Girl's Girl

by Sonia Feldman

From a dazzling new talent, a sensual and spellbinding novel about one summer that shatters the balance between three best friends, forcing them to confront the line between friendship and desire

Fifteen-year-old Mina’s whole world is her two best friends, but after an unexpected kiss, the established dynamics of their trio quickly unravel. Everything that was once shared openly, from clothes to secrets, now feels impossibly fragile. Loyalties shift and tensions simmer across the long days of this pivotal summer, where the girls have nowhere new to go and everything new to feel.

Looking back, an adult Mina traces the undercurrents of longing that shaped her first experience of desire. The rituals of girlhood—gossip, selfies, sleepovers, and videogames—become threads in a delicate, volatile web of intimacy, in which everything feels achingly fleeting and permanently etched. Loving one person, Mina learns, can change the way we love everyone else—including ourselves. 

Bold, vulnerable, and sharply observant, Girl’s Girl is a sundrenched and dewy snapshot of modern girl culture set in the blaze of one suburban Midwest summer.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, Literary Fiction, LGBT, Lesbian, Summer, Coming Of Age

256 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication June 2, 2026

About the author

Sonia Feldman lives in Cleveland, Ohio. She won the PEN America PEN/Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, and her poetry and fiction have appeared in The Missouri Review, The Southern Review, and Waxwing. She also runs Sonia’s Poem of the Week, a popular email newsletter. Girl’s Girl is her first novel.

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

ARC for review. To be published June 2, 2026.

4 stars

It’s summer (Oh, do I wish it was summer. We have snow here. Snow. We never get snow until January and even then almost none. I’m afraid it may be a rough winter. But I digress.) Mina is fifteen. The most important thing in her world are her two best friends, Margaret and Eleanor, also fifteen. But what happens when one of those friendships becomes more?

It’s been a long time since I was that age but this felt so honest to me; not the way we want teenagers to act, but the way the actually do, with all the small stuff, the day to day navigations required just to maintain friendships. I really loved this and I loved all three girls, even with their faults, maybe especially with their faults.

***Edited to add: this is a debut? Bumping this up to five stars. It was a close call anyway, but knowing it’s the author’s first novel, well, I’ll be looking for more from her, and if she just wants to spend her career writing female coming of age stories, I’m here for that!

[cyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review. This book was the most evocative and vivid portrayal of girlhood that i’ve read in a while. Every feeling in this book is something I think most girls have felt in their youth. From posing for fake pictures to mae others jealous and the confusion of being in a trio friend group every part of this book felt like reading a diary that could have easily been my own. The characters are all so flawed in the way that only teenage girls can get away with and it feels like watching yourself from afar. The underlying romance was so well written but didn’t take away from what at its core is a book about friendship. The only critique i have is that it wants longer but that’s just me selfishly wanted to stay in this nostalgia painted world for just a little bit longer. This is already in my top new releases of 2026 and the year hasn’t even started yet.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

an absolutely perfect novel. i don't know how sonia does what she does. for a book to hit this hard while reading as a .docx means there's some real magic here. cannot wait to hold the physical copy in my hands and for ms. feldman to take the literary world by STORM. the more time that passes since i read this the more i am in awe of sonia's ability to write from the POV of a teenage protagonist without sounding like an adult ventriloquizing a teenager while still being a book that adults will want to read. very rare talent!!!!

[Kendall DalBello · Rating 4 out of 5]

i really really loved this. not much happened but you grow to really love and relate to these characters. it felt perfectly nostalgic.. not because i grew up in love with my best friend, but the way friendship throuples feel imbalanced (especially when you want to fit in) at age 15. we also get the perfect depiction of the complicated mother/daughter relationship as a teenager and i laughed out loud so many times at some of mina’s inner monologue about her mother. “one benefit of mothers is the permanent availability of a person with whom to disagree.” so many great quotes from this book, i did not want to put it down. the perfect coming of age summertime novel. thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc 🩵

[Ellen Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore coming of age books like this one. This gave me so much nostalgia about girlhood and I love the focus on the desire, confusion, and other emotions we feel as females. It was a lighthearted read that moved at a fast pace and really held my attention. I actually was taken back to my younger years and my own female friendships when I read this book. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Corinne Carson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Told from the perspective of 15 year old Mina, the story is told over one summer and the events that took place with her & her two best friends. It was filled with all of the typical teenage girl angst and the drama that goes along with having an uneven number of people in the friendship. It also delved into intimacy & sexuality and just pretty much all of the social things that go on at that age. Then one day a kiss took place and all of a sudden the friends had to navigate a new way around their relationships. I enjoyed this coming of age story and appreciated all that Mina went through, where everything at that age seems so fragile & end of the world. I can remember feeling this way at that age where friendships and what people thought of you was the only thing that mattered. I commend the author for her ability to relay this story from a teenager’s perspective.

Thank you to NetGalley & The Dial Press for the invitation to read an advanced eARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.

