She Gets the Girl

I loved this book for several reasons. At the start of the book I sure didn't think I would end up giving it 5 stars, but it turned out to be such a sweet, endearing little story that I couldn't stop listening to it!

One of the most refreshing details of this book taking place in the real world is that homophobia doesn't even get a single mention. It's completely normal that these girls are into each other and the book holds onto that. I've read quite a few queer YA novels the past years that make it one of the biggest plot points in their books and I'm just not there for it anymore. Our lives are not just suffering or bending under the pressure of society. This book gave queer romance a chance, a space to unfold, room for the characters to grow and have their own emotional journeys without the all encompassing negativtiy from the outside. This story is not a prison for their characters but a landscape to explore.

I also ended up loving both of the main characters and I am sure both the way it was written from their two perspectives WITHOUT repeating scenes and the voices by Natalie Naudus and Valentina Ortiz added to it. They both learned and grew and it was just lovely to witness. I was rooting for them the entire way! I do have to say that this book is predictable; positively, charmingly predictable. It didn't bother me because I just wanted them to succeed and be happy.

I wanted to give the book 4.something stars but the fact that I wanted to keep listening and then when it was all over and I still wanted to know what was gonna happen next convinced me to give it 5 instead. Because it deserves it. It's a great queer YA novel and its messages should be treasured.

Alex has been helping me become the person I thought you would like, but… I guess I ended up becoming, well… me.

In many ways, this was the perfect college freshman romcom with plenty of moments that made me smile and truly wonderful characters. I really felt for both leads: Alex who wore her "air-headed flirt" mask like armor, and Molly on her journey to get out of her shell and get her social anxiety under control. I loved the slow, gradual development of their relationship, how they went from mostly reluctant allies to frenemies to best friends, and that period when they were totally oblivious about falling for each other. I really loved how, while they faced such different struggles and came from such different backgrounds, they were able to see and empathize with each other's dark moments.

At the same time, I felt kind of bad for Cora, Molly's initial "dream girl," because let's face it, Alex and Molly basically manipulated her into believing Molly was a rather different person from who she really was, and then Molly had her moment of revelation just as Cora was catching feelings for a pretty fantasy. Yes, there's a nice irony here—Cora was Molly's pretty fantasy for a long while, but it's not like Cora made an actual choice to present herself as somebody she wasn't, unlike Molly. And hey, it's logical and realistic! Figuring yourself out as a teenager is a rocky road. You're bound to make mistakes and hurt others along the way. But this storyline is one of the reasons I really wish there was one more chapter or an epilogue showing the aftermath and the delayed resolution. (The other reason is that I would love a few pages of seeing Molly and Alex as an established couple.) As it was, the book ended kind of... almost abruptly.

When it comes to the two main plot strands, I feel like Molly's storyline was a little more balanced. All the parts of it—her mooning over Cora, her struggles to fit in in college, her relationships with her family and the way her Mom's internalized racism impacted her, her slowly developing feelings for Alex, her journey to becoming more assertive—painted a coherent picture. Alex's storyline seemed a little weaker in terms of structure. I really liked the parts about her mother's alcoholism, her family life, and the relationship she's built with her boss Jim. But the plotline about her now ex-girlfriend Natalie could have been handled better in terms of laying out the events. I feel like there should have been more clues that Alex wasn't the only problem in that relationship; for a while I thought Natalie was just taking their falling out really, really hard, not just... being herself. Then again, maybe that's on me and my attention span!