Another contender for best of 2025 for me!!!

I am obsessed with this book. Literally cannot stop thinking about it. We meet Hannah, who moved out to SF with her friend Sam, who she’s in love with, to discover herself and her sexuality. She becomes a stripper, then an escort, and an interesting relationship ensues with a client and her friendship with Sam is affected. Then, grandma has news that makes Hannah rethink some things, and good grief there were just so many tears. This book was raw as hell. I just loved it so much.

this is a time capsule of a book. set in the summer of 1996, it captures that strange liminal space right before the internet began flattening everything - before memes, before constant discourse, before culture lost its distinct fingerprints. reading this felt like dipping into a preserved moment, a slice of the last analog decade, full of longing and grit and static.

this book follows hannah, an 18-year-old jewish girl fleeing her small, conservative hometown for san francisco with her best friend and secret girlfriend, sam. they're in love and broke and aching for a life where they can be queer out loud. what they find instead is a city that demands everything of them: their labor, their bodies, their identities. hannah starts stripping to pay rent, then eventually agrees to sleep with an older butch lesbian, chris, for money - not because she's desperate, but possibly because she's drawn to her, or because survival is never just about income. the book doesn't always explain these choices, and while i like messy characters, some moments felt underbaked. things just happened without emotional grounding.

the writing skews young, which makes sense given hannah's age, but i found myself wishing for a slightly older, more layered voice. the story touches so many themes - sex work, grief, identity, addiction, friendship, bodily autonomy - but most are explored on a surface level. not quite shallow, but not as emotionally nuanced as they could have been.

still, there's power here. grief runs through every part of the book: hannah's estrangement from her mother and sister, her fear of losing her bubbe, her slow realization that love doesn't always equal safety. there's grief in watching her lose pieces of herself to survive. she wants to get out of sex work, but can't afford to. the jobs she's qualified for don't pay a living wage. she's queer, jewish, barely an adult, and living in one of the most expensive cities in the country.

the supporting cast is one of the book's strengths. billie, a house painter hannah works with, is endlessly kind and nonjudgmental about her sex work. sam, her girlfriend, explores polyamory and queer community in ways that sometimes feel modernized for the setting - there's a cringey moment where she implies polyamory is resisting the patriarchy, which might be true but doesn't totally fit the 1996 vibe. april, the friend they left behind in new york, finds sobriety and joy in unexpected places. and chris, the much older woman hannah sleeps with, is both compelling and disturbing. she's grieving her own mother, drinking herself hollow, and clearly crossing lines. hurt people hurt people.

this book is full of messed up people doing messed up things because they're messed up. i like that vibe. i just wish it had dug deeper into the why.

in the end, girls girls girls is about love in its messiest forms - romantic, familial, chosen. it's about the impossibility of growing up without wounds, and the responsibility to stop those wounds from becoming weapons. it's good. it could have been great. but i'm still glad it exists.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the eARC.

This book really worked on all levels for me. I loved the characters and the journey they took, the heartbreak and the happy moments. It was lovely.

Liked but didn’t love, and I can’t quite figure out why! A Jewish lesbian coming of age story, so on principle this should’ve been a top book of the year for me. I think Hannah’s relationships with Sam and Amber, especially as they are complicated and challenged and revisited toward the end of the novel, comprised the book’s emotional core for me at least — less so the cross-country journey, the stripping, Hannah’s building of her own life or navigation of her family dynamics, which for some reason felt less *real*. Which is odd, because those things are indeed vital to the project of this book and the arc of the plot and of Hannah’s growth. Not fully sure what to make of that yet.

Girls Girls Girls is a lively and engaging read that offers a fresh take on female friendship and self-discovery. The characters are relatable and well-drawn, capturing the messy, hilarious, and sometimes heartfelt moments of young women finding their way. The writing has a breezy, conversational tone that makes the story fun to dive into, though a few plot points felt a bit predictable. Still, it’s a feel-good book with enough depth to keep you hooked. Perfect for anyone looking for a witty and relatable coming-of-age story.

Girls Girls Girls is one of the best debut novels I've ever read. Definitely didn't expect or intend to read it in one sitting, but it grabbed me by the collar and forced me to continue. All the characters are so real, so perceptively written, and they compel you to ache and cry and laugh for them. Hannah and her family unit - mom, Bubbe, and sister Rachel - felt so authentic in their messiness and flaws and overall their love for one another. I particularly appreciated how lovingly the queer community was painted here. I adored this glimpse of San Francisco in the 90's, the queens and dykes who populated the Castro, all the butches and studs and queers we meet. I loved watching Hannah come into her own, and I could've read her story forever, but I felt it ended at the perfect place. Thanks to PRH and NetGalley for the e-ARC; available June 16!

A refreshingly realistic coming of age novel, set in San Francisco circa 1996. I loved how gritty and real our characters felt, nothing was romanticized and that kept me really engaged and rooting for Hannah. A very unique take and welcome addition to our LGTQ literature.

