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
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Outing, Mental illness, Sexual harassment, Transphobia, and Religious bigotry
Minor: Death of parent, Grief, and Alcohol
nerolireads's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
The Queer Girl is Going to be Okay is a fiction full of LGBTQ+ representation. The story revolves around Dawn, Edie and Georgia a trio of queer best friends in their final year of highschool. Each has their own struggles and dreams. The book focuses on Dawn, a queer trans girl who is an aspiring filmmaker. The focus on Dawn and her story, unfortunately does mean that Edie's and Georgia's stories end up feeling somewhat unfinished and underdeveloped.
A part of me wishes we'd found out about Dawn's identity sooner (because I ended up connecting to her a lot more), but on the other hand it feels like the author wanted to keep things very close to reality. Trans people shouldn't have to walk around with their identity spelled out, just for us to accept them.
All in all, a great novel with lots of queer representation.
A part of me wishes we'd found out about Dawn's identity sooner (because I ended up connecting to her a lot more), but on the other hand it feels like the author wanted to keep things very close to reality. Trans people shouldn't have to walk around with their identity spelled out, just for us to accept them.
All in all, a great novel with lots of queer representation.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Mental illness
Minor: Sexual harassment and Transphobia
nlh2read's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
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
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Pedophilia
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: Mental illness, Transphobia, Homophobia, and Pedophilia
Minor: Death of parent and Sexual harassment
butterwashere's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
First, if the documentary does exist, I would watch it. I feel like of the interviews, the people who spoke accurately describe Queerness which is the feeling of being at home with oneself. (Same thing describing Queer Love)
Of all the characters in the story, I relate to Edie. I understood Edie’s pain of having to lie to her parents. There’s a part of the story where Edie’s mom tells Edie to not be gay. I am like ow, that hurts.
I am in a slightly different situation. I never told my parents, but I think they know after me accidentally putting my previous name on the vax card.
Near the end of the story, Edie and her friends go to a bookstore, and she sees a lot of Queer books. She thinks back home to her having a couple of Queer books to the bookstore being full of them. As someone who is still in the closet, I have one book that has Queer representation and two books by Queer authors. The rest are digital. I remember being in a bookstore with my family and I see this one bookshelf stocked with Queer books. I want to buy one of each.
It is also nice to see representation, especially with a nonbinary character. (Ben) I like how they know themselves best to the point they set a boundary with Edie in which they broke up. They are not ok with Edie changing pronouns, so she would have an easier time with her parents. (Her parents don’t understand the concept of being nonbinary)
Of all the characters in the story, I relate to Edie. I understood Edie’s pain of having to lie to her parents. There’s a part of the story where Edie’s mom tells Edie to not be gay. I am like ow, that hurts.
I am in a slightly different situation. I never told my parents, but I think they know after me accidentally putting my previous name on the vax card.
Near the end of the story, Edie and her friends go to a bookstore, and she sees a lot of Queer books. She thinks back home to her having a couple of Queer books to the bookstore being full of them. As someone who is still in the closet, I have one book that has Queer representation and two books by Queer authors. The rest are digital. I remember being in a bookstore with my family and I see this one bookshelf stocked with Queer books. I want to buy one of each.
It is also nice to see representation, especially with a nonbinary character. (Ben) I like how they know themselves best to the point they set a boundary with Edie in which they broke up. They are not ok with Edie changing pronouns, so she would have an easier time with her parents. (Her parents don’t understand the concept of being nonbinary)
Also, nice to see light romance with the characters figuring out dating. Boundaries are set and respected. However, I do want to point out one thing, dating someone should be getting to know someone closer. I was a bit irked when Knox commented on Dawn’s clothing after undressing her and am glad that Dawn broke up with him. I can also see why Dawn is a little hesitant on dating again after that scene.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Transphobia
Minor: Violence
bookishmillennial's review against another edition
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
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? It's complicated
disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I enjoy most books for what they are, & I extract lessons from them all. Everyone’s reading experiences are subjective, so I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me on Instagram: @bookish.millennial or tiktok: @bookishmillennial
This was a lovely teen fictional coming-of-age debut novel from Walls! So cool to find out they’re living in San Francisco 😍 (I am from the SF Bay Area too!) This book, however, takes place in Houston, TX!!! This story takes place over the course of 31 days, as it begins with a countdown to a film competition deadline, which Dee is accepted to compete in!
Dawn (D) is a trans girl who lost her mother, while her father has depression. Her two best friends help her with this project: Edie, who is queer & exploring romance with Ben, who is nonbinary, but Edie’s parents are extremely conservative, so they must hide their relationship from them. Georgia, who is lesbian, lives with her single mom, and struggles with the new man in her mom’s life.
We get third-person limited POV from all three besties, and I did feel invested in them all equally! I really enjoyed the overall messaging of Dawn’s documentary: love! Walls displays so many kinds of queer love in this novel, and it felt so incredibly hopeful. I loved the friendships that these young women had!!! Found family is so magical.
I think Walls has work to do relating to pacing, but overall, I thought this was a sweet, empowering young adult novel. I’d read from them again!
This was a lovely teen fictional coming-of-age debut novel from Walls! So cool to find out they’re living in San Francisco 😍 (I am from the SF Bay Area too!) This book, however, takes place in Houston, TX!!! This story takes place over the course of 31 days, as it begins with a countdown to a film competition deadline, which Dee is accepted to compete in!
Dawn (D) is a trans girl who lost her mother, while her father has depression. Her two best friends help her with this project: Edie, who is queer & exploring romance with Ben, who is nonbinary, but Edie’s parents are extremely conservative, so they must hide their relationship from them. Georgia, who is lesbian, lives with her single mom, and struggles with the new man in her mom’s life.
We get third-person limited POV from all three besties, and I did feel invested in them all equally! I really enjoyed the overall messaging of Dawn’s documentary: love! Walls displays so many kinds of queer love in this novel, and it felt so incredibly hopeful. I loved the friendships that these young women had!!! Found family is so magical.
I think Walls has work to do relating to pacing, but overall, I thought this was a sweet, empowering young adult novel. I’d read from them again!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Misogyny, Transphobia, and Religious bigotry
nerdysread's review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-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? It's complicated
3.5
Thanks to NetGalley I was able to read this book in exchange for a honest review. This book has flaws, your can’t deny it. But it’s a really beautiful story with a lot of strengths like the characters and how it talks of love and the different kinds of love. So yeah, not the perfect book, but it’s a debut novel, and I really want to see what the author will write next. Because I thing they will write beautiful stories
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia and Transphobia
Moderate: Sexual harassment and Dementia
Minor: Pedophilia, Gaslighting, and Child abuse
missrosymaplemoth's review
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: Alcohol, Transphobia, Death of parent, and Homophobia
Moderate: Deadnaming, Grief, and Pedophilia
annethereader's review against another edition
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: Transphobia, Deadnaming, Sexual harassment, and Alcohol
Moderate: Death of parent and Grief
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