[Elle Spohrer · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was not for me, and I mean that in the literal sense. This book was written for people who will relate to it (i.e., not me). It aligns with how the current mainstream white feminist discourse describes “girlhood” in that it represents a particular experience of growing up white, upper middle class, neurotypical, and conventionally attractive. I’m just over it. Mina and her friends didn’t remind me of myself as a teenager; they reminded me of the popular girls in high school who seemed to operate under the belief that whatever was going on with them and their friends was the most important thing in the world. I was annoyed by it at fifteen, and I’m annoyed by it at twenty.

I do understand why other readers would really connect with this book. It’s a book for women who grew up like Mina, and there’s nothing wrong with that; what irks me is that it’s described as a “snapshot of modern girl culture” when the slice of “modern girls” it represents is really quite thin. I think Feldman did a great job of portraying these characters and their emotions; I just didn’t enjoy reading about them. There are plenty of books I enjoy that focus on characters I dislike, but those stories don’t require the reader to relate to the protagonists. This one does.

I think the title is pretty apt. One aspect of shallow internet feminism that bothers me is this obsession with labelling oneself “girls’ girl” while simultaneously not giving a fuck about girls who don’t fit in with the status quo, and that is absolutely the vibe I got from the main characters. Of course, they are teenagers—I don’t expect them to have a mature understanding of the world and their place in it. Still, I found myself rolling my eyes at how obsessed these girls are with being attractive and other people knowing they’re attractive (and I think I would have been annoyed by this when I was their age, too). There were a couple of brief moments around the middle of the book when Mina experienced fleeting glimpses of self-awareness, but these were passed over very quickly.

Unfortunately, the writing style in this book also didn’t work for me. I found the prose to be painfully overwritten. I’m sure some readers would enjoy the style, but it felt forced to me.

There were some things I did like. I thought the pacing was great, and the three distinctive mother-daughter relationships were done very well. I also appreciated the representation of teen sexuality. The conclusion of the story felt realistic and meaningful.

I would like to reiterate that, despite my low rating, I think a certain type of reader would absolutely love Girls’ Girl. I do hope that this book finds its community, and that I start doing a better job of vetting books on NetGalley before requesting them.

***Thank you to NetGalley and The Dial press for giving me a free advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.***

[Aislinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

[4.5⭐️] “I was the least chill person on earth and I knew it. Everyone else had a skeleton, and I was just a bunch of organs. I couldn't keep a single thing to myself if it mattered. I needed to leash myself like a dog. I needed to tell myself to sit or I'd show everybody my belly.”

Sonia Feldman perfectly captures what it likes to be a 15 year old girl in the midst of change— both in yourself and your relationships. This short yet exquisitely descriptive novel is simple in its premise, yet it captures the overwhelming vast feeling of life as a teen perfectly.

Although the main character and I’s teenage experiences were not alike in many ways, it somehow felt like Feldman found an old diary of mine when she wrote Girl’s Girl. Mina is both overwhelmingly confident in her “youthful glow” and feels the world is her oyster, and yet is so anxiously insecure she can’t even lay on her bed without feeling the need to do so perfectly for fear of being perceived. It reminded me how exhilarating yet how exhausting being a teen was.

Girl’s Girl drew me in quickly and deeply, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching these girls’ summer unfold before them, I could’ve kept going. It also made me both nostalgic for being 15 again and reminded me how hard it was being a teenage girl, like damn. This is such a strong debut novel and I look forward to reading more from Feldman in the future— maybe next time teenage me will feel less perceived in the process.

Many thanks to NetGalley and The Dial Press for an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest thoughts!

[Tilda · Rating 5 out of 5]

i am in awe!
the yearning!

“I was the least chill person on earth and I knew it. Everyone else had a skeleton, and I was just a bunch of organs. I couldn't keep a single thing to myself if it mattered. I needed to leash myself like a dog. I needed to tell myself to sit or I'd show everybody my belly.”

i didn’t think I was ready to read about being a teen in the 2010s (the selfies! instagram when it was still casual!) but I feel so lucky to have this and get to relive this summer with a braver protagonist and a better cast of friends <3

[Taylor Cole · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’ve ever been in a love triangle with your friends - this book is for you. I can’t help but love books that place the reader directly inside the protagonist’s anxiety spirals and rumination. The writing is beautiful! The relationships are beautiful! And I’m admittedly jealous of everyone who will get to read this in summer. ☀️

[Oola · Rating 5 out of 5]

*I received an online copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*

(4.5 stars rounded up)

Girl’s Girl is, in the simplest terms, an exploration of the complexities of platonic and romantic relationships at an age where the lines are sometime blurred. But it’s so much more than that — it juxtaposes the posterity of photos in our digital age with the ephemeral nature of time; it weaves themes of belonging, lust, and change into one tight, compelling narrative; and, above all, it provides an anthropological, dissecting look at the lives of teenage girls. Margaret, Eleanor, and Mina are all imperfect and, at times, cruel, but they are also incredibly relatable. This book resonated with me because I saw myself, friends, family members, crushes, and acquaintances reflected in the lives of the characters. Often, books about teenagers written by adults feel unrealistic, but Girl’s Girl was filled with such raw emotion and realistic heartbreak that I truly felt like I knew the characters personally by the end of the book.

