2.5 Stars. Based on the music video by the same name, Coley moves to Oregon to live with her father after the death of her mother and instantly falls for Sonya. Unfortunately for Coley, Sonya has a boyfriend who is more than a bit possessive. The two find time in the summer to be together but friends, family, and other relationships keep things complicated.

I was vaguely aware of the music video but did not actually watch it until I finished the book. I like the music video better. While there were a lot of scenes in the book that were not depicted in the music video, they didn’t add anything and the book and the video end at the same moment. I found many of the scenes to be repetitive and there a was a lot of telling rather than showing. I found it was interesting to set the story in 2006, but the book didn’t feel like 2006 other than the references to AIM. I think fans of Hayley will really like the book, but it didn’t work for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would. I really liked the character of Coley and the growth she went through. Seeing her accept herself was very pleasing. I liked that even though the book is only from Coley's pov you still saw Sonyas thoughts through her livejournals. I liked the two of them together but I just think that Sonya is a little bit too toxic. If the book was a little longer and we saw them actually together around their friends then maybe I could be on board with Sonya.

I received an arc through netgalley.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is based on the “Girls Like Girls” music video by Hayley as well. I, surprisingly, had never seen the music video before so I went into this book knowing nothing about the story. I had some mixed feelings, mostly about the characters. I liked Coley but I didn’t like Sonya like 85% of the time so I wasn’t rooting for them for much of the book. But, at the same time, I think it told a pretty realistic story of a closeted girl really seriously struggling with her identity. That’s never going to be a super happy fun story or character to read about so I still liked it regardless.

I went and watched the music video after finishing the book and, not going to lie, it made me cry. I can see why it was such an iconic and important video for queer people, especially women, when it came out. As a lesbian myself, both the video and the book did touch on a lot of things that felt very relatable. The confusion of liking a girl for the first time. The way it is very intense with the first girl. It’s very true to how I experienced liking a girl for the first time.

Overall, I thought it was good! It could definitely be a bit cheesy / cringey at times but I don’t think it took away from the story at all. If you liked the music video, I would 100% check out the book.

(ps, I loved alex so much)

I was so excited about this one, but I just could not get into it. The dialogue felt incredibly awkward to me and also the characters were very bland. I got to about 25% and just couldn’t go on. I do think some readers will absolutely love it, but it just didn’t work for me.

When the music video for Girls Like Girls was released in 2015, it meant so much for queer teen girls, so when I saw that the singer of the song was writing a book based on the video, I knew I was definitely going to be reading it.

This is Hayley Kiyoko’s first foray into writing a book, and it does show in a lot of ways. The first person POV and internal monologues were a bit much at times. The writing is on par with a lot of YA romances I have read, which is to say not amazing, but serviceable.

I did find the Livejournal and AIM parts entertaining as someone old enough to have used those, but some younger readers might not register those references.

Kiyoko does an incredible job showing both the gut wrenching pain and beauty of being a girl in your teens, when life is already so hard, and realizing that you might love a girl.

I wanted to love this book, but the ending is extremely abrupt, not just the way the last chapter plays out, but how the relationship is resolved. It doesn’t satisfy after how both Coley and Sonya spend almost the entire book in emotional anguish. It’s hard to believe in a happy ending when it’s barely fleshed out.

I did really like some of the minor characters and found they were well built for barely being part of the story.

Regardless, this book is worth a try if you’re a fan of Kiyoko’s music and especially of that music video. There are a lot of very sensitive topics that are touched on, so please check content warnings.

Tldr; these girls need therapy!

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for the ARC.

CW: suicide, grief, mental illness, homophobia, violence

3.5⭐️s

TW/CW: Discussion of suicide, death of a parent, grief, absent parent coming back, homophobia, internalized homophobia, underage drinking/drug use, mention of vomiting
Rep: Lesbian, Japanese-American main character, sapphic love interest, sapphic side character, possible Achillean side character

If you’re a Hayley Kiyoko fan, or just a fan of Girls like Girls the song, this is a must read!

I’ll be completely honest: I wasn’t as impressed with this book as I wanted to be. I love Hayley. I know how important this song, book, concept is to her. It’s important to me, too.

It just felt basic. The writing, the plot, the characters. Honestly, if this book had come out in 2015 like the song, I’m sure it would’ve been groundbreaking – but we’ve come a long way since then. However, I know this book is important and will be important to many. People dealing with grief, with homophobia, with struggling to figure out who they are in teenagehood.

And I did enjoy it! Just not as much as I expected to.

