fashioned religious and parental guilt, and you have a compelling story about first love, spreading your wings, and just growing into who you will be as an adult once you have all the freedom to make choices.

Engaging, emotional, and authentically set in the late nineties in an expanding San Francisco queer scene. I loved this!

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

This queer coming-of-age surprised me with how fresh it felt! Once I started, I was so compelled to keep reading.

I will say, the beginning was so focused on Hannah's relationship with her friend/girlfriend Sam, that I felt I didn't have a strong enough grasp on her deep bond with some of the people she left behind (like her friend, April, and her sister, Rachel), so I was surprised when she was suddenly extremely upset about their wellbeing. But I'm happy that the focus did move away from Sam, and focused on Hannah's messy journey into adulthood--which included, of course, a hefty serving of grief that left me emotional! 4.5 stars

[Selina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was teetering on between 4-5 and the last 50 ish pages werr absolutely incredible. Knot in my throat the entire time. I love this book. I love Hannah and Sam and Rachel and April!!!! And even her mom. I just want to hug this book and never let go.

[Amber · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know this is a debut novel, but it wasn't at all what the synopsis promised it would be. The entirety of the blurb was done and gone by 60% of the book, with the remaining being something else entirely - and not in a good way. The plot changed constantly and never remained for long - Hannah stripped for a brief period before quitting, she and Sam broke up relatively quickly in the book, she and Chris lasted another short little while, and suddenly she was with her Bubbe who died extremely quickly. I was expecting subplots alongside the main one, sure, but not an amalgamation of several mini plots to try and tie the story together. It didn't make it more interesting; it just made it lack depth.

There was small character development in Hannah by the end, considering she was standing firmer on her own two feet and standing up for herself. Beyond that, the characters were all underdeveloped and dull. The fact that Hannah admired Sam so much when Sam was the most unlikeable character in the book was questionable. The fact that Hannah had such a random, noncommittal yet somehow sentimental relationship with Chris was even more questionable. Hannah's family and other friends blurred together with the exception of Bubbe, who may have been more of a developed character than Hannah herself. It never felt like she had a strong, driving connection to any of them.

Beyond that, this book was not well written and read like a YA novel that I would have loved as a teenager. The pacing was extremely fast and left large gaps in the story, making me wonder how I got from point A to point B. The dialogue was stilted and thrown in randomly as if the author wanted the conversation to happen but didn't know how to make it come about. Every voice sounded the same to me, making the characters fall into the same bucket instead of standing out.

There were so many parts of the story that made absolutely no sense to me because I simply couldn't see someone realistically making the choices that Hannah did. While she was written relatively well as an 18-year-old, (stubborn, nonsensical, acting on a whim) she was making absolutely insane decisions. She quite literally killed her grandmother, and no matter where you stand on euthanasia, that is a bonkers thing to do.

I did like the details of San Francisco in the 90's, now living in SF in 2025. It was fun to hear familiar street names and consider what the city was like - even if fictionalized to an extent. I also love a queer coming of age story when it's done well, but this unfortunately fell really flat for me.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can’t believe this is a debut novel. It oozes 90s perfection and kind of scratches that itch so many closeted queer teens might have of just running away to San Francisco to be amongst your community. There are multiple coming of age stories melded into one. You have the changing and evolving of a high school friendship and romantic relationship, joining the “real world” with the needs to pay bills and buy food, and coming face to face with death and grief. I thoroughly enjoyed the pace and evolution of Hannah and Sam in different ways, and the honesty attached to some genuinely beautiful passages.

Can’t wait to read more from this author. Thanks for the ARC.

[Rikki Ziegelman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really hit home for me. I feel as though I was the target audience for this one, and it exceeded all of my expectations. It was an absolutely beautiful and touching story. I loved reading the exploration of the main character’s relationship with both lesbianism and Judaism. This book did an excellent job at setting the scene and differentiating characters. Every person was real and raw and layered. I really cannot recommend it enough!

A huge thank you to NetGalley & the publishers for this ARC :)

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ya know when a book finds you at the right moment and its wavelength just synchs up with yours and you spend the whole day crying in bed as you let someone else’s words wrap themselves around your red, raw life questions, and it all somehow makes sense? Yeah, that was this book for me. I surfed it from somewhere dark back to myself and I hope you like it but it has a super secret soft place in my gushy heart.

Come for the lesbians, stay for the gay and her grandmother love story. My Oma once looked me in the eyes while facing death and told me she thought I was brave. She came from Germany to America newly married at 16 and when I drove to Minnesota for the summer alone, she thought I was the one with balls. I miss her when I sing after eating too much dairy, because that’s what her voice sounded like at church, all gurgly and with a smile that you could hear.

[Rosa Pateraki · Rating 5 out of 5]

First off, I want to preface this by saying that I read this book in two sittings — one while travelling from Laos to Vietnam, and another in a bus from Ha Long Bay to Hanoi. I think it’s a testament to the grip this book had on me that I was able to read it that fast.

Secondly, I have nothing but praise for this book. Raw and authentic, it’s brimming with sentiment — especially in the second part. A beautifully written coming-of-age novel about clashing identities, chosen family and being queer, Girls Girls Girls will forever hold a place in my heart.

[Taylor (Virginia Woolf’s Actual Wife)]

Yeah i cried! And what of it!

That one was for the dykes, which I appreciated

[Abby Busis · Rating 5 out of 5]

juicy delicious & tender

[Sarah Ganz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read nearly this whole book in one day and it was honest and tender and my favorite genre (gay + about San Francisco). Maybe life is all about being brave/living in SF/ walking down mission st/ having crushes/ miscommunications with mom <3 THANK YOU ALESHIA PERF REC #2!

[claud · Rating 4 out of 5]

punched me in the chest multiple times

[faibolt · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars - I thought I was going to be really into this but the vibes were way too YA. Nothing wrong with that, just not my thing. Everything was too simple and cheery. Where was Hannah’s growth? I needed more.