It wasn’t perfect — at times, the plot felt a little bit overly soapy, and certain emotions or conditions were overexplained to the point of suffocation — but this book made me feel, and that’s what I love in a novel.

[Elena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Girl’s Girl follows Mina’s relationship with her two best friends Margaret and Eleanor, the summer after their first year of high school. As we follow the three girls throughout their summer, we understand the dynamic between each friendship as well as as the friend group as a whole, and we see this shift as events unfurl during the summer. Told from Mina‘s perspective, Girl’s Girl provides an honest look into the life of a teenage girl, from The Sims to developing a deeper understanding for your mother as a person to discovering what it means to love.

I enjoyed following Mina’s perspective as it felt quite vulnerable and realistic for a girl her age, especially with her fears about her friends’ perceptions of her and how they changed after each major event. Her perspective really captured the all-or-nothing nature of that time of life, where each decision, from who is standing next to you in your instagram post to who you choose to call first about a big life event, has a major impact on your relationship with that person. A more minor part of the story that I really enjoyed was Mina coming to understand her mother as her own person, and learning to look from her mother’s perspective when Mina didn’t like a decision her mother came to. I liked Margaret and Eleanor’s characters as well, but was a bit disappointed in their depth and development. I would have loved to learn more about Eleanor as a person. Her willingness to leave a situation she’s no longer comfortable in, as a fifteen year old, seems cowardly, but reading this as someone 10 years older than the girls in this story, it is quite brave of Eleanor to have the conviction in herself to do what is best for her even when the social consequences may be unfavourable.

Ultimately, this is a coming of age story exploring relationship dynamics. I loved how subtle the development of Mina was, as she was already a girl quite comfortable with herself on the outside, but we watched her slow progression from someone who wasn’t sure how to love the different girls/women in her life, and learn how to understand and navigate these relationships more confidently by the end of the story.

Overall, this will be a fantastic summer read for anyone wanting to reminisce about the best and worst parts of their teenage years, whether they were these girls or knew these girls. I loved the author’s writing and I’m excited to read more from her!

Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC 🫶🏻

[klaudia ꪆৎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

★┊3 stars .ᐟ spoilers free review
→ thank you netgalley for the arc

I can do that, I say, as I offer their shimmering reflection. I can be a mirror who loves you.

Girl's girl is a story about teenage girlhood, friendship, self-discovery, complicated family relationships and quiet holidays. We meet Mira and her two friends - Margaret and Eleanor, but everything gets complicated when she kisses one of them.

I am sure that many girls will feel close to Mira and will even identify with her, I myself at certain moments I saw myself in her. However, I did not feel much closeness to her or her friends, unfortunately. Mira is in love with one of her best friends, I expected a lot of yearning, I MEAN A LOT, but in my opinion it was not enough here (although it was still here somehow). The book has a lot of long descriptions, but we don't focus on this love in my opinion. I think we are focusing more on growing up, being teenager, going to parties, spending time with close friends, learning about your feelings and distinguishing them.

Overall I think this book has great potential, I was really excited when I read the description but I think this story is not fully developed. Pacing was very slow, even too slow and because of that it just takes a long time (although the book is quite short) and you can't fully enjoy it. There are many references to contemporary culture, which I am not a fan but I am able to tolerate. I didn't like writing too much either, I know it's just a debut and the author really has a chance to write something brilliant!!

[Gabby Hurley · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.75/5

Firstly thank you NetGalley, Random House, the Dial Press, and Sonia Feldman for gifting me with this ARC to review! While this book wasn’t for me, I’m sure there are plenty of people who would enjoy this debut novel.

Liked:

-the premise of teen dynamics, figuring out sexuality and different types of love. This is more of a modern take on teen dynamics which entails: selfies/pictures for every occasion, the self importance, and caring about how others perceive you. Now I will say I don’t think it’s a great overall view of modern teen girls. I’d say it’s a very narrow view into white, middle class, attractive teen girls. I enjoyed the lesbian/queer representation and that no one had an issue with it (again not very accurate to real world, but still it was nice).

Disliked:

-the writing had way too much purple prose for me to enjoy it thoroughly. Listen I’m all for explaining things in a complex way but Mina’s inner thoughts and her descriptions of the past as an adult were just too much.

-the pacing. It’s a very slow read, despite it only being about 256 pages. It picks up a bit around the 60% mark but not by much. It got a bit boring for me to read about how much Mina, Margaret, and Eleanor would ignore and not spend time with each other.

-the sims game play stuff. I could’ve done without the whole dive into the gameplay and emphasis on it lol. It’s not a major deal but still I just wanted to skip past it and move to the next scene.

[Kristen Fader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review

4.5

"There was no reason in the world I had to be myself except that I was."

I felt like I was watching an indie coming of age in an atmospheric, but somewhat boring, little town during the summer when nothing happens but really everything happens

I feel like I was being transported back to my teenage self in just how hard it is to be a freaking girl, to have friends, to want to be something more than you are, and ultimately just a girl who doesn't want things to change

Everyone's relationships from Mina and her mom's, to her friends, to her friends parents, felt so real and justified in their own ways. The character development towards the end where everyone actually starts talking about everything, and this may sound strange, reminds me of Russian classics in just how frank and to the point people get.

