As someone who isn't queer, I am definitely not the right person to properly review this, but I'll give a few thoughts.

CW - homophobia, transphobia, self-harm, suicide attempt, conversion therapy

This is a devastating story about two queer girls who are publicly outed when caught together, and sent to a camp to be "fixed." It can be really painful and heartbreaking to read at times, but I really loved Raya and Sarah. Raya has a particular obsession with Greek mythology, and I really liked the author's way of weaving myths into the story.

I did find the writing style a bit too...amateur-ish, I guess is the best word. There are constant jumps between past and present, almost like a stream of consciousness, and it got really distracting for me to try and keep track of events. The writing is definitely my biggest complaint for the story, but it is a quick read otherwise.

I wouldn't call reading about the abuse of my community pleasant, but these are very real and very hard things explored with care by Rebele-Henry. While I'm not super familiar with the story of Orpheus, that metaphor worked just fine for me. The absolute strength of this book is how unapologetically and indubitably the two main girls cling to their identities as lesbians. Short hair, ugliness, and masculine energies are not seen as weird, gross, or lesser, and it was very powerful for me to read about these teens reclaiming the dyke identity! Yes!!!!

I wanted to like this book, but I had some issues with it. First, I struggled to place the story in time. When i first started watching it, I thought it was set in the 1950s, and then maybe the 1980s/early 1990s, and it wasn’t until several chapters in that I realized it was set in the 2000s (but even still, I couldn’t quite figure out when), and that frustrated me, because I kept having to revise the images I had in my head of the characters and the setting. Second, I felt like the timeline while they were at the “reparative therapy” place was weird — it seemed like things happened after they had just been there a couple of days, but then the narrator would refer to things that made it seem much longer than that, which made it feel like things had gotten mixed up during revision of something. I also had a hard time believing the characters that ran the therapy program — they felt underdeveloped and like charicatures.

A somber and moving story of two teen women descending into figurative hell and fighting to survive a world determined to deny them. It's certainly a retelling of the Greek myth, but the reader does not need to be familiar with the original tale to become immersed in Raya and Sarah's story. Be advised that the scenes depicting conversion therapy by way of electrocution are disturbing and graphic.

This was a Do Not Finish for me. I did not like how it opened, the way the details of their sad lives were presented, and life is too short to read books that don't grab you. I was hopeful about the plot and the LGBTQ characters, but I think the book lacked some exposition.

This was a difficult book to read and I spent most of my time angry at how the main characters were treated. It's also an important book for that reason. For my students who are able to handle heavier topics, I will definitely recommend Orpheus Girl.

This book highlights the sad history of conversion camps and the trauma inflicted through reparative therapy. If you are unfamiliar with the camps designed to "repair" LGBTQ+ individuals, you should read this book to better understand the tragic history. Some individuals become the people who hurt others, while others run away from the communities and beliefs that hurt them, feeling forced to choose between family and love or religion and love.

If you identify as LGBTQ+, this book (although well-written) may just be triggering for you with its graphic depictions of the therapies used and the homophobic and transphobic incidents portrayed.


I only gave the book 4 stars because although I saw the parallels to the myth of Orpheus, it did not feel like a retelling.

This didn't quite work for me. The beginning felt rushed; Raya and Sarah's relationship was so hard to follow that I couldn't tell if things were happening in real time or in flashbacks. The rest of the book was very spare, leading to the feeling that it was rushed and not very deep.

I started this book with little idea of what it was about, apart from being influenced by the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. It's a beautiful and sad story about a man descending into the underworld to get his wife back, and being told that he can leave and his wife will follow but he must not look back or she will be lost forever. Obviously, he looks back.

Orpheus Girl is a lyrical, moving story about two girls who fall in love and descend into the 'underworld' of a conversion therapy camp. I love the way this story is written, and it's no surprise to me that the author is a poet, as there were lines in this book which were so good I reread them.

There were some elements of this book which I really liked, such as the absence of Raya's mother and her characterisation as an actress playing Aphrodite on a crappy tv show. Sarah always felt like a bit of an enigma throughout the novel, which may be partially the point as it is from Raya's point of view, but I feel like we're not given quite enough information about her character to see her as more than the girl Raya loves. There are moments, when Raya remembers an intimate moment between them or recalls small details about something she said once etc, but I would have liked more of these.

I liked the emotional intensity of the book, and the evocation of the conversion therapy is very vivid, brutally and viscerally so. I feel like there wasn't enough time spent with the other kids at the conversion therapy to view them as fully dimensional characters, which slightly lessened the impact of certain plot developments. I liked the portrayal of the woman who runs the camp, and the evolution of her morality throughout.

