It's the mid-90s, and Hannah and her best friend (and secret girlfriend) leave behind life in Long Beach, NY upon graduating high school to drive across the country to San Francisco. They know little of their new city, not least of which how expensive it is, but hope at least they'll be able to live as their true queer selves.

Hannah, the main character, knows she is gay but does not quite know how to live as an out gay woman. She is desperate to afford an expensive city but is at odds with what she has to do to make enough money, she has a strained relationship with her mother exacerbated by her strained relationship with her religion (Orthodox Jew), and her favorite person in the world is her Bubbe. (Oh Bubbe, how I love thee). She has moved to San Francisco with her best friend and girlfriend, but will each young woman's path to self discovery lead them closer to or further away from each other?

This is the second coming-of-age story I've read this month where the main character moves to San Francisco during the 90s and let me tell you: as someone who did the same when I was 17, this book was like being wrapped in a blanket of nostalgia. The 90s music references, the accumulation of found family, the strong sense of place. I was transported back in time and young again, and the city had not yet priced out all of its artists working hard to find their people.

A great read for anyone who:

• loves coming of age stories (esp about young queer women)
• enjoys stories about found family
• is feeling nostalgic for 90s San Francisco
• misses their Bubbe

Many many thanks to Netgalley and Putnam Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This book will be out this coming Tuesday, June 10, 2025.

Thanks to G.P. Putnam’s Sons for the ARC.

Girls, Girls, Girls is a sweet and thoughtful coming-of-age novel. I enjoyed the complex relationships: most of them were not solely “good” or “bad,” but they showed a complex range of love and frustration that was true to life.

The writing at times feels a bit YA, though I don’t believe the book is marketed as such. The style is not my favorite, though I can also understand it given the age of the narrator.

When I read the synopsis, I really thought I would love the book (queer coming of age story set in late 90's San Francisco - peak of lesbian culture during that time) but by the end, I was left feeling underwhelmed. Not one mention of Lilith Fair? This was seriously THE thing that secret girlfriends living near a big city would've been talking about or trying to get to from 96-99.

What the book is:
🔘 A first person, single POV narrative of Hannah who was
🔘 A curated queer jewish voice that is palatable to indie publishers. Curated to portray the "right" kind of jewishness - Hannah's mother that finds herself seeking a deeper religious connection by becoming orthodox after the death of Hannah and her sister's dad at a young age (bad). Hannah's disdain for her mother finding a deeper connection to religion while dressing up her love of kiddush not as religious but as just another way to be jewish. Curated portray the "right" kind of queerness - I don't even know but there was just too much that was so contradictory and/or stereotyping that just made it feel inauthentic or unrealistic.
🔘 I did not find Hannah likable at all. This book is all about her experiences, all of which would be interesting for anyone else, but through her voice they were annoying.
🔘 Perplexing. The idea that the only place closeted lesbians living in Long Beach, NY could imagine experiencing queer existence is in SF. Long Beach is a one hour train ride to the West Village in NYC, a city that also had a very vibrant LGBTQ community during the same time period. The fact that this isn't even acknowledged was an odd choice.

i had such high hopes for this book but i ended up hating it the more i read it. i ended up skimming the last two chapters because i just wanted it to be over with.

let’s start with the positives. i could really resonate with hannah and her journey navigating her newfound sexuality while grappling with religion and her relationship with her mother. i grew up in a very christian household with a very traditional mother and i was terrified of coming out. my mom definitely knew but was in denial. when i moved out at 18, i could finally be myself. and life was beautiful for a bit until things felt apart with my first girlfriend, as things fell apart with hannah and sam.

the near immediate choice to pursue sex work was an interesting choice but i know that is the reality for countless queer youth who move away from home at such a young age. i liked reading about hannah finding herself and becoming more comfortable with her body and how that contributes to her lesbianism. she was smart to be cautious and i think finding a “professional” relationship with chris was great. at first. did i like the age gap? i can’t say i did but that’s whatever.

i also loved the parts of hannah’s relationship with her bubbe. when she felt her life was falling apart, she still had her bubbe. i was moved to tears at a certain part towards the end. i wish this coming of age revolved their relationship more but whatever.

