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evelynyle_88's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
medium-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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Mental illness, and Transphobia
Moderate: Pedophilia, Grief, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Child abuse, Violence, and Death of parent
cramaley's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment
Moderate: Deadnaming, Transphobia, and Death of parent
betweentheshelves's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
First of all, this book has excellent representation, and I think it depicts the teen queer experience in the south very well, at least from what I can tell from reading other reviews. Dawn, Edie, and Georgia are all dealing with their own things in their senior year of high school, but they are always there for each other. The found family aspect in this book, especially in relation to the LGBTQ+ community, is also done really well.
Unfortunately, I wasn't a huge fan of the narrator for the audiobook, so I think that took away from the experience of the book. Some of the different voices she did for the characters weren't my favorite thing. There was also sort of an omniscient narrator in the story itself, and sometimes, that format isn't my favorite. At times, I would forget which character we were following.
However, the documentary aspect of the book was really cool, and I enjoyed getting to see glimpses into that. Overall, an enjoyable read that I think teens will definitely be able to see themselves in.
Unfortunately, I wasn't a huge fan of the narrator for the audiobook, so I think that took away from the experience of the book. Some of the different voices she did for the characters weren't my favorite thing. There was also sort of an omniscient narrator in the story itself, and sometimes, that format isn't my favorite. At times, I would forget which character we were following.
However, the documentary aspect of the book was really cool, and I enjoyed getting to see glimpses into that. Overall, an enjoyable read that I think teens will definitely be able to see themselves in.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Mental illness, and Transphobia
Moderate: Pedophilia, Grief, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Child abuse, Violence, and Death of parent
puttingwingsonwords's review against another edition
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? No
4.0
The Queer Girl Is Going to Be Okay is a YA contemporary novel that’s full of love—queer love! It’s about three high school friends: Georgia, who is dealing with her mother’s questionable new boyfriend, Edie, who struggles with hiding her queer identity and her nonbinary partner from her religious family, and Dawn, who is entering her documentary about queer love into a competition to win a scholarship to film school.
The audio version was perfect for this; it made the quotes from Dawn’s documentary sound like real documentary interview snippets. The narrator was great at giving every character a unique and fitting voice.
The book is fast paced and fun, while also dealing with some heavy topics in an ultimately hopeful way. What I loved most is that, though romance is a big part of it, the queer love that’s at the heart of this story is the friendship between the three main characters.
The audio version was perfect for this; it made the quotes from Dawn’s documentary sound like real documentary interview snippets. The narrator was great at giving every character a unique and fitting voice.
The book is fast paced and fun, while also dealing with some heavy topics in an ultimately hopeful way. What I loved most is that, though romance is a big part of it, the queer love that’s at the heart of this story is the friendship between the three main characters.
ARC review originaly posted on instagram as part of a book tour: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0JyyXMIXh-/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia, Mental illness, Transphobia, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, Outing, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Grief, Death of parent, and Alcohol
nerdybookqueen's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I received an audiobook copy of this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I really, really enjoyed this book. Featuring three queer girls, this book covers a variety of experiences across the spectrum as the characters grow through the story, dealing with the usual struggles of high school with the added layer of being part of the LGBT+ community.
Starting with Dawn, the filmmaker creating the film that shares the name of the book, deals with parental responsibilities for her ailing father, while trying to navigate dating as a trans woman. Georgia navigates trying to get into college and her desires to write, while dealing with her mother's creepy new boyfriend. And Edie tries to figure out her relationship with her nonbinary partner, Ben, while not letting down her Christian, homophobic parents both in school and with who she loves.
Throughout the story, I loved watching these women support each other, come together to deal with the problems they were facing and overcome their difficulties. And honestly I would kill to actually get to watch the documentary they make. This book is full of queer struggle but more importantly queer joy.
My one small grievance is that, as an audio book, it was at times very hard to follow whose POV I had. This may be unique to the netgalley copy, but having something in the chapter head that I could reference to see who I was listening to would've been very helpful, instead of just hoping the name would be mentioned again.
I really, really enjoyed this book. Featuring three queer girls, this book covers a variety of experiences across the spectrum as the characters grow through the story, dealing with the usual struggles of high school with the added layer of being part of the LGBT+ community.
Starting with Dawn, the filmmaker creating the film that shares the name of the book, deals with parental responsibilities for her ailing father, while trying to navigate dating as a trans woman. Georgia navigates trying to get into college and her desires to write, while dealing with her mother's creepy new boyfriend. And Edie tries to figure out her relationship with her nonbinary partner, Ben, while not letting down her Christian, homophobic parents both in school and with who she loves.
Throughout the story, I loved watching these women support each other, come together to deal with the problems they were facing and overcome their difficulties. And honestly I would kill to actually get to watch the documentary they make. This book is full of queer struggle but more importantly queer joy.
My one small grievance is that, as an audio book, it was at times very hard to follow whose POV I had. This may be unique to the netgalley copy, but having something in the chapter head that I could reference to see who I was listening to would've been very helpful, instead of just hoping the name would be mentioned again.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Mental illness, Pedophilia, and Transphobia
Minor: Death of parent and Sexual harassment
missrosymaplemoth's review against another edition
2.0
I really wanted to love this book and went in with high hopes. The subject matter isn’t the problem, but the book itself is hard to follow. The pacing is odd and frequently changes and it was difficult to discern the timeline or what was happening and when. I didn’t feel like enough time was spent on any of the three main characters and didn’t find myself caring too much for either of them. None of the stories but Dawn’s was wrapped in in a real or satisfying way. Some of the plot points are handled poorly as well, with Dawn getting over a traumatic experience too quickly to be realistic. The writing itself seemed juvenile, even for YA. Overall I think this book had potential but squandered it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Transphobia, Death of parent, and Alcohol
Moderate: Deadnaming, Pedophilia, and Grief
annethereader's review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
i love talking about queer love. i love how we, as a community, are able to free ourselves from the restrictive definition of “love” dominated by white, heterosexual (including alloromantic and allosexual), cisgender and able-bodied thinkers. how we immerse ourselves in the love of our friends, our partners, our (sometimes chosen) families and anyone else we might love.
so what is queer love?