And finally, I understand why this is coming out in June. It is so deliciously set in the summer that I will be ordering a physical copy to reread in the sun.

[:) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the arc

Minor spoilers ahead.

Oh to be 15 again.

This is a gorgeous book, both aesthetically and writing wise. It also hurt me a lot. A little too real! I couldn't help but picture myself as a 15-year-old, struggling to make sense of my identity, my feelings, my place in the world.

This is, like I said, also a very real book. Every word, every character dynamic, every moment feels genuine and earned. There are a nitpicky things I could point out, but it doesn't feel worth it.

I have a feeling this is one of those books that will stick with me for a long time. I love it when books feel like a hot, humid summer, the kind that leaves you feeling sticky. I absolutely love the setting and care that was put into this because it really pays off.

There's one specific scene, where the girls go to a fair, that was so accurate to my teenage years it could've been written about me. Anyone who's from a small town knows that the big fair is the highlight of the summer, and it was so fun to see that included.

I loved and resonated a lot with Mina. She and her two best friends, Margaret and Eleanor, grapple with growing up and the changes that come with it. I loved the subtle differences in the relationships, as Mina realizes why her friendship with Eleanor is different than with Margaret. I love that they actually feel like friends, which seems silly to say, but unfortunately, is not something you see executed well in every book. They actually seem like they know and like each other!

I also really loved Mina's relationship with her mother, which I wasn't expecting to be so poignant. It's very teenage girl-coded, but again, just so realistic. I like that her mom isn't some major villain, that she's always there for Mina, and that the reasons she doesn't get along with her mom feel genuine and relatable.

I also liked that Mina doesn't struggle with her identity because she likes girls; she struggles with her identity because she's a 15-year-old trying to figure out what she feels. It's refreshing to not have a lot of homophobia or internal struggle (which I do enjoy in writing, but sometimes it's nice to not have that!).

I really liked the ending, too, when we switch to adult Mina's perspective. I'd say it's a realistic ending, not necessarily fairytale happy, but bittersweet and truthful.

I also enjoyed the format of this. There are no distinct chapters, which I really liked because it allowed the whole story to flow together, keeping the timeline loose but also more immersive. There's no particular, hard end to a scene; it simply breaks and moves to the next, which I think is very representative of real life. There aren't chapters in life; each day flows into the next and carries over.

Once again, this is a gorgeous book. Not a perfect read, but an important one.

4.5 stars

[jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

A trio of best friends—pensive Mina, extroverted Margaret, and hyper-aware Eleanor—are looking forward to another summer together in their Midwest hometown. When you’re 15 years old, your friends make up the entire world outside of your parents’ home. And for Mina, her life with her friends is one she loves and relies on.

That is, until Eleanor kisses her one morning and their entire relationship dynamic changes.

This book was somehow both what I hoped it would be and much, much different than I initially expected. The girls were both intriguing and frustrating, and at one point I realized why that was because they were girls playing and practicing womanhood. This is very much a coming-of-age novel while also being a character study of these three individuals.

For the sheer amount of Sims references alone, this book was a 5 star read for me ✨

Enormous thanks to Random House for providing me with an ARC in exchange for this honest review. “Girl’s Girl” releases on 6.2.26 and this is one I am definitely recommending!

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book truly felt like the middle of summer as a fifteen-year-old girl. Mina, the main character, has two best friends with whom she does makeovers, shares secrets, and feels totally confident in herself. That is, until one of her friends unexpectedly kisses her and then decides to avoid her. Girl's Girl is a story about friendship and summer and girlhood. It reminds me of Hayley Kiyoko's Girls Like Girls music video. Imagine lone girl on bike realizing her feelings for one of her friends, having a really great time with her, a kiss, then going home with no significant development afterward. Just, like, trade the homophobia and cigarettes for Instagram photos and video game scenes.

Mina is very personal and open with her friends, and her main struggle throughout the book is figuring out what she wants when there’s so much overlap between her platonic and romantic feelings. To be honest, the awkward friends thing was a large section of the plot, and I found it tedious pretty quickly.
Margaret, Mina’s oldest friend, loves to impress people, so she was always pushing Mina and Eleanor to hang out with new people or do new things even when they didn’t particularly want to. I personally didn’t like her because I have very low tolerance for people who do things because everyone else is doing them. Margaret was the main reason for all of their careless teenager decisions, but she wasn’t like a bad person or anything. She was just there.
Eleanor is the second friend and the one who kisses Mina, and I liked her a lot more than Margaret. Eleanor is close with the other two, but she also enjoys spending time doing her own thing apart from them. What I found disappointing about her was that her reasoning for kissing Mina was not as expanded as I’d expected it to be. Eleanor kept leaving when there could have been more communication to the reader and explanation for why exactly she felt so avoidant. To be honest, Eleanor sort of felt more like a plot than a character, and I think I would have enjoyed the story a lot more if Eleanor’s (and Margaret’s) own growing-up and relationship fears had been as fleshed out as Mina’s.