okay… the negatives. number one, i HATE lack of communication tropes. hate it with a burning passion. the more hannah and sam drifted the more irritated i got. i kept screaming at my ipad “JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER”!!! i knew sam was cheating on her. i just knew it. how are you gonna convince hannah to become an escort of sorts with chris and then get mad she’s making money? and then you cheat on her and just never talk about it? like at all? also their “resolution” wasn’t even a resolution. they just moved past sam’s cheating so quickly it’s almost like it never happened. it’s a stereotype for lesbians to be uhauls, fall in love fast which could lead to cheating, staying friends with their exes, but i really wanted better for hannah. nothing about their relationship when they moved to san francisco was enough for me to have faith in sam.

i also felt like the author didnt know which direction she wanted the story to go in. is this a coming of age revolving around the highs and lows of sex work? is it a story about finding differences in new gay love? is it about a girl’s relationship with her grandma. it was all of the above but it just didn’t work. hannah and sam grew apart way too fast; it almost felt like sam wasn’t planning on staying with hannah for long. we almost got an arc with hannah’s exploration into sex work and substance abuse but that went nowhere. her relationship with billie moved so quickly. bubbe’s illness came about so quickly. we just didn’t get enough time with the characters to understand their desires, motivations, or drive. there wasn’t much clarity.

all in all, i unfortunately would not recommend this unless you enjoy reading about unhealthy relationships with little to no communication. i feel sad that i didn’t like it as much as everyone else seems to be enjoying it but i stand by my opinions.

Girls Girls Girls follows teen couple Hannah and Sam as they road trip from Long Beach to San Francisco, eventually getting jobs at a strip club to support themselves.

I really wanted to like this, but ultimately was let down. The writing I think is more young adult (while still dealing with more adult themes) as are the characters. I felt like Hannah and Sam's relationship was very flat as well as many of the side characters (particularly Chris, an older woman Hannah starts sleeping with for money). Hannah herself read to me like a classic young adult main character; someone who initially is just along for the ride and later must learn to stand up for themselves and interrogate what they truly want from life. There is nothing wrong with this set up for a main character, but combined with the writing, it did not stand out to me as a literary fiction book for adults.

I really loved this look at two high school grads who road trip across the country to be lesbians in San Francisco together in 1996. This was such a nostalgic novel, full of queer community, found family, Jewish rep, and the struggle of finding yourself and your people in a new place. The sense of place and time was wonderfully depicted- I felt I was there, in a San Francisco that no longer exists in that way.

I loved the critiques of the queer community that could only come from someone inside it (the discussion of lesbians using certain sex toys especially meaningful to me), and the Jewish rep that was throughout the novel, from the Yiddish, to the mentions of holidays, to the beautiful statement from Bubbe that there are so many ways to be Jewish. The emphasis on friendship and loyalty was also huge for me- loved how it was handled, and the friendship between Hannah and April.

My only thing that held me back from it becoming a new favorite is that I really hoped Hannah would finally join that queer synagogue as she continued to build her community and identity. I felt it would've been a perfect bookend to Bubbe's wisdom, and a subtle push back against her mother saying she needed to marry a Jewish man. Hannah could've found her own meaning in Judaism outside of her mother's style. It is a minor thing, but something I was rooting for so much at the end.

Overall, highly recommend this one.

I was absolutely blown-away by this book! Girls Girls Girls follows Hannah and her secret girlfriend Sam as they leave suffocating New York for the open and free San Fransisco. It's a stunning portrayal of young love and hopes in addition to the queer community of the 90s. This is a beautiful story, and I can't recommend it enough.

Thank you to the publisher for the e-copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I related to these characters so much. Their strugle between choices and realistic growing pains really worked for me. I loved how diverse and interesting the whole story was.

This debut novel is remarkably tender and earnest. A coming of age story that does not come across as YA, but which would be great to hand to an 18 year old. The themes are universal, but particularly special for all the queer Jewish girls girls girls.

Sweet and heartfelt. This queer coming of age story focuses on Hannah's journey getting to know herself and her place in SF. I loved the relationship between family members, and Hannah and her friends.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC copy of "Girls Girls Girls" in exchange for an honest review. "Girls Girls Girls" was a heartfelt memory of leaving home at 18 to find where you fit in queer spaces, but there were a few elements that made it difficult for me to get into it fully.