“it’s resistance.
your best friend in the entire world telling you something at 3:00 a.m. something they’ve never said out loud before.
yearning, dude, just yearning.”
“the queer girl is going to be okay” by dale walls is about a trans girl called dawn attempting to juggle finding (romantic) love and caring for her father with depression, while editing a short film for a festival to win a scholarship for film school. it’s a novel that shows us the many facets of queer love. queer love is the love dawn has for her friends, edie and georgia, who have their own struggles which are explored in this novel through multiple third person limited narrations, one for each of the best friends. edie’s christian parents expect her to be perfect: straight As, heterosexual, simply a daughter to brag about. georgia wants to be a writer, but her anxiety surrounding college applications and her friends leaving her is huge and all-consuming.
what i loved most about this novel is that queer friendship was at its centre, and one of the key answers to the question what queer love is. to me, queer love is not inherently romantic, it can be (and for many people, this is the main form of queer love they experience) platonic, finding community among other queer people, who you love deeply. (queer) platonic love is beautiful, and i love to see it being celebrated in fiction, so reading this was very validating.
the characters were all complex with unique issues that made it interesting to read about them, and i enjoyed reading from all three perspectives, although the slightly odd pacing of this novel made certain plot lines quite difficult to follow.
unfortunately, the rest of the book fell a bit flat for me. the plot felt a bit jumbled, and although i did appreciate seeing the three distinct point of views (in third person, which i always enjoy), it made the narrative feel a bit messy, as it would jump mid-chapter and leave me a little confused. some plot lines were satisfyingly resolved. others were resolved off-page and others were left hanging in the air by the end of the novel, which i did not enjoy as much. i usually like open ends, but in this case, the sudden ending caught me off guard and i felt like there could have been some more character development.
i also sadly did not really like the writing style. like the plot, it felt a bit jumbled, with confusing sentence structures and strange descriptions, as well as some jarring repetitions that took away from the flow of the novel.
dale walls clearly has many interesting ideas and a talent for developing endearing, flawed and lovable characters so i’m interested in what she releases in the future while acknowledging that this wasn’t for me in terms of plot and writing!
“people think it’s the same. they want to say we’re just like everyone else, but we’re not. queerness is itself. queer longing is specific”
and so is, in my opinion, queer love.
it’s beautiful, it’s revolutionary, it can be anything you want and i love talking about it.
thank you to netgalley for the arc!
so what is queer love?
“it’s resistance.
your best friend in the entire world telling you something at 3:00 a.m. something they’ve never said out loud before.
yearning, dude, just yearning.”
“the queer girl is going to be okay” by dale walls is about a trans girl called dawn attempting to juggle finding (romantic) love and caring for her father with depression, while editing a short film for a festival to win a scholarship for film school. it’s a novel that shows us the many facets of queer love. queer love is the love dawn has for her friends, edie and georgia, who have their own struggles which are explored in this novel through multiple third person limited narrations, one for each of the best friends. edie’s christian parents expect her to be perfect: straight As, heterosexual, simply a daughter to brag about. georgia wants to be a writer, but her anxiety surrounding college applications and her friends leaving her is huge and all-consuming.
what i loved most about this novel is that queer friendship was at its centre, and one of the key answers to the question what queer love is. to me, queer love is not inherently romantic, it can be (and for many people, this is the main form of queer love they experience) platonic, finding community among other queer people, who you love deeply. (queer) platonic love is beautiful, and i love to see it being celebrated in fiction, so reading this was very validating.
the characters were all complex with unique issues that made it interesting to read about them, and i enjoyed reading from all three perspectives, although the slightly odd pacing of this novel made certain plot lines quite difficult to follow.
unfortunately, the rest of the book fell a bit flat for me. the plot felt a bit jumbled, and although i did appreciate seeing the three distinct point of views (in third person, which i always enjoy), it made the narrative feel a bit messy, as it would jump mid-chapter and leave me a little confused. some plot lines were satisfyingly resolved. others were resolved off-page and others were left hanging in the air by the end of the novel, which i did not enjoy as much. i usually like open ends, but in this case, the sudden ending caught me off guard and i felt like there could have been some more character development.
i also sadly did not really like the writing style. like the plot, it felt a bit jumbled, with confusing sentence structures and strange descriptions, as well as some jarring repetitions that took away from the flow of the novel.
dale walls clearly has many interesting ideas and a talent for developing endearing, flawed and lovable characters so i’m interested in what she releases in the future while acknowledging that this wasn’t for me in terms of plot and writing!
“people think it’s the same. they want to say we’re just like everyone else, but we’re not. queerness is itself. queer longing is specific”
and so is, in my opinion, queer love.
it’s beautiful, it’s revolutionary, it can be anything you want and i love talking about it.
thank you to netgalley for the arc!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Deadnaming, Transphobia, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Grief and Death of parent