I related to very few of Mina's experiences, but the emotion behind her actions had such an undeniable presence that it didn’t feel like it mattered. Although it's a slow book, I felt like it was a truthful, genuine representation of being a teenager. So much of the romance genre today is built up into these big, epic relationships, and I saw this story for how casual and normal it was. I liked how the author explored different types of relationships, and I thought that the mom-daughter side plot was nice especially. Mina doesn’t make her mom into a villain, and part of her character development is with beginning to see her mom as a real person. I wasn’t expecting that going in given the blurb, but I’m glad that it was there.

I appreciated how Mina’s narration was as an adult looking back on this summer; I think it added thoughtful commentary that younger-teenage Mina would not have been able to express. Even if you don’t relate to a lot of what they’re doing, the author expresses the fifteen-year-old girl desire for attention that I had almost forgotten. It’s about gaining all the opportunities you have as an adult, but you’re young and you’re powerful, and you want people to see that. I most enjoyed the last five-ish chapters, and I think the author concluded everything pretty well.

I requested to read this book early through NetGalley. Thanks, NetGalley!

[Danna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Girl’s Girl made me feel nostalgic, warm, and filled with empathy for teenaged girls everywhere. Sonia Feldman has written a novel that perfectly encapsulates what it feels like to be young, equal parts confident and insecure, and the feeling that your friends are the single most important thing in your life.

Told from Mina’s perspective, Girl’s Girl is the story of a triad friendship. Mina and Margaret have been best friends since they were kids, joined by Eleanor once they were teenagers. For the most part, the dynamic works. But when Eleanor kisses Mina, everything changes and Mina is left feeling on the outside of her most important relationships.

Feldman describes so many feelings in such accurate detail. The writing hit me in my soul. This is a perfect coming of age story that is also a coming out story. I loved it. I was just as struck by Mina’s relationship with her mother as with her friends, which is also described in eloquent detail.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

On friends:
I loved listening to Margaret’s stories, as though she were somehow both a salacious audiobook and a parent reading me to sleep.

Figuratively, we were overdressed. I’d stuck rhinestones to the corners of El’s gray eyes. Literally, we were underdressed, our clothing covering only a very limited portion of our bodies.

If Margaret drove the car of her charisma, we got to sit prettily in its back seat.

In a group of two people, these were the rules of the bathroom: You didn’t go alone.

Margaret made my world large. Eleanor made it into a room only the two of us could enter. It was a room in which Eleanor kept her hand on the doorknob. I wished she wouldn’t. I wished she’d forget about the door.

“We don’t have to pretend it’s not fun to hook up with someone that other people also find attractive.”

I straightened and then released the first section of my hair. It fell silkily upon my shoulder. Silky hair sensations are helpfully productive of confidence, and I wanted confidence.

On mothers:
One benefit of mothers is the permanent availability of a person with whom to disagree.

I didn’t want to acknowledge, either, that what I considered to be a punishment was her regular life or to reflect on the fact that treating the tasks of her regular life as a punishment was mean.

I sensed the burden of the million choices that had to be made on behalf of herself and two other people—my father, who didn’t understand that saying he had no preference about anything was an abdication of responsibility instead of a convenience, and me, physically present but entirely unhelpful—but I failed to register its gravity.

Sometimes my mom made me feel like a clear glass suit of armor with a big red heart inside. She read in me my feelings at nearly the same pace at which I felt them. This habit that she’d been practicing for the entire length of my life still managed to catch me off guard.

“Why do you forget something every time we enter a line?” I asked. “Because I’m managing the day-to-day existence and mental and emotional well-being of three people simultaneously,” she responded, then answered her phone on its first ring. She said things like this to me repeatedly, but I couldn’t understand them then. I couldn’t understand the nature of her life’s work or the incredible feat of its intelligence, the keeping of all of us alive enough to pursue our personal plotlines,

[bex · Rating 4 out of 5]

thank you to netgalley + publishers for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

this book was absolutely amazing, and if you are a queer teenage girl, it is the first book i would recommend to you.

at the start, i wasn’t quite sure how to feel. the writing was very eloquently put, but i wasn’t sure if it was a realistic depiction of the inside of a fifteen year old girl’s mind.

this book is an exact replica of the inside of a fifteen year old girl’s mind.

as i read, i found myself more and more in each girl’s character. i found myself in el because she’s remarkably incapable of being outwardly emotionally vulnerable and would rather allude to how she’s feeling than ever straight up say it. as somebody who wants to cringe to death any time i even attempt to express my true inner feelings, i related to her on a spiritual level. i related to mina because she’s a queer teenager girl who is having a hard time figuring out why she feels differently about el than margaret. discovering the full spectrum of your emotions is a difficult task for anybody, especially a queer 15 year old. and also, i have never felt quite so understood by a character as i did with her, having always been a bit of a stick in the mud when it comes to breaking rules. i don’t feel exhilaration when doing something my parents don’t want me to do, i feel bad and guilty, and it was a relief to have a character who understands this feeling.