1) The first half is much slower than the second half, largely because the second half focuses on the relationship between Hannah and Bubbe which is dynamic, compelling, and well-built out. The first half is anchored on leaving Long Island with Sammie, who never really gets a full character buildout, and with whom Hannah feels like a go-along caricature. Moreover, Sammie practically disappears for the second half which really lets us focus on Hannah's character. The book also takes place across six months, in which very little actually happens, which slows the pace and investment in the characters.

2) This book isn't really about a young queer woman coming of age in San Francisco, it's a book about a granddaughter and her Bubbe. That relationship is touching and emotional and was my favorite part of the entire story. But against that backdrop the rest of the plot feels childish, short tempered, and at-face value. You would think that stripping or escorting would be more deeply explored as sex work is a common element of queer culture striving to make money after leaving a toxic home environment, but it's just another stop on the job hunt. Which, I supposed can be true, but felt a little dismissive of the experience. Hannah also doesn't really do anything in those first six months, she waits for something to happen to her. This is why I think the book would work better set over a longer period of time - asking an 18 year old to change in a satisfying way for a reader in the span of 6 months is hard, and harder still for the novelist who lived it. And yet, Hannah grows up quite a bit between the beginning and the end - it just doesn't feel like I saw it happen very much.

3) I was hoping the book would deliver on what it promised in the book jacket: diving more into the 1996 queer culture of San Francisco, which it seemed Hannah might have finally gotten into...right at the end? Which was a bummer, although I hope all the good parts of queer community came after for her!

Overall, this book is a slightly off-kilter window into what it means to leave home when very young and trying to establish yourself in an adult world while still a child, and yet crossing some large hurdles that set you very much into adulthood in a short time. Hannah is earnest and figuring it out. She and Sammie are terrible communicators. Hannah needs her Bubbe, and slowly recognizes that not everyone sees her the way she thought - and that's a good thing for relationships and self-worth. She can write a new story now, and I hope she did. To that end, it was challenging to discern how much of this was autobiography and how much was novel; it definitely felt like a non-fiction memoir, but that's not how it's being sold.

What a beauty of a book.

The first half was a little difficult to follow at times, and not as engaging as the second. It felt like the author's writing improved as the book went on. But BELIEVE ME- it is worth reading through until the end.

This book is about so much more than I thought it was going to be. On the surface, it is a coming-of-age, and a love letter to the 90's San Francisco queer scene. It is also about first queer love, about the queering of relationships and family, identity, sex work (particularly in the queer community), grief, and so, so much more.

This book is raw and tender and heartfelt. It truly pulses with life.

ahh where do i begin?!?! i loved this book. it was so raw, messy, and real. it captured the feeling of being a lesbian and trying to work through that so well. i loved the 90s san francisco setting, the road trip plot, and just watching hannah learn more about herself and what she wants for her future. her relationships with her bubbe and rachel were so heartwarming; i also really liked her and billie together (but not sam— ugh).

there are some trigger warnings to be aware of, as hannah navigates difficult situations to make money, such as stripping, sex work, and sexual assault, as well as the loss of a family member to cancer. she also experiences and navigates compulsory heterosexuality and engages in self-harming behaviors, such as drug use. one of her friends is also an addict.

ultimately, this was a book of queer joy, pain, and exploration. i felt so connected to hannah and her struggles. not knowing who you are, what you want, and if the person you want those things with even wants you back. her fear of not being fully seen and loved was so relatable. this was a book about community, growth, and coming-of-age. i am so excited for readers to get their hands on this, especially since it is coming out during pride month!

i wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone who loves wlw stories, coming-of-age novels, and dare i say it, historical fiction? (absolutely wild that the 90s is considered historical fiction now omg) shoshana von blanckensee put a lot of love and hard work into this novel (20 years of it!!) and that is abundantly clear. a must-read author and debut!!

p.s. thank you to netgalley and putnam for this arc in exchange for an honest review <3

This was a really moving story. As a queer Jew it’s always nice to see those aspects and intersections of identity explored, and really enjoyed the way the author did it here. This was a coming of age story in a lot of ways, without necessarily feeling too young or YA. The atmosphere was a strong part for me — it felt very rooted in the 90s without feeling outdated because so many of these topics feel timeless. I look forward to reading more from this author.

