Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - Girls Like Girls

Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

Girls Like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko

7 reviews

robinks's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

It was lovely to hear Kiyoko narrating her own novel. Having other voice actors and certain sounds within the audiobook was an interesting choice but also ended up taking me out of the story. I found myself rolling my eyes at some of the scenes too.

I also haaaated Sonya’s character, which made Coley’s feelings for her hard to understand, and I’m annoyed that they end up together (though I do appreciate the nod to the Girls Like Girls music video).

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sarahspils's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I wanted to pick up something that'd be a fairly light read and that I could move through quickly, and I ended up reading this one in a day! If I'm being honest, I had somewhat low expectations for this book since I've moved a bit away from the more high school YA novels, but I have to admit this was a sweet read; like a proper romcom. This has a lot of those primary coming-of-age themes of self-discovery, dynamics with parents, mental health, and the staple here, of course, being navigating sexuality and how that impacts our identity. I think Hayley does a good job of developing her characters in a way that shows their young, restless nature through how they react to the situations they're faced with and to each other.
There's that balance of classic teenage angst, moving through grief, and girls realizing they're in love with each other that kind of gave me early-2000s romcom vibes for sapphics tehe. I personally wouldn't qualify this as a life-changing book per se, and there are some moments where I think there could be more to be desired. My one critique that comes to mind right now is that I might've liked a little more use of terms of sexuality, especially since 'lesbian' is only used once in the entirety of the book in reference to "lesbian Jesus" (lol), and I think that could've been an opportunity to normalize them even more, working alongside the ambiguous moments of Coley and Sonya discovering their sexualities while not being too cliche. But with the root of the work originating from the iconic "Girls Like Girls" music video, overall it was really nice to see this idea become fully dimensional. I liked it :)
I don't know if this really qualifies as a spoiler (we've all seen the music video 🤭), but:

In regards to the relationship between Coley and Sonya, do I think they're representative of an ideal couple and are this profound illustration of queer love? No, definitely not, but I don't think that's what this was trying to be, either. There are key moments of back and forth uncertainty, distrust, and betrayal, but I think that pushes the high school narrative, anyways. Honestly that's kind of how high school romance goes, né? 🤷🏻‍♀️

A simple read handling more complex topics, kind of Emily Henry-level but way less boring 😌.
(is this too long of a review omg idk I just kept typing oh well)

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elliott_the_clementine's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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bumblemee's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Ich bin wahrscheinlich eine der wenigen Personen, die dieses Buch gelesen haben (oder gehört in meinem Fall) und das Musikvideo bis kurz vor Beenden des Buchs nicht kannten. Ich weiß nicht, wie ich es finden würde, würde mir dieses Musikvideo viel bedeuten, weil ich nicht abschätzen kann, wie ich mir die Beziehung der beiden vorgestellt hätte, ohne das Buch dabei im Kopf zu haben. Persönlich finde ich, dass es wie eine sehr gute Umsetzung des Videos wirkt.

Das Buch war schnell zu hören (unter 9h) und irgendwie hat es mich komplett eingesogen. Liegt z.T. wahrscheinlich daran, dass es im Sommer spielt und ich es im Sommer gehört habe, was die Stimmung einfach unterstreicht. Es ist jedoch kein locker leichtes Buch, im Gegenteil. Für leichtherzige Sommervibes sind andere Bücher besser geeignet. Es fühlt sich an wie eine authentische Zeitkapsel von 2006 und wie die vereinzelten queeren Geschichten, die vor so 10 Jahren oder so rausgekommen sind oder die als eigene Texte auf Fanfiction-Seiten veröffentlicht wurden. Ich denke, dieses Video wäre nicht so durch die Decke gegangen, wenn sich nicht so viele Menschen darin gesehen hätten und diese Menschen werden sich demensprechend auch in diesem Buch sehen. Gerade eben Personen, die in den 2000ern und frühen 2010ern als queere Personen aufgewachsen sind.
Ich verstehe, wenn Leute sagen, die Beziehung der beiden sei problematisch, v.a. aufgrund von Sonyas Verhalten. Ich muss sagen, dass ich Sonya als gut geschrieben empfunden habe. Ihr Kampf mit sich selbst wirkt realistisch auf mich.

So zum Beispiel auch, dass sie sogar in ihrem privaten Tagebuch um den heißen Brei herumredet und oft nicht genau benennt, dass es um Homosexualität geht, ob nun ihre eigene oder die von anderen.