at first, i didn’t really like margaret. she seemed phony and very outward facing in a way that usually turns me off of people. however, the more i read, i grew to understand her in a new way just as mina did. she’s not a gossip obsessed teenager who doesn’t care about anybody other than herself. she’s a gossip obsessed teenager who cares very deeply about people other than herself, and thinks about herself just as much as every other teenager girl on the planet. she thinks about herself in a way i am hesitant to acknowledge that i think about myself as well. and that’s what makes this book so special: it discusses the hard truths about teenage hood that people really don’t tell teenagers. sure, adults in their forties will look back and recognize that they were a bit shallow when they were 15, and they thought kind of bad things about their friends that they would never dare to admit out loud, but nobody ever actually tells teenagers that they’re not alone in this. that it’s normal to feel that way as you figure out who you are as a person individually.

i’ve never read a book where the author had such a profound understanding of the complexities of teenage girls. where every friendship is a complex tangle of love and hate the we are forced to untangle and untangle time and time again, until we decide whether or not we would die for this person. i only gave this four instead of five stars because it did take me a while to read, and it didn’t possess my every waking thought, but that absolutely does not mean that this wasn’t one of the most impactful books i have read. please read this.

[Mackenzie Cornwall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Synopsis:
Fifteen-year-old Mina’s world revolves around her two best friends, and the delicate balance of their trio begins to crack after an unexpected kiss. Over the course of one pivotal summer, shared secrets start to feel fragile, loyalties shift, and the girls experience a series of emotional firsts that change their friendships forever. Looking back as an adult, Mina reflects on desire, girlhood, and how loving one person can reshape how we understand ourselves.

My Review:
This book felt like time travel. Reading it felt like stepping directly back into my 15-year-old body, into a version of myself I haven’t lived in for years but still recognize instantly. Sonia Feldman captured the emotional landscape of being 15 with such precision that it honestly felt like she had pulled thoughts straight out of my own head. Thoughts I’ve had quietly, repeatedly, without ever realizing other people felt them too.

This book perfectly describes what it’s like to be a teenage girl. The insecurities, the growth happening at different speeds, the deep love for your friends, and the constant confusion about why parents and adults do what they do. Fifteen is such an underrated age to write about. It’s right before you can drive, right before the world fully opens up, when everyone around you is changing but not in the same ways or at the same pace. Everything feels heightened and confusing and incredibly important.

One of my favorite parts of this book was the way the three girls experienced so many firsts together, while the parents throughout the story reflected on their own. Seeing those moments side by side created such a beautiful dichotomy. It made me reflect on who I was then and who I am now, and for the first time, I felt like I could understand both perspectives at once. The girl living through everything and the adult looking back with clarity and compassion.

I also loved how I saw myself in all three girls. At the same time, I could clearly see my two best friends and my own childhood reflected in each of them too. Each girl carried pieces of all of us. Their personalities overlapped in ways that felt painfully real, because at that age, no one is just one thing yet. It felt deeply personal to read, like watching my own friendships and dynamics unfold on the page.

This book captures the magic, the confusion, the love, and the shame of girlhood with so much care. It’s beautifully written, emotionally honest, and deeply observant. I truly loved this book, and it’s one I know will stay with me for a long time.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Dial Press and Netgalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review. I LOVE coming-of-age stories and this one was no exception. I think Mina was a great character to be in the eyes of because she had this simultaneous naivety and maturity that Margaret and Eleanor didn’t have. I liked her relationship with her mother as well. I liked how she tried to understand that relationship, even if ultimately she knew she was too young to fully grasp it. And through her relationship with her mom, Mina was able to understand herself a little more and why she’s so emotional and transparent toward the people she loves.

My only critique is that I felt like some of the writing was disjointed and therefore unnecessarily convoluted. I understood everything Mina felt and said, but it took a bit of subtext for me to get there. I’m not sure if that makes any sense, but it did slow down the reading experience because I had to keep stopping and rereading sentences to make sure I actually picked up on what was going on. But then again, a lot of young adolescence is about rethinking every little interaction you’ve ever had, especially with your best friends, and wondering if whether or not there was more to it.

I related a lot to Mina. I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on who I’m with. I was also in a trio friendship when I was fifteen, and I remember times where I felt closer with one and then the other and then I would question if the friendship meant the same to each person. I spent a lot of time trying to prove my love to my friends, while not loving myself.

Lastly, I loved how Mina’s conflict was with herself and figuring out who she truly was and not just homophobia in general (I read this in another review). I think a lot of being fifteen is about growing into yourself and of course, a part of that is discovering your sexuality and who you truly love. But at the same time, a lot of that inner conflict is about becoming a new version of yourself as life feels fleeting when you’re fifteen, even though it’s not; it’s just the beginning.

[Taylor Penn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sonia Feldman writes teenage friendship in a way that feels intrusive (complimentary) in her debut novel, Girl’s Girl. Mina, Eleanor, and Margaret are fifteen and tightly bound. They move as a unit through selfies, sleepovers, the juiciest gossip and torturing their Sims together by the light of the family computer. At the beginning of summer, they have big plans and nowhere else to be. Until a kiss between 2 of the girls shifts the fragile balance between the trio.

