Realised I had never reviewed this but I did like it. A fun coming of age story following teenagers Ren and Brit. The blurb describes it as a mix between Grease and Mean Girls which I get in some ways. It reminded me of the 90s/early 00s teen movies I grew up on. If you're looking for a helping of teen drama, this is the one. Complete with the new school, fitting in with the queen bee drama we all know and love.

I love a coming of age book! Then throw in Mean Girls x Grease, amazing!! Easy, quick read which is just okay. Kept me engaged but not a book I found myself excited to go back to. I think 3.5 overall!

3.5 stars (rounding up)

This was super enjoyable! I loved watching Ren and Brit's relationship develop.

My main complaint is that the first half of the story and the second felt a bit disconnected.

But overall this book is great and I know queer teens will love it.

Interesting and well written I just personally couldn’t get into the story. Difficult to follow at times and a little slow. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me free access to the digital advanced copy of this book.

Absolutely loved this book!

The writing style was really good and I look forward to reading any other books from this author in the future :)

I didn't enjoy this book. I did not like the characters at all. Questioning your sexuality is usually well written in books but this time it just fell flat. It is very difficult to get good YA books that explore sexuality and this missed the mark also.

YA is not something I read a lot of anymore and this kind of cemented why for me. I found both Renata and Ben rather unlikeable, and didn't really root for their relationship. It also felt much too Mean Girls for me to enjoy it overall.

Bright and fun LGBT coming of age book that’s the perfect summer read for the teens I teach. Will be recommending this to go on our LGBT bookshelf in our department library.

The release date has been pushed back to 2025 for some reason! This is irrelevant but I thought it was an interesting fact.

The other reviewers are right -- this is two books in one. I really enjoyed the first half and practically hated the next.

Renata was fine. She was fun at first, but some of her character's quirks and habits grew increasingly annoying as time passed. Brit was interesting in the first half and completely irritating in the second. The side characters were obnoxious throughout.

The summer section was very good (I know I sound like a broken record but this is true): well structured, great development of character and development of relationship between them, decent world building. The fall section was not good, I did not like it whatsoever. A lot of the development was thrown out the window, the insults were outdated and certain characters' reactions incredibly over proportional to the things that happened.

It's a fine book: it kept my attention when nothing else did.

This book was interesting. I'm not sure if Ren and Brit worked together well enough to root for. There were some dialogue choices that came across a little awkwardly (Ren saying "son," though she did technically provide an explanation for that). There were also a few lines about plantations and slave quarters (as the summer work program was built on a plantation) that I really hope are revised or removed before publication, as they are brought up so passively that it seemed a little insensitive.

Absolutely yes! I really enjoyed reading this novel. The characters were fun, it held my interest, and provided an escape from reality. I would definitely recommend!

This book describes itself as ‘Grease meets Mean Girls’ and it definitely delivers! For the first half of this book I was hooked, the second half not so much. If you’re looking for an easy, summery read with lots of drama then this books for you!

Two girls end up at a work program in New Orleans. Ren is there because she stole and wrecked her step dad's sports car and Britt is there because she is the niece of the person who runs the program. These two couldn't be more different, but it is that which draws them to each other. What appears to be love blooming quickly dies, because Britt leaves suddenly leaving Ren wondering what happened.
When Ren goes home, she learns that they are moving due to her step father's political aspirations. She is not happy about the news, but cannot do anything about it. When they move, her step father gets her a beat up Camaro, which is thrilled about. When she arrives at school, she learns that many of the students come from money. She also learns that the popular girl at school is none other than Britt on the arm of her equally popular boyfriend.
Britt is terrified that Ren will out her and she pleads with her not to do so. Ren assures her that she will not.
As the two young women see each other day in and day out, Britt is drawn to Ren. Going so far as to ask her to come to her house.
It is a very realistic view of teenage young love and dealing with homophobia in high school.

The characters were written in an unlikable way. It was hard to root for them and found a lack of chemistry between the love interests.

