Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsHeartfelt
Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2022
At the ripe old age of sixteen whole years, I can’t say I’ve read every single book there is to read. I’ve read the standard rite-of-passage-y, coming of age stories, sure. I’ve met everyone from Percy Jackson to Holden Caulfield to Bella Swan, and some spaces in between, and while they’re all relatable in their own special ways, there’s always something holding them back from being my ultimate favorite.
This book granted me that one thing.
As a teen, there’s a lot of pressure to be exactly who everyone else wants you to be. You’re always comparing yourself to others, despite how different each of you are, and that’s the universal truth. Every teen is a slave to that.
Between the hormones and mood swings, between grades and jobs, these expectations and relationships are sometimes the only thing holding us down. We find comfort in that, and as we find out more about ourselves, we begin to realize that we don’t want to be like that, hence why adolescence is regarded as such a rough point in life.
For me, that realization came the form of romantic relationships. All of my girl friends are out there dating my boy friends. It took me a while, but I realized that I didn’t want that. I didn’t want a boyfriend. Soon enough, coincidentally through one of my books (thanks, Uncle Rick!), I would be introduced to the concepts of sexuality and different preferences.
I began to resent the stories with their heterosexual main characters and heterosexual subplots. The idea they enforced that the only way was… well, straight. I stopped reading for leisure. My storytelling obsession would be occupied by kid’s shows and video games, where things like that would remain more or less ambiguous.
So, particularly lonely and slowly getting over an unrequited friendship-turned-crush, I started looking for anything to read that might appeal to my broken little lesbian heart. It was a process, and I came up with a few different titles. If sapphic teen romance novels are few and far between, sapphic books written by sapphic authors are even fewer.
Now that I’m done writing an entire novel of my own backstory, here’s what I actually think of the book:
When I finally fell upon “She Gets the Girl,” I didn’t have high expectations. Now that I’d found what I’d wanted, I was afraid that it wouldn’t be any good, and that I’d be right where I started my search.
And then I was introduced to Alex Blackwood and Molly Parker.
Holy shit.
Alex appealed to me especially at first. She took the tortured-ness and attachment issues reminiscent of so many male love interests that I’d read, and put them into the sarcastic reality of the female world. Instead of tall, dark and handsome, she was sarcastic, hot and bittersweet.
And then there was Molly.
Good lord, I wasn’t sure I’d ever find a character like her. Everything from her relationship with her mother, to the rose-tinted glasses with which she saw Cora, to her nervous demeanor and seemingly friendless past. Buried beneath the humor of Molly’s awkwardness was a certain amount of truth to me. Even the dressing-like-a-grandpa comment made by Alex reminded me of an experience with my own friends.
TL;DR:
“She Gets the Girl” has opened up a whole new world of novels for me. I found it relatable, fulfilling, heartbreaking, heartwarming, and most of all, heartfelt. I’m no literary critic, but I give it five stars. Perfectly paced, excellently executed, and effortlessly entertaining. Satisfying closure in the end, and doesn’t leave you yearning for a sequel.
Truly written by people like me, for people like me.
Could’ve used an epilogue, though;)