What Feldman does exceptionally well is sit inside the mind of the friend on the outside. Feldman understands the exhausting internal calculations: How long should I wait to text back? Was that Instagram post passive-aggressive? Should I like it, comment, or pretend I never saw it? What can I post right now that will remind them to miss me? That low-grade panic is quiet but constant. One wrong move could send the whole relationship darting off into the tall grass like a frightened rabbit. Feldman captures that spiral with uncomfortable accuracy.

The novel is filtered through Mina's adult POV, which gives the story a sense of inevitability while also providing some wisdom that almost none of us carry at that age. The friendships are full of tunnel-vision, power plays, loyalty, admiration, jealousy, and genuine love, often all at once. For the girls, sometimes the passage of time stands in where an apology should be and other times, they show real courage as they face tough conversations head-on.

Reading this feels like being dropped back into that sweaty, anxious headspace where friendships feel permanent and fragile at the same time. Less like revisiting a story and more like reopening a time capsule. Feldman gives language to a specific teenage dread and longing that many of us recognize instantly. A deeply uncomfortable, but also gratifying five-star read.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and Sonia Feldman for the arc and for reminding me to call my therapist <3

[AT · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been following Feldman's poetry newsletter for ages, so I was thrilled to get my hands on an early copy of Girl's Girl — I expected a quiet and understated plot that bloomed in delicate writing, reflecting the author's keen sense of poetics. I wasn't wrong, but the book that this turned out to be took me by surprise. It's a very raw, authentic teenage-girl voice, telling a story about teenage girls as only a teenage girl can do. I only wish I'd come across it as a teenage girl, because I would've obsessed over it — read it in the bath in secret, smudged the cover with bathwater, torn pages in my haste to turn them. As an adult, I feel a distance from the narration, but I still think it's very sweet. Mina, Margaret, and Eleanor are girls I grew up with; they're girls I crushed on; they're girls that remind me of some of my best friends. I'd usually slam this as unrealistic for a literary narrative, but I actually liked the relative absence of explicit homophobia in this queer coming-of-age story. It's a micronarrative set in a microcosm of midwestern, liberal, upper-middle-class white society — it seems real for this darkness to manifest as anxiety in our protagonist's head, and the absence of queer representation in the surrounding world, rather than as actual violent reactions from the people she comes out to.

And the writing is, as expected, very beautiful and very evocative of a hot, confusing teenage summer. It's prose that could only be crafted by someone who's read a lot of poetry. I recently went through the Photos folder I've left untouched for the past decade-and-some, and I found so many glimpses into a contemporaneous teen life — pictures where my friends and I thought we looked hot, needed to look hot, when we were clearly children dressing up as adults. This book did such a brilliant job of capturing the urgency of that feeling.

Thank you to Random House/The Dial for the ARC!

[Bourbon_bookworm · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75

"Once I stopped being angry, I’d have to start being sad. I wanted to feel only that my friends were terrible, careless people. I knew that they loved me. People who love you do not, however, exclusively behave in your best interest. Still, in the whole time we’d been friends, none of us had ever acted with the express purpose of hurting each other."

This really reassured me that everyone at 15 years old (I'm being hyperbolic) was insufferable. At 15 years old, I was huberistic and had a false sense of maturity, over analyzed everything, and demanded that I was worthy of what I wanted the most and simultaneously undeserving of everything all at once. This takes me back to that time. I love it and hate it all at the same time. Being a teen is weird. The brain is still developing and it doesn't understand nuance. Everything is all or nothing; life and death; all decisions seem huge and have an inflated level of importance. The way the author is exploring this is done beautifully.

Teenage female friendships can be so weird. We simultaneously hate and love each other. But that feeling mostly stems from our inability to adequately express our emotional needs for fear of being abandoned. We hold onto resentment. This makes me reflect on how much better female friendships are as an adult. We can now express frustration and openly communicate our disappointment. Hooray for fully developed frontal lobes!

The author's honest exploration of queer awakening, messy female friendship, and all the trials and tribulations of trying to navigate love, platonic or not, made this novel one of my favorites of the year.

I can't wait for it's official release because I will be buying myself a copy. Thank you Netgalley, Random House, and Dial Press for the ARC.

[Kelly Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Five days is not very long in adult time, but a school week is sufficient to change the life of a barely teenaged person.”

Mina, Margaret & Eleanor are a quintessential, 15-year-old, best friend trio. There is nothing more important to them than their friendship to each other. But when Mina & Eleanor’s friendship becomes something ~more~ the three girls are forced to navigate the trials and tribulations of love (both platonic & romantic).

This is a LGBTQ book, but it’s also just a girlhood book. It is TRUE coming of age. It’s exactly what it feels like to be 15 (especially in the age of social media… so maybe not everyoneeee can relate). But if you CAN relate, this book will make you feel like you’re back in high school. And it is heart wrenching (and heart warming at the same time).