I can’t believe this is a debut novel. It oozes 90s perfection and kind of scratches that itch so many closeted queer teens might have of just running away to San Francisco to be amongst your community. There are multiple coming of age stories melded into one. You have the changing and evolving of a high school friendship and romantic relationship, joining the “real world” with the needs to pay bills and buy food, and coming face to face with death and grief. I thoroughly enjoyed the pace and evolution of Hannah and Sam in different ways, and the honesty attached to some genuinely beautiful passages.

Can’t wait to read more from this author. Thanks for the ARC.

Thank you to Netgalley, Penguin Group Putnam, and Shoshana von Blanckensee for access to an early digital ARC of this book. I hope that the ALC becomes available soon too as I would like to listen to it as well.

This is a hard hitting piece of sapphic, Jewish literary fiction, and a debut from Shoshana von Blanckensee. I had a book club friend of mine warn me that the novel slowed in the middle, which while true, did not necessarily feel like a mistake nor a bad thing. In fact, the more I think about it, I see it as the way Hannah experienced that part of her life in the story, as it becoming repetitive and dull and slow. The second half of the book felt like it flew by in comparison, but I also see this as a part of Hannah processing her grief.

I'm not Jewish religiously (I'm agnostic), but I am ethnically and somewhat culturally (Ok I literally had a seder velcro plate toy as a kid so yea). And for anyone who didn't already know, I happen to be a rather gay femme myself. This book is full of hard topics and discussions already, but as someone who was very close to their Jewish grandmother, it felt doubly so.

I recognized my immediate flush of annoyed anger when Hannah tells Chris that she's Jewish and we see Chris' reaction. I myself have gotten the "oh that's what you are!" comment. So in a way getting to see a character that felt true to life having an almost identical experience to my own, and seeing her thoughts and feelings about it herself, was nearly a sort of cathartic experience for me.

What definitely was an admittedly odd form of catharsis was when Hannah comes out to her Bubbe. I never got the chance to myself, so I imagine she would react somewhat similarly - but I always knew that she loved me just about no matter what, and I don't think me being gay would have been a dealbreaker for her, but I do see the possibility of her being afraid for me, as other members of my family have voiced similar fears when I was in the early "stages" of coming out.

Honestly, this is one of very few books where I am relieved at the way it ended - we don't know exactly where Hannah's life is going to go next, but we do know that she has her entire life ahead of her, and people who love her.

Shelved as literary fiction, but more accurately squished between coming-of-age YA and slice-of-life fiction, Girls Girls Girls is a beautifully confused novel. It reads casually, yet tackles some serious topics—from queer identity in the nineties to the ethics of sex work. Hannah’s life alternates from the bubbly joy of a new teenage crush to the crushing grief of losing a family member.

The only constant, ironically, isn’t Sam, the girl Hannah has traveled across the country with—she’s off having her own quarter-life crisis for most of the novel—but the tough-love setting of San Francisco. The city throws challenges Hannah’s way day after day, but also offers her a lifeline time after time, never truly letting her drown.

And in that eternal will-she-survive-or-won’t-she tension, Shoshana von Blanckensee draws the plot of the novel. That’s why why I categorized Girls Girls Girls as a hybrid slice-of-life story: there’s no overarching conflict, no antagonist to face. All Hannah wants to do is pay her rent and be happy. It’s not the highest-stakes novel I’ve read this year, but it’s one of the most real. As someone who made the opposite migration (SF to NYC) as a young woman, I empathize with the determination to succeed at all costs, and the identity shifts that happen, whether you intend to change or not.

For me, the most compelling plot line was the one hardly even mentioned in the book’s description: Hannah’s relationship with her grandmother, Bubbe. She’s the ultimate hype woman enveloped in a feeble body bursting with wrinkles and love. She’s always there to offer just the right semi-vague advice—nudging Hannah to arrive at her own conclusions when she’s at a crossroads. Maybe I loved her so much because she reminded me of my own grandmother—but isn’t that a sign of great literature? Fiction so persuasive that it’s reminiscent of truth? It doesn’t really matter. Bubbe’s the best and that’s that.