Girls Girls Girls by Shoshana von Blanckensee was a wonderful queer coming of age.
The characters draw you in and keeps you flipping the pages.
The characters were all realistic and very well developed.
I really enjoyed the writing style. I found myself hooked, turning the pages.

This was a really fascinating book. I was quickly drawn into the characters' lives and relationships and I was very interested in seeing where the story was going. The interpersonal conflicts were set up so well and made for a good amount of tension in the narrative that really aided in driving the story forward. The momentum was well balanced and I found myself really connecting with the story.
As things progressed, I was really intrigued by the circumstances that Hannah (the FMC) found herself in and seeing the internal conflict she had--especially in confluence with Sam and their opposing ideas for how to handle and approach life in California. Seeing Hannah dive deeper and deeper into trying to find her own place, struggling with her identities, and trying to see how to make her relationship work while still learning so much about herself was really fascinating and made for a really compelling read. And I think the narrative balanced all the different layers of the story really well. And by the end, the emotional pay off was really well. Even with some plot points that were more predictable, I thought everything landed well and made for an enjoyable read. There was a lot of the story that was raw and vulnerable and made room for a lot of character growth and overall development by the end.

I will say, I was...surprised at how few consequences there really were throughout the story. Hannah and Sam take a lot of big risks--and there are even times when they are warned of danger--but everyone largely comes out unscathed (apart from a line being crossed between Hannah and Chris, and even that felt to be downplayed too much). But between the risky careers, drug use, random late nights and hook ups, there is surprisingly few consequences. And while I did not want there to be any consequences, I felt like the book sort of glosses over the very real risks that these two young girls take and almost glamorizes several areas that I think could have (at least) added a lot of nuance to the story and could have been a conversation starter for making safer choices and/or why, for many people, it doesn't feel like safe choices are an option. Especially being set in a much less accepting and progressive time.
There were sections where I felt tension rising and an almost impending doom, and I think that if I had known that I didn't need to worry, I wouldn't have been waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop and I could have just focused more on the narrative at hand.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam and G.P. Putnam's Sons for providing me with a digital review copy of this story in exchange for an honest review.

Girls Girls Girls immerses readers in the 1990s-from Long Beach, NY, to gritty San Francisco. Shoshana von Blanckensee captures the queer nightlife, the countercultural energy of the Mission District, and the rawness of the city as seen through the eyes of the teenage MCs. The setting is an important, vivid part of this book. Those who lived through the 1990s might even appreciate it more. It's also an age when being queer came with less understanding and more violence. San Francisco was Mecca.
I thought I'd be reading more about a WLW relationship, but instead I was drawn in by Hannah's relationship with her Bubbe. We all deserve to have someone like that in our lives.
Not everything is hunky-dory though- prepare for conflict, drugs, death, estrangements, and sex work. This book isn't overly emotional or sentimental, but it does present some harsh truths. I think it still offers hope, even if it's not your usual happy-ever-after.
#NetGalley

A really moving coming of age debut story set in the 90s featuring a gay Jewish girl and her high school girlfriend who leave home for adventure and the queer scene of San Francisco. Emotional, relatable and heartfelt. This was both a great intergenerational family story, a Sapphic romance, a story of female friendship and a look at the early LGBTQIA/Aids scene in SF. Highly recommended for fans of books like Shopgirls by Jessica Anya Blau or Last night at the Telegraph Club by Melinda Lo. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy and @prhaudio for a complimentary ALC in exchange for my honest review.

CW: drug use, sexual assault, alcohol addiction, sex work, death of a loved one from cancer

"Where is home? It's nowhere, which means it could be anywhere. It's wherever I am. I'm home"

Girls Girls Girls is a heartfelt, compelling coming-of-age story following Hannah, a young queer Jewish woman growing up in 90s Long Beach, NY. At 18, Hannah leaves home for San Francisco with Sam, her best friend and first love, and navigates early adulthood in a new place of freedom and opportunity, challenge and heartbreak. Her story captures so much, from friendships and first loves, family relationships, self-exploration and identity, religion, grief, and love. All of the characters and relationships are developed so well and feel very real and powerful. There is so much emotion and depth packed into this story of a young woman searching for herself and place to feel at home.

CW: drug use, addiction, sex work, sexual assault, cancer death, homophobia

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the advance review copy!

This was a great read to see the physical and mental journey that the girls take on during their trip. It shows the effects of our choices.

This was a well-executed queer coming of age, with a writing style and reading experience reminiscent of Stone Butch Blues. It captured the queer experience of the 90s with attention to detail that made the read feel very authentic.