And Feldman’s writing style is so immersive. I mean, the imagery!!!! Her descriptions of a hot, humid Midwest summer?! I’m yearning for that. There is also a notable lack of dads in this story. They’re there on the periphery but lack any sort of depth or character development. Which as a momma’s girl myself, I appreciate the emphasis on feminine energy in every aspect of this story.

I really cherished this novel, and would definitely reread in the future. Hug your girlfriends tight and never let go!!!!

Thanks to NetGalley & The Dial Press for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. This book will be published on June 2, 2026.

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Girl’s Girl is one of the more accurate portrayals I’ve read of how intense adolescent girl friendships can be—especially that instinctive possessiveness, the sense that your friends’ relationships with others somehow reflect on you. Feldman captures the insecurity, the competitiveness, and the unspoken hierarchies with a clarity that feels both nostalgic and mildly uncomfortable.

Mina and her friends move through the world with a logic that makes perfect sense at 15: everything is personal, every shift in loyalty feels monumental, and boundaries are more of an idea than a practice. The friendships blur—admiration sliding into comparison, closeness edging toward attraction—and all of it reads as deeply true to the murky interiority of coming-of-age girlhood.

I laughed several times at how sharply Feldman evokes the interior monologue of girlhood: dramatic, self-protective, convinced of its own correctness. And the small-town Midwest setting heightens it all, creating a pressure cooker where every slight feels amplified.

Overall, it’s a sharp portrayal of the ways girlhood friendships tangle with identity—how easily you absorb, mirror, and measure yourself against the people you love most when you’re still figuring out where you end and they begin.

[mackenzie (hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

i woke up at 5am and couldn’t fall back to sleep, so what did i do? binged a book a publisher sent me, of course!

this is such a quintessential coming of age story, following three friends through the pivotal years of their lives. i’m honestly a little sad i read this now because it makes for such a perfect summer read as well, giving the vibe of a long summer day, where you’re sunburnt and it doesn’t get dark until 8pm and you’re all sticky from watermelon and lemonade.

the exploration of individuality, sexuality, and the like were remarkable, but what really stands out in this story is the importance of friendship. your best friends are your, well, best friends. the relationships aren’t perfect, but you experience so many things together and grow to understand each other so well, and female friendships specifically are portrayed to be some of the most important relationships a girl could have. i adored that.

my singular complaint about this was how drawn out it felt at points. not the story itself, because it’s quite literally 250 pages long and i could’ve read more i’m sure, but certain scenes dragged on and i couldn’t find a reason as to why. but other than that, the writing and pacing and storytelling was perfection.

highly recommend for your summer tbr.

thank you to netgalley & the publisher for an advanced copy! all opinions are my own.

[Kelty Duval · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for this ARC. I have read many books about the teenage experience, but none have done as accurate a job as “Girl’s Girl.”

“Girl’s Girl” follows Mina’s recounting of the summer she was 15. Through her adventures with her two best friends, Margaret and Eleanor, Mina discovers that her feelings for the two of them are not the same and now must navigate their changing relationships.
At 15, you feel grown up, but when you look back at 15, you realize how young you were. That is exactly what “Girl’s Girl” does. Mina and her friends feel like grown-ups with their fancy clothes and makeup, but in reality, they still can’t drive and do need their moms sometimes. They are dealing with emotions that feel too big for their bodies, but they don’t know what to do about them. Feldman is able to hint at and play with these emotions that are never said aloud, but are woven into Mina’s actions.
Feldman is also able to very accurately describe the constant shifts that come with trios of friends. Two people are always going to be closer, and one is always going to feel left out. Mina has yet to be the one left out until this summer, after being grounded, and Margaret and Eleanor getting closer. Feldman has captured the nuance of Mina clawing her way back into the group and watching it change over and over again.
“Girl’s Girl” is set in the modern age and suitably ties in the girls’ use of social media into their ever-changing relationships. It has captured the feeling of opening Instagram to find your friend went out without you with friends you didn’t know they had. The balance between sending DMs, texts and artfully posting to get a rise out of someone is an aspect of modern girlhood that often goes unlooked.
Feldman has seemingly captured the universal teenage experience and distilled it down to one endless summer. She has packed the reckless abandon, the caution, the fury, the confusion and the nostalgia of adolescence into a novel sure to delight readers.

[Anna Meaney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Girl's Girl follows a trio of teenage girls during a transformative summer as the dynamics between them start to shift.

I think your mileage with this book will really vary. I will read really any book about close friendships between teenage girls (particularly if it's queer), and I think this one really succeeds in the believability of all of the friendships. I also often found the writing to be engaging and the dialogue realistic. At the same time, very little happens plot wise. I think people who can relate to aspects of the plot and the characters will get a lot from this book, but I can also see it not working for those who can't see themselves or their friends in the characters. I normally don't really put stock in relating to characters but I do think it's key here. So much of the book is spent analyzing who took photos with who and what does this lack of a text message mean. If you can see your teen self there, it works. If you can't, I can understand it feeling boring and a little shallow.

As for me, there were so many little moments that felt lifted from my teenage years, all of the small hurts and moments of feeling known by another person for the first time.