Overall, I'm glad I read this book and enjoy it as a piece of writing, but as a novel it was slightly too languid/dreamy for my taste.

The LGBT book I've been waiting to read my whole life. This is a powerful, moving book about two teens who are sent to a religious re-education camp, and about what happens when homophobia is left unchecked. It's absolutely incredible and a must-read.

There is absolutely no reason for this book to be as awful as it is. If you're gonna write about queer pain, at least add some hope sprinkled in. This book hurt to read.

I thought this book was very well written. I really enjoyed the romance between Sarah and Raya. The book was heartbreaking and beautifully written. The book was also unapologetically truthful to the horror of conversion therapy. So while I don't know if everyone would enjoy this book due to the graphic nature of this story, I do think that it was a well written and thought out tale. I also thought the greek mythology comparisons & connections were a nice touch. The only issues I had with it was that sometimes it was a little to text heavy or flashback heavy and not enough dialouge wise. I also really wanted to see what happens after they leave the conversion therapy camp. I have read a lot of books like this such as Cameron Post and The Summer I Wasn't Me. Both are good books, but I really hoped that they would explore more of what happens after someone escapes those camps rather than mostly focusing on the experience that they face in them. Not that those books shouldn't exist, I just wish more books discussed the aftermath and I was disappointed to see this book did not stray from that norm. However, I would love a sequel and how that the author will consider writing one. Overall, this was a pretty good book and would recommend it to anyone who feels they can handle the subject matter (if they can't for any reason it that is perfectly fine and understandable).

*3.5/5

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an arc of this novel.

Trigger warnings for homophobia, transphobia. conversion therapy camp, electro shock therapy, forceable outing, deadnaming, and misogynistic dicks.

Orpheus Girl holds the guarantee to rip you apart from the inside out and leave you like that to remind you that we're all human. To remind you what it feels like to be used and broken, and to make you use that knowledge for good. It reminds you that we must protect our fellow humans at all costs.

This novel isn't a fluffy love story, it's one that will surely tear you apart, but in the best way possible.

The only true complaint I have on this novel is that the pacing of the book was off -- for a book that's 176 pages, I felt like it was incredibly slow in some areas, and way too fast in others. Also, I wish I could have felt and learned more about the characters. Most of the seemed pretty one dimensional to me -- like their sole job was for me to either sympathize with them, or hate them, and that's it.

All in all, I think this novel is incredibly important, but not for the faint of heart.

Brynne Rebele-Henry's Opheaus Girl is a heartbreaking retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth of two lesbian girls who end up getting sent to conversion therapy. Let me tell you...this book gave me ALL the feels. The anger I felt toward the people who mistreated them - people who are supposed to LOVE them but instead betray and abuse them - was long-lasting.

This is an important book, and I'm glad I was able to read it during Pride Month. I'm not fully ignorant of the difficulties LGBTQ+ people face, but I've never witnessed it first hand. This is perhaps the closest I have ever come to understanding the risks and pain of being an LGBTQ+ person in a community that does not support you. I think anyone who wants to be a better ally should read this. Also, because the characters are so well-written and sympathetic, the reader is compelled to feel their pain so much stronger.

What I am familiar with and do know first hand, is familial abuse. This book did an excellent job as far as driving the point home that you do not have to forgive those who abuse you and that you don't owe anything to your blood family just because you happened to have the misfortune to be born into it.

Do not go into this book if you're not in a good head space, though. There is violent abuse, homophobia, transphobia, suicidal ideation, and just simply depressing material. This is not by any means a light book. But know that the ending is satisfying and therapeutic.

Thank you to Brynne Rebele-Henry, Soho Press, and NetGalley for allowing me to access this book to review. As always, all opinions are my own.

This book is kind of the tragically beautiful you may expect from the summary and a book based on a Greek myth. It's a rare case of YA with an established relationship.

The writing in this was very atmospheric. It fit the book really well.

I also really loved the relationship. It was so soft and I wanted nothing but the best for these girls.

It's definitely a heavy book, and I definitely recommend if you can handle heavy subjects.

Overall I felt that the writing is good and that the story flows in a clear and intriguing way. By the end, I felt that the story had a clear beginning, middle, and end. I was also pleased with how the story ended and where we leave our characters. Orpheus Girl is set for October 8, 2019, when it comes out I highly recommend you give it a go. I have a feeling that a lot of people will connect to it.

This book was good, but I think it could have benefited from being longer. I also had issues with choices the author made in regards to how to characterize/interpret certain characters from myth, especially Orion and Hades. It's unfortunate because I was really looking forward to this but unfortunately it just fell flat for me.

I'm...not sure how to rate this book. I'm not sure if this is even the right rating for it.