It seemed like the book took so long to get going, and then I felt like the ending was quite rushed – it was basically just the end of the music video, and not much that was brought up was actually resolved. I thought after the end of the music video would be expounded upon a bit, and it was not. It just wasn’t as satisfactory a conclusion as I’d hoped for. I wanted more!

I also wanted Coley and Alex to bond more. I had suspicions about him from the beginning, and I wish they’d been able to be closer and rely on each other more. I also loved Curtis, and the fact that him not being there for Coley was more complex than she was aware of.

Support this book if possible. Hayley has big dreams for this story – I was lucky enough to meet her and be a part of a Q&A at her show, where most of the discussion was about this book and future writing projects she has dreamed up. Let’s make those dreams a reality!


Huge thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for an ARC of this!

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin Publishing and Wednesday Books for the ARC of "Girls Like Girls".
What's truly impressive here is the amount of powerful dramatic content that's packed into its primal main story - that of two teen girls falling deeply in love.
As a multi-hyphenate performer, Haley Kiyoko certainly has the instincts of a born entertainer......and as a fledgling novelist, she knows enough to keep the story at an immediate fever pitch, even if her prose lacks the depth and skill to deal with the issues she's raising. Maybe that's why I felt it read like a quickly produced novelization of some new YA movie about to hit streaming sites.
Right at the start, you feel compelled to root for the "new girl in town" Coley. Shaken and broken from the suicide death of her mother, she's forced into the custody of Curtis, her long estranged father who abandoned his wife and daughter years ago.
The pain, hurt and anger surrounding this father-daughter duo runs deep, with Curtis desperately hoping to make amends and redeem himself to Coley, whose emotional wounds seem beyond healing.
What changes everything is Coley's immediate, electric, white-hot attraction to Sonya, a popular girl who befriends her.....and even with Sonya taking a prominent place among a coterie of friends, it takes no time at all for her chemistry with Coley to simmer close to boiling point. But the sudden passion between the two suffers from Sonya's ingrained homophobia and peer pressure......this poisonous pressure builds further, stoked by Trenton, the coterie's official obnoxious, repugnant creep, whom they all barely tolerate....and an instant enemy of Coley from the start.
As much as readers will cheer on Coley, Sonya's another story, weighed down with so much of her own dysfunctional baggage, you'll start to wonder if Coley might be better off without her. But there's one aspect of the book that I must give credit to Haley Kiyoko - even with her obvious, simplistic prose, she fully evokes the kind of sparks-flying, first-love rapture that aches and exhilarates lovers all at the same time.... perfectly designed to leave any reader alternately sighing with either hurt or hope.
Sorry to say though, "Girls Like Girls" badly disappoints and falls down in its final chapters, the reason I can't give it more than 3 stars. That rushed and abrupt conclusion may well work dramatically if adapted to the screen, but once we readers become invested in the characters, we expect more than a snappy 'fade-out-to-credits' from the book that's telling their story. (Memo to author: that's one of the reasons everybody ends up saying the book was better!)

Girls Like Girls

It is a very rare occasion that I will pick up a YA book as it is not my favourite genre, but I will do anything for Hayley Kiyoko so here we are.

I think this book is going to be a HUGE hit for anyone who is a fan of a sapphic love story, coming of age tales, and teenage angst.

Main character Coley is quite endearing and I loved her relationship with her father. Sonya, the love interest, was just okay for me. Mostly the characters felt very one note.

The writing was mostly okay, but often cringy. I have a really hard time with the cringey, over dramatic nature of YA, so take this critique as you will.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my gifted e arc!

This was an emotional read but a lot of the time it felt like it was trying too hard - like a teenage soap opera. Maybe it would have resonated differently if it had been written 15 years ago. I don’t think it ever says but based on the girls’ reliance on AIM, I’m assuming it’s meant to be set around that time. I’m just so over the internalized homophobia/gay tragedy trope at this point. I still probably would have rounded up to 4 stars if the ending weren’t so ridiculously rushed. I literally said “Is that it??” out loud. It felt completely unnatural. Worth a read - I did like Coley and the stuff about her mom and dad was pretty good, actually. But there are other tragic gay panic books out there that are better.

After her mother's death, seventeen-year-old Coley moved to Oregon. She thought she'd always be alone, but finds an instant attraction to Sonya. She's never been attracted to girls before and doesn't know how to be part of a healthy relationship. Coley and Sonya will have to figure out how to truly be themselves and be worthy of love.