It’s the summer of ’96 and best friends (and secret girlfriends) Hannah and Sam are driving across the country from Long Beach, New York, to the fabled queer paradise of San Francisco, free from the harsh gazes of their neighbors and the stifling demands of Hannah’s devout Orthodox Jewish mother. In San Francisco, they will finally be together as a real couple, out in the open, around other queer people . . . even if the move means leaving behind Hannah’s beloved Bubbe.

When the financial strains of West Coast living push the girls to start stripping at The Chez Paree—yet another secret Hannah must keep from her family—Hannah feels trapped. Sam wants her at the club, but Hannah hates stripping nearly as much as she hates disappointing Sam. Then Hannah meets Chris, an older butch lesbian, who is immediately taken with her. Desperate to stay in San Francisco and away from the leering men at the club, Hannah proposes an escort arrangement.

But as Hannah falls deeper into Chris’ world and Sam starts to meet new queer friends, a rift forms between them. Without Sam, who is Hannah? And what does San Francisco mean to Hannah alone—a space rich with queer possibility or an intimidating, unfamiliar place just as lonely as the one she’d left behind? An achingly tender and resonant story of survival, first love, and growing up queer in the '90s, Girls Girls Girls is a piercing exploration of the choices we make in the thrilling and often confounding search for ourselves and home.

My generation, my time, my people. So relatable it hurts - on so many levels. I loved every second of this, all the beautiful, broken, painful, heartfelt and hopeful moments! Can I give it 6⭐?

I received an advanced complimentary digital copy of this book from Netgalley. Opinions expressed are my own.

“She kisses me … I flood with the feeling of it … the possibility of it all. The possibility that there might be a place for me, for us, the broader us. A place for you, too. The city lights showing you a way in … calling you home.”

Hannah is a Jewish lesbian looking for her way in San Francisco after moving cross country with her first love. A lot of things go so bad but so many things go so right.

My god this book is special. Hannah is so naive and navigating who she is and who she thinks she should be. Her growth is so well done. My heart ached for her and I was cheering her on the entire way.

The writing is crisp and funny and makes you feel like an embarrassed teen in the best cringiest way.

Grab if you’ve ever felt lost and not quite sure who you are. This one’s for you, you’re perfect I promise 🩷

Thank you to Netgalley for the free arc!

I was initially drawn to this title because it sounded really interesting about a queer Jewish girl in the 90s who moved from Long Beach, New York to San Fransisco. However, I wasn't expecting how heavy it would get. I kept with it because I was really drawn in by the characters and wanted to see what would happen with them. I don't often say that books should have trigger warnings but this one feels like it should. I'm torn about how they would go about that though because the way in which the author wrote the book, it is interesting to see how it all unfolds naturally without too much information.

The book takes place in 1996. Hannah is the younger daughter of a widowed mother living in Long Beach, NY. Her mother has become Orthodox Jewish and wants Hannah to conform. But Hannah rebels and prefers her relationship with her grandmother, Bubbe. In her senior year of high school, Hannah and one of her best friends, Sammie, become lovers and make a plan to travel cross-country and settle in San Francisco. The book then describes their trip, their life in San Francisco, the fate of their relationship, and a difficult conversation Hannah has with Bubbe when she comes to visit.

The book is written solely from Hannah's POV, and though it doesn't feel like YA, it has many of the elements of YA, including Hannah's arc of change and her growing understanding of herself, her mother, and how she fits in SF's lesbian community.

While this is fiction, the book reads almost like a memoir, about a time in a late teen's life trying to make her way on her own. I greatly appreciated the Jewish representation in the book, including Bubbe's Yiddish, only some of which are translated, and how Hannah works to figure out what she wants to keep about being Jewish.

Highly recommended, especially since this is a debut novel.

I was provided an ARC by the publisher via NetGalley.

10/10- For fans of Tipping the Velvet and Sunburn, I cannot recommend this book enough.

This book was heartfelt and beautiful. A coming of age story that captured coming out, religious trauma, and the reality of love. Hannah is an incredible character that jumped off the page and became real.

If a book makes me cry, I know it’s a good one. This one had me staying up well past my bedtime, bawling, and making my wife hold me and reassure me that she loves me. I felt this one so deeply in my heart and I cannot wait to buy a final copy.

Girls Girls Girls is one of the best books I’ve read this year. I cannot wait to see it become a queer classic.

A huge thank you to G.P. Putnam's Sons for this ARC.

Queer girl Hannah and her best friend/girlfriend Sam move to San Francisco so they can be open and away from Hannah’s Orthodox Jewish mother. But they begin to drift away after Hannah begins sleeping with a woman named Chris for money. Hannah has to figure out who she is without her mother, without Sam, without her beloved Bubbe, fully open and Queer in a 1990s San Francisco surrounded by people like her. I thought this was so cute! I loved it. It was an emotional rollercoaster about a girl finding out who she is without the people who define her while exploring her queerness and religion. Reminiscent of “We Could Be Rats” with an open writing style as she details her life in San Francisco.