I'll have a more detailed review written once I have my thoughts sorted out, but for now, just a gentle reminder to queer readers: it's okay to not read or want to read heavy critically-acclaimed LGBTQ+ works if you think the experience will be too painful for you. It's important that these works are out in the world and reaching readers of all backgrounds and holding a megaphone to issues that need to be heard, however ugly. But your emotional well-being comes before any perceived duty you feel you have as a member of the community. We don't have to clutch queer pain by the blade and bleed ourselves on the altar to prove to ourselves and others that we belong.

I think Orpheus Girl is important. I think its existence is necessary. But it was also a hard, emotionally-draining read for me (think watching/reading Holocaust stories). Definitely the hardest YA contemporary I've read in recent memory. And it's not just the horrific acts perpetuated by the conversion camp employees--the emotional abuse, the electroshock sessions--it's the sheer suffocation of it all. The story doesn't give you any room to breathe and it feels like you're trapped there right alongside the characters.

And, well...that's kind of the point of the story. Making 176 pages feel like a lifetime.

So in that sense, it's brilliantly, beautifully written. But god, did I hate reading it.

This is a hard book to review. I was so desperate to love it. A wlw retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice sounded like the best thing ever. I wish it had lived up to my expectations. Maybe that's my fault for wanting too much from it.

In my view, simply having the protagonist state over and over again 'I'm like Orpheus because I'm going to rescue the girl I love' does not a retelling make. The idea behind this book is incredibly interesting, and I think it's absolutely within the author's remit. She's clearly very talented, and honestly, I think this book could have worked with a lot more editing. However, having the book segmented and titling each section after aspects of the myth doesn't make each section actually resemble the myth structurally. Towards the end, the retelling aspect finally came together for me with a very clever musing on what it actually means for Orpheus to look back, but it was too little too late for me. It was frustrating because it showed what the author was capable of, but the book didn't deliver.

Myth was used very oddly in this book. The protagonist constantly makes reference to really esoteric myths (e.g. Atalanta, who I would say is not the best known of mythic characters) but we never see her reading mythology, or studying it, or talking about it to someone else. We never get a sense that she actually knows or loves these myths for her to be referencing them. We never get any sense of depth at all from any of the characters. We randomly hear facts about people (e.g. we learn about halfway through that the narrator's grandmother presses and sells corsages) but just learning a fact about a person, apropros of nothing, doesn't give us any window into who they are as a person, especially when the fact comes from nowhere and is never mentioned again. The characters of Hyde and Char are particularly bad; Char flip-flops from one extreme to the other with no continuity and no reason. Even the main love interest, Sarah, has no personality. She drinks black coffee and prefers it when it's gritty because she likes the bitterness. OK, but what does that mean for her? How does this manifest?

There were some other things that made me uncomfortable, too. There's a Russian character who speaks like a parody of every Russian character ever (e.g. dropping 'the' a lot, getting American idioms wrong in a way that's portrayed as something to laugh at). The plot culminates in the attempted suicide of a trans character, who has barely any role in the novel before that point and whose fate we never hear about; his suicide attempt is just a vehicle for the cis characters to escape, and using trans suicide like that is really iffy to me. The majority of the second half of the book is just graphic (and inaccurate) depictions of electric shock treatment (it's administered without anaesthetic), which struck me as somewhat ableist for those who still undergo ECT. These are all things that we are past accepting, particularly in YA literature, and it was disappointing to see them here.

The actual writing is beautiful, and the author absolutely has a talent for words beyond her years, but it does not translate into a coherent or well-structured narrative. I believe that she's usually a poet, and I have to say that this book would have been so, so much better had she written it as a series of poems. Poetry is different from narrative fiction and the two require different things to work. This book needed characterisation and effective plot. Poetry needs beautiful language and imagery, amongst other things, which this book has in spades. I would have eaten this book up if it had been allowed to be the poetry that this author is clearly comfortable with.

I wanted to love this book. I really, really did. I can't recommend it in its current state, but I think the author is going to do very exciting things in the future. She's already written more than most people twice her age, and the quality of her writing is ridiculously advanced. I just don't think this novel is ready yet, not without a lot of editorial guidance.

I went into Orpheus Girl thinking it was going to be a sweet summary f/f romance and boy was I wrong.
This book delves into some pretty tough topics which initially caught me off guard.
Although this isn't the best written book in the world I did come to really feel for the character, even the side characters, and it was a pretty emoitional read.
I can't say I enjoyed reading about this subject matter because how can anyone enjoy reading about something so horrible done by one human to another, but I did enjoy learning more about the topic. I've always read the cute fluffy lgbt books where everything turns out hunky dory and this was a completely different and darker side to what many go through.