Based on her song "Girls Like Girls," this is Haley Kiyoko's first novel. It takes place in 2006, the heyday of AIM handles and LiveJournal entries with nested comment replies. (Can you tell I look back on that fondly?) Coley is an emotional mess, with hints as to why her mother died that aren't explained until later when she confides in Sonya. Sonya is popular and affluent, used to being perfect and following her mother's directives for dance and dating the popular boy. While she's drawn to Coley right away, she doesn't admit to herself that she likes girls and her boyfriend is a bully, instead pushing Coley away. She's lost and literally doesn't know many people; it's not until she reaches out and tries to begin building a relationship with her father that she starts to come out of that spiral. He wants to know her for who she is, and they share memories of her mother. This helps her feel more confident in figuring herself out, even if she still hasn't entirely determined who that is.

This book captures the lost feeling that teens have, especially those that feel stuck in small towns living out the roles that others assign to them. There is the emotional back and forth of teen love, plus the fear Sonya has in coming out and possibly losing her family, and her boyfriend's volatile temper and disrespect. Too many people have lived this kind of life, and it's bound to resonate with those readers. The story ends almost abruptly, because we don't really see a happily ever after, but it's following the music video. Those don't really go into an epilogue phase, even though we're used to seeing it. Still, this is a YA romance where the girls figure out what they want out of love and romance. We see it more from Coley's POV, and she absolutely won't settle for being someone's hidden secret. She's worth more than that, and it's an important message to carry from the book.

The Girls Like Girls music video meant the world to me at 13. I used to rewatch that video in secret, and I still watch it fairly often. This book takes that 5:00 video and elaborates the story in a really beautiful way. Coley’s story is fully fleshed out and she becomes a really well-rounded character. Her arc is well-done and her growth is lovely. This book has everything I needed from representation as a young teenager, and honestly everything I need now. It incorporates aspects from the music video in really neat ways, almost like Easter eggs. I am so grateful that I was sent this book for review.

As a huge fan of Hayley Kiyoko’s music and her in general, I was excited to hear she was turning Girls Like Girls into a novel. That said, I think maybe it should have been handed off to another writer. With the understanding that it is Hayley’s debut as an author this book isn’t half bad, but for me, the voice of the novel got a bit too confusing. The inner monologue of Coley was just a bit juvenile and sounded like it needed to be a voiceover of a Netflix rom-com… and not that that’s bad but for a novel, it doesn’t work.



It is not necessarily a bad debut novel, it’s just not a well-written one. I could barely make it through the inner monologues, I think if that changed it would be a higher-rated read for me! 2.5/5 stars



Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Definitely made for a younger audience branching into romance and for that it is perfectly suited. not for everyone who reads queer YA, definitely a beginner

Girls like girls

Thank-you to the publisher and #netgalley for the #AdvanceReviewCopy

Release date: May 30 2023
Genre: Coming of Age - YA romance

Coley, a 17 year old is the epitome of the word lonely. After her mom dies, she moves in with her father, a man she doesn’t know. When her dad suggests she meet new friends, she sets out to try, and that’s when she spots Sonya; it’s love at first sight. Coley feels an instant connection but Sonya has never been with a girl so her reservations put a strain on what could be, in Coley’s opinion, a great thing.

Unlike a lot of early readers, I had zero connection to this author’s music and didn’t realize until half way through the book that it is based off a song with the same title. I literally went into this blind.

Overall, I liked it. There were aspects of the story I enjoyed and others I’d have wanted to see play out differently.

What I didn’t enjoy as much: Sonya. Her character was underdeveloped and I just didn’t like her. She didn’t deserve Coley, and I never rooted for them as a couple because they didn’t fit. There wasn’t enough time for her to get over her fears over being with a girl, so the ending was out of place, unnatural.
I didn’t understand the storyline with Blake. It did nothing to advance the story or main plot or help to develop Coley’s character.
I was also put off by the over-the-top use of drugs and alcohol. I mean, these are teens. This is a YA book after all.

What I enjoyed: Coley’s character and her growth throughout the story; there was a solid arc there. I loved her relationship with her dad, and her moments of grief and reflection over her mom’s death were real and emotional. To me, that was the meat and potatoes of this story, not the romance. As a Coming-of-age book, it hit the mark.

Watching the music video after I finished was a nice bonus and really brought the book to life.

If you enjoy the instant love trope, and aren’t put off by the things that bugged me, then you’ll love this one.

With lots to enjoy but with a few quirks, I landed on 3.5 / 5 stars.

⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

❓Are you familiar with this writer’s music?

#lgbtq
#girlslikegirls
#ya
#comingofage
#Yaromance
#arc

E-ARC generously provided to me by St. Martin's Press via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much!