But I would be out of my mind not to mention the incredible depiction of the SF queer scene in the 90s. In the prologue, Shoshana makes note of using outdated language with fondness (the 90s understanding of gender and sexuality is much more limited than our understanding today), and you can feel that fondness bleeding through the pages. The lesbian bar! The all-female painting crew! The conspiratorial kindness of a neighborhood barista! The joy of finding language to describe your experience! The awe of joining a community of of people like you! This book was a window into a world I just barely wasn’t old enough to witness myself.

Girls Girls Girls was hope, and honesty, and fear all wrapped into one beautifully-covered package. It’s not a hang-on-for-your-life adventure, or even a head-over-heels romance, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s just one eighteen-year-old finding her way.

This was an interesting coming of age novel that dealt with many more issues than I was expecting. It was very fast paced and a lot was packed in quickly. I liked that it wasn't afraid to get really dark and seemed realistic. The language and setting descriptions really cemented that it was set in the 90s. It was not predictable so had me wanting to stay up all night reading to see where it was going.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC of Girls Girls Girls.

Hannah and Sam (secret girlfriends) decide to move from New York to San Francisco in order to be free only to find that being free can be elusive, and they’ll have to decide individually what being free means to them.

The story is told from Hannah’s perspective, and I found Blanckensee’s writing style engaging throughout the book while understanding that I was only getting one-side to most of what was going on during the storyline. Sure, we get snippets of what other characters think or feel through conversations that Hannah has with them, but we’re firmly centered in Hannah’s perspective throughout. And while at times, I thought it might be useful to tell this story through a dual-POV of Hannah and Sam, I ultimately realized that would have been too much information and made the narration a bit unruly.

The book is problematic though. I get that it was 1996 and things were different back then – I lived through it, so yeah, I know – but this book is written in 2025, and the issue of consent is a big deal. Here, it doesn’t even seem like any thought is given to consent at all, especially when we look at Hannah’s escort deal with Chris. Those scenes gave me the biggest ick and made me angry.

Hannah and Sam’s relationship was also problematic, and I wasn’t surprised that they struggled while in San Francisco. By the end of the book, I really could not have cared less about Sam. I get that she and Hannah are both young, but Sam came across as selfish and self-involved.

I never completely understood why Hannah cut her sister (Rachel) and her best friend (April) off. I do understand why Hannah didn’t want to talk with her mother, but not keeping in contact with her sister made no sense to me. Like, why not write Rachel if she really didn’t want to call her mother. Or why not set up some kind of arrangement where Rachel would be at Bubbe’s house when Hannah called, so they could talk?
And April was just cast off because of Sam. Another reason why I didn’t care for Sam had to do with her lack of caring when it came to April. That backstory scene at the taco place was horrible, and Sam came off as such an unempathetic person that I was having a hard time understanding why Hannah loved Sam or thought so highly of Sam.

I also felt as though the book should probably have some sort of trigger warnings. There’s an entire sub-plot involving a cancer diagnosis and death of a loved one that I was not expecting at all. And while I thought the writing of these scenes was good, I’m not sure I would have picked up this book knowing that was part of the storyline. Obviously, drug use and issues of consent should probably also be set up as trigger warnings for this book.

It’s weird. The book was well-written, but I also didn’t vibe with everything that was going on here. The stripping storyline seems like such a rich topic to discuss, but the description and discussion of stripping wasn’t as thorough as it could have been. I would have liked to have spent a bit more time with the other women in the club and had Hannah get to know them better. I would also probably not have included the escort sub-plot because, again, there are so many issues with consent that were horribly handled in this book.

Overall, the book wasn’t bad per se, but there were multiple things I found problematic about the storylines presented here.

This book is the perfect summer read. It's sexy, smart, and emotionally compelling. I can't imagine a better Sapphic summer read. It was so much fun to be cast back into the 1990s, where I spent my own early adulthood years, with Hannah and Sam. More 90s fiction, please!