Hello lovelies,
I'm back with a book review! I've recently enjoyed reading Hayley Kiyoko's Girls Like Girls. It's definitely a book to shout about! Before we dive in, you should know this review may contain spoilers!
I've been waiting for this book to release forever. And when it finally came out, I decided to keep it for the right moment, which happened to be earlier this week on my holiday- yes, I managed to wait that long! I've been all up in my queer feelings recently, so a lesbian romance was exactly what I needed.
Girls Like Girls is a YA sapphic romance novel about a summer shared between two girls: Coley & Sonya. Coley moves to Oregon after her mother's death to live with her father, who left her at the age of three. She meets Sonya, an upper-class popular girl who
s only ever dated a bad boy until she meets Coley, who changes her world. We witness the pair fall in love and deal with the trials and tribulations of loss, teenage angst, family pressures, and first love.
This book was addictive. I read it all within hours and couldn't put it down! I stopped reading YA a while ago, mainly because I can no longer relate to teens in school, but this book felt different. It's because the story is set in the summer and not about school or if I liked it so much. After all, it was about queer love- something I can relate to. I really liked the main character Coley, she's pretty cool, and I like her angsty teenager vibes wearing chokers and her mam's old jackets. That's how I'd love to have dressed myself as a teenager if I had more style and could pull it off!
I didn't really like Sonya, I did at first, but I couldn't stand the way she is quite an unreliable person. She treats her relationship with Coley like a yo-yo, with not much regard for Coley's feelings. She surrounds herself with terrible people and doesn't take much accountability for her actions. We saw her point of view through online journal posts, which was an exciting addition to the storytelling. Mostly, you know the story through Coley's point of view.
I really liked the building of the relationship between Coley and her dad; seeing them work things out towards the end made me quite teary. Their relationship is one of my favourites from the story. I think because Sonya treated Coley so shitty, it allowed room for Coley to let her dad closer to her. The character development of Coley throughout this book is emotional and beautiful, going from a closed-off teenager who lost the most important person in life to finding love and beginning to work on a relationship with her father.
My one gripe about this story is the ending. It ended abruptly for me, and I didn't think Coley & Sonya shouldn't have ended up together. Coley was a mess after their last bust-up, and to top it off, Sonya's crappy friend hurts Coley (the friend Coley has been warning her about since she met him). I liked how Coley was healing, especially after her mother's death and now her first heartbreaking I wasn't really into the whole get back together thing with Sonya- I know Sonya struggled with pressure from her mother and having a split household. Still, she didn't come off as likeable all that much. However, it did make my heart all tingly when Soneya chose Coley. She finally gives up the crappy friend (albeit AFTER he got all violent), and I suppose that's something. It was very dramatic and life or death vibes, the kinda love you expect from teenagers- I remember feeling the same way about my first love!
I did enjoy the book a lot. It was such an easy read! One minute I was on chapter five; the next, I had finished it. I read it on Kindle, but I'll purchase a physical copy for my bookshelf! So, if you're looking for something an easy-to-read up in your feels (but only a little), I'd recommend this sapphic romance! If this book existed as a teenager, it would have meant everything to me.
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