3.5 stars. Based on the early 2010’s cultural reset/music video of the same name, Girls Like Girls is an interesting if a bit underdeveloped expansion of the storyline featured within it.

3.5 stars. Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for giving me an ARC in exchange for a review! Hayley Kiyoko's Girls Like Girls music video is iconic to me and so many others so when I found out she was adapting it to a book I knew I needed to get my hands on it.

Obviously if you've seen the music video you know what the basic premise of the book is going to be. But in the format of a novel, Kiyoko is able to expand on the characters adding more backstory and depth. The main character Coley (the girl on the bike in the music video) has just moved to town to live with her estranged father after the death of her mother. Adding this element means that the book explores grief and loss in addition to the romance between the two girls. Meanwhile, Sonya the other main character struggles with self-acceptance and internalised homophobia which we do not see in the original music video.

While I did enjoy the book I think part of the effect was lost on me simply because I've aged out of the target YA romance demographic. The connection between the two girls was a little insta-lovey which we often see in YA, which is my pet peeve. I also don't really understand why the book was set in the early 2000s. But it doesn't super feel like it's set in a different decade other than the fact that they're all using AIM instead of cell phones. While this wasn't negative necessarily it just sort of didn't feel relevant.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My criticisms first - this book could have easily been a 4 for me if not for the ending. I think it cut very abruptly, with no real confidence for me that things would actually properly change and get better. While I sympathize with Sonya’s struggles in the book, we don’t get nearly enough of her POV for me to properly care for her or root for her as a character. I just ended up feeling badly for Coley, and rooting against this romance. I feel like I would have wanted it to end either a few chapters early for Coley’s first decision, orrrr to extend past the last chapter so we could actually see change rather than something that was said in what felt like the heat of the moment. I think the book tried to do a lot of heavy topics at once between Sonya’s struggles with coming out, Coley’s parental issues, Trenton as a character. It’s not necessarily poorly written, but it is rushed and I don’t feel like they were given the proper amount of focus as they could have been.

Onto the pros - I did enjoy the majority of this book! I really felt for Coley, and I got attached to her character quickly. It’s a fast read and really endearing, and I think queer teens - who I assume are the target demo - would have a great time reading this book. Despite my criticisms, there’s nothing I find particularly/significantly harmful in this book. I also loved the friendship for Alex and Coley, and wished it was featured a bit more because it was incredibly sweet to me!

Girls Like Girls review - 4 stars

Girls Like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko follows Coley as she moves to Oregon and through the ups and downs she experiences during the summer she spends with Sonya. The beginning of the book was a little slow, and it took me a bit to get into the story. One thing that helped me get through the slow start was some of the questions I had that I wanted to see if they were answered (which they were). Although once I got into the story, I finished it the same day because I wanted to know what would happen.

I liked watching the main characters explore their feelings and relationships, not just with one another but with the other people in their lives. Another part I enjoyed was the little references to Hayley Kiyoko, her other music, and other aspects of her life that appeared throughout the book. When Hayley released This Side of Paradise EP in 2015, I played it all the time, so the little references from that album were enjoyable to see (and I found a few, but in all honesty, there could be others that I didn't pick up on). Another part I enjoyed was the way we get to see the perspectives of both main characters but in two different formats. It was a small touch that I really enjoyed.

I felt a few things did not add to the book, but that was my opinion on these smaller storylines. Because there was a balance of what I really enjoyed but aspects that pulled away from the overall story, that's why I rated the book 4 stars. I thought it was a great coming-of-age story, and while there are some rather heavy topics so I suggest looking up CWs to get an idea of some of the darker aspects of the book before jumping in because they could be a lot for some readers (this was something I was unaware of before starting the book)

Overall it was a good coming-of-age story. If you're a fan of Hayley Kiyoko or looking for a sapphic coming-of-age story, check out Girls Like Girls!

This book was everything I was looking for. Simple yet so complex. Easy to read yet emotional. I couldn’t put this book down. I loved reading about their journeys and self discovery. This book is about acceptance, bravery, grief, heartbreak and embracing your true self. I loved everything about this story. 5 stars for sure!

Thank you so much to Wednesday Books and to NetGalley for the ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

I wish I had the words to express how much I enjoyed this. Hayley absolutely killed it! This transported me right back into the feelings I got listening to the song and watching the video. Kiyoko is a master of story-telling. I couldn't put this down. From the first page to the last, I was glued to my seat, unable to stop myself. This book is addicting and will be easy to binge. It's absolutely one I'd put on your radar!