I received an ebook copy of Girls Who Lie Together by Jessa Russo from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Although I was hoping to really enjoy this book, the characters and plot fell flat at times. Additionally, some of the plot points seemed a bit tone deaf to the current times. This led to it taking ages to finish the book and really, I did not love any of the characters, they seemed very one dimensional overall.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Victory Editing NetGalley Co-Op for letting me read this one in exchange for an honest review.

Here we have a YA book with romance and a theme of LBGTQI+ with FF.
I would say one of the tropes is frenemies to lovers turning to enemies to lovers again so there is a back and forth relationship. Another trope is that it includes both first time and first love.

The story is from 1 POV but I would have liked to read it from Brits POV too.

Girls Who Lie Together was easy to getting in to especially after reading following in the beginning "He calls the girls his girls. Is it endearing, like, because he cares about them or ... creepy? Wasn't there a movie about a dude collecting girls like they were his dolls or something?". I mean who wouldn't continue reading after this right?

The language is easy and the story is in two parts.
The timeline between part one and two was good and I really enjoyed it.
In part two I found a sentence I really liked, especially since I liked the movie Mean Girls,; "They make Regina George look like a freaking angel." And honest to God they really did.

If you like Mean Girls and other movies or books like that and books with LBGTQI theme this might actually be a book for you.

I give this book ⭐⭐⭐, 5 out of 5 because I really liked it but felt like something was missing for it to be a 4 or even 5 star read.

Oh and by the way I really liked the cover 😍.

In this “Means Girls” meets “Grease” romance, Ren Carpenter’s paying the price for joyriding her step-dad’s classic car. As penance she’s spending time at L’Andreaux’s Home for Wayward Girls. It’s not as grim as it sounds 😅 but there she meets the beautiful but aloof Brit, who’s got a few secrets of her own. 👀

I wasn’t in the mood to read a YA romance but when I cracked this open to read a few pages, Russo’s writing just yanked me into this world and I couldn’t stop.
It starts out as a classic enemies to friends to lovers romance. There’s a lot of wicked and sarcastic banter, pining and not ready to admit feelings all told from Ren’s POV which was a lot of fun to read. I loved Ren’s character growth in this book and the fact it was all told from her POV really emphasized how her thought process changed as she goes through the sum of her experiences.

I couldn’t wait for the second part of this book to begin because it brought the reckoning!! 😬 Everything about the second part was great, however I have to admit it was painful reading the homophobia bits and the secrecy over the relationship between Ren and Brit. As a story arc it worked well, but it didn’t make it any easier to not get mad about it.

I thought the end worked out interestingly too. For those worried - it’s an HEA, but done in a really good way that befitted the plot of the story. A really great YA with loads of emotion packed in - not to be missed.

Thank you NetGalley for an Arc in an exchange for an honest review.

An enemies to lovers type romance, at first glance, for the :LGBTQ crowd.

The first half of this book deals with our main character Ren (who is from Texas) going to a farm in Louisiana for the summer to work as her punishment for stealing her stepdad's classic car and crashing it. She isn't too happy to go and then she meets Brit, the beautiful but mean girl who is the niece of the owner. They hit it off and have some long, drawn out sex scenes before Ren leaves to go back home.

In the second half of the book, Ren is heartbroken after leaving her summer love and her parents move to a very small town elsewhere in Texas. When she starts school at her new preppy academy, who does she see? Brit. It's just like the opening minutes of Grease when Sandy and Danny first see each other. But then we meet "school Brit" who is the head cheerleader and resident mean girl, and who has been dating the football captain for the last four years.

And then it just goes from bad to worse. No matter how horrible Brit is to Ren, Ren keeps coming back for more, like a lovesick puppy. And this toxic relationship, which should definitely be a warning to teens everywhere, becomes the basis of their "love story". A sick, twisted love that I assume is trying to teach us that if we just put up with enough abuse, our abusers will love us eventually.

No thanks. Ren should have cut bait and run as soon as Brit was nasty to her. But she just stuck around for ALL of it. And it was bad.

This book was cute and quirky and made my teenage summer loving heart happy. Lovely coming of age story with a lovable female lead I definitely will be recommending this book to my students looking for a quick and easy summer themed read.