Dementsprechend ergibt für mich auch die Beziehungsentwicklung Sinn. Es geht zwar alles schnell und das Ende ist fast unangemessen happy, aber auch das wirkte auch mich wie eine Beziehung zwischen Jugendlichen, die genauso laufen kann - nur, weil gesunde Beziehungsentwicklungen eine gute Sache sind, heißt das nicht, das Jugendliche das auf die Kette bekommen (tun Erwachsene ja auch oft nicht).
Im Zuge dessen glaube ich nicht, dass es dem Buch gut tut, wenn es als "Romance" verkauft wird, weil das nicht wirklich stimmt. Dafür liegt der Fokus meiner Meinung nach zu sehr auf Identitätsfindung und schon der Erzählung einer Beziehung, aber eben keiner, die besonders swoonworthy verläuft. Zu großen Teilen fühlt es sich eher authentisch als schön an, dieses Buch zu hören. Mir ist an einigen Stellen wirklich das Herz schwer geworden.

Coley habe ich sehr geliebt. Sie ist toll und erinnert mich total an Protagonistinnen, über die ich als Jugendliche gerne gelesen habe - Becca aus Lucian zum Beispiel, ich habe jetzt wirklich Lust auf einen Reread.

Ich kann außerdem das Hörbuch echt empfehlen, die Sprecherin macht das richtig gut und ihre Stimme passt zu Coley, finde ich. Es kann sogar sein, dass ich das Buch auf diese Weise besser fand als wenn ich die Printversion gelesen hätte.

.. Ich werde dieses Review hier nun abschließen, weil ich das Gefühl habe, viel zu diesem Buch zu sagen zu haben, das aber nicht gut formulieren zu können. Es hat auf jeden Fall einen Special Place in meinem Herzen irgendwie.
(Was mich allerdings tatsächlich etwas genervt hat, war, dass auch in der dt Übersetzung nie das Wort "Mädchen" verwendet wurde, sondern immer "Girl". Was im Zsmhang mit dem Song/Titel Sinn ergibt, aber es wirkte manchmal einfach, als wolle jemand gewollt cool klingen.)

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logikitty's review

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emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I think for a debut novel, it wasn't shabby. I got a bit annoyed with the general style of the super short sentences and random 'poetics' that showed up - it felt real cringey NGL. I do understand the teenage romance and the lesbophobia aspects of it, so I can't fault the characters for not standing up for their relationship and there being a lot of back and forth. In fact, Kiyoko made that part hella accurate, so props to having developmentally approriate characters. I think I just didn't resonate with the trajectory of the plot as most of it just felt like disconnected hangouts to create a theme and conflict. The cute throwbacks were great tho! The flip phones, LiveJournal, and AIM had young me squealing!

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merlesstorys's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I picked this book up because it aid by Hayley Kiyoko and she is one of my favorite queer artists.

In general, I really liked this book. It‘s rather fast paced, and the characters were nice.

However I feel like it was too short with it’s about 300 pages. In the end, the character development rather lacked - there was definitely not enough substance in them for the last 80 pages. Every story was closed fast, and many important story beats were done by like 4 pages each, when it worked there (mostly

the conflict with her father, her finding a new friend and losing her, and the conflict and fight between Coley and Sonya

). It could have used a 100 pages more to show us more of the inside of characters and explain many of their motivation between actions, before and after the typical conflict.

Especially, as already named, the thing between rhe main characters is fixed up in the last : chapters with a maximum of 20 pages added up, at most, which was just too less to really root for them.

The characters were mostly great, with Alex being a favorite of mine. But they weren’t too much developed, especially the friend group. They were just stereotypes made out of cardboard, without much else to them. We never learn motivations, backgrounds, personalities.
The main characters Coley and Sonya are nicely written though, with an honorable mention for the diary entries of the latter - that were mostly never explained.

But what redeemed this book in the end was the fact that it used many of the locations of the same titled music video, which launched the music career by Kiyoko.

Also the fact that this whole story takes place in 2006 makes much sens, regarding the lack of smartphones in the teen group and everything.

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theatrealpaca's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Set in the days of AIM and flip phones, this book was sweet and bittersweet in turn. Coley and Sonya experience falling in love and discovering queerness through the summer before their senior year in high school. With a difficult ex and a mother that expects perfection, Sonya has a harder time accepting herself than Coley. Though Coley has her own hardships (the recent death of her mother and moving in with her estranged father), she helps herself and Sonya realize that their love doesn't make them wrong.

I sped through this book, absolutely enthralled to find out how it all turned out. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and it made me remember how big every emotion felt at 17. Hayley Kiyoko did such a beautiful job of writing two flawed girls finding themselves and their love. I can't wait for her next book!

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