This was such a sweet read and definitely the first of many I will be reading by this author. I found all the characters relatable in their own way. The romance aspect was written so well.

This is a book I will likely come back to at a later date as it was currently not for me at the time I decided to read it.

Sometimes all you need is a soft contemporary queer novel about two people falling in love. That's what this book was. Nothing incredible but lovely to read and consume all the same.

This is a great LGBTQ+ book about falling in love, falling out of love, and finding yourself in the mix of it all.

Weak writing and unconvincing emotional arcs. The audiobook narration is good and kept it entertaining, but I was not invested.

I really can't rave about Girl Crushed. This Katie Heaney book is overrun with biphobia, which means I just can't recommend it.

This wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be or wanted it to be. I'm always happy to see more diverse wlw representation though!

I love good rom-com. I really do. Even the cheesy ones. I don't care if there are cliches or if it has a happy ending, because that's a rom-com, book you read to feel better and swoon. I thought this will be the same. It was good, don't get me wrong. But I just didn't love it.
I couldn't connect to any of the characters and I was so sad about that. If I could, though, I would love this book.
All in all, good book, but not the best.

Heaney has delivered a fantastic coming of age story about, first love, heartbreak, identity, finding yourself, and growing up. A fantastic cast of characters and adorable story make this a book not to be missed.
I Love this story so much. Heaney perfectly captures young love and heartbreak in a way that almost anyone of any age will be able to relate to. Quinn, Jaime, and Ruby make up a mesmerizing cast of characters each with their own desires and complications.
I love and relate to Quinn so much. Her handling of being dumped and trying to relearn how to be friends with Jaime is pretty perfect. All of the characters make mistakes and have flaws, they feel very real and human. I loved all of the character development throughout the story.
The absolute chaos of emotions Heaney puts the reader through is overwhelming and exhausting (in a good way) it is a torrent of ups and downs revolving around love, heartbreak, and friendship. So much heart was poured into this story and you can feel it with every page.
I honestly spent most of the story wanting Quinn to end the story single. Jaime and Ruby were both great characters but I wasn’t sure if I liked them with My sweet Quinn. I loved how the story ended, it felt warm, fuzzy, and completely satisfying.
I did find a few errors but I read and uncorrected proof and am sure they were fixed before publication. My only real flaw in this story is the blurb. While not inaccurate it is incredibly misleading and skewed my expectations a bit. I know trying to condense an entire story into a couple paragraphs without spoiling the story but also trying to entice readers is incredibly difficult but I wish it had been a bit different.
I loved everything about this book. So if you are a fan of love, humor, genuinely human characters, well written coming of age stories, and emotional roller coasters than this is a must read book for you.

This is a highschool rom-dram about a butch soccer star with a lot of feelings.

The book begins a few months after Quinn has been dumped by her best friend, Jamie, leaving her off-balance and hurting, and splitting her social world down its seams. The story follows Quinn through her senior year, as she grows closer to her straight-presenting dream-girl, Ruby, and organizes a series of concerts at a local lesbian cafe.

I struggled to connect with this book, and I'm not sure if it's where I'm at right now personally, or the book itself.

It's a bit of a love triangle, with Quinn nursing feelings for both Jamie and Ruby. For me, rather than creating tension, this dynamic seems to disconnect me from the story. I didn't feel like Quinn was fully invested in her connections to either love interest, and it made it hard for me to root for either pairing.

There were a lot of elements in this book that I should have liked (ahem lesbian coffee!), but it all felt a little distant and outdated.

For example this book treats Gay-Straight Alliances as something novel and unusual; my suburban public high school had a GSA in the mid-90s, before I was even a student there. I'm sure not every HS in the country has a GSA, but I struggled to see how one could seem fresh and edgy.

There were some elements of character growth that felt meaningful, but they reflected on identity and assumptions that predated the story, so they didn't feel as meaningful or paradigm-shifting as they could have if they changed the lens on events the reader had witnessed.

I really wanted to like this book, but for me it felt a little hollow.

I received a copy of Girl Crushed from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review!

How do you move on from a heartbreak that shatters your very soul? Quinn Ryan is left asking that question after she is dumped by Jamie Rudawaski, the only girl she’s ever loved. This is made even more difficult by the fact that, before Quinn was in love with Jamie, she was her best friend. Now it seems that Quinn doesn’t have any part of her life left that Jamie hasn’t touched, and she’s unsure how to cope. This is all made even worse by the fact that Jamie seems to have moved on, implying that Quinn should have already healed by now. Just when Quinn thinks there is no way forward, a new crush, Ruby Ocampo, enters the scene, giving her hope that there just might be a second love waiting in her future. But as she grows closer to Ruby, she doesn’t feel more distant from Jamie, like she might have hoped. But who says you can’t fall in love twice?

You can get your copy of Girl Crushed now from Knopf Books for Young Readers!

Being completely honest, this book was not my favorite. It felt rather forgettable when compared to other, similar books that I’ve previously read. My imagination wasn’t particularly captured by any of the characters, or their problems. I had high hopes for this story, but ultimately it was missing the spark that would make me recommend a book as worthy of dedicating significant reading time to. It felt like it would’ve fit in better in the early stages of YA Literature, but, at this point, there are many more novels focusing on queer protagonists that would be worth reading instead.

My Recommendation-
If you prefer your books to have quickly paced plots, definitive endings, and characters you can really get behind, I would recommend skipping this book. Though the heart of the story was likely from a good place, I found that it simply didn’t resonate with me as a reader.

So first up this book started of really boring. I couldn't for the hell of it get into the story and then it basically attacked my sexuality *wide eyes*. Hmm umm this is basically it. Bye not interested. What kind of ya book is this *eye emoji*.

This book had good potential and I think it was me not the book in this case. I just didn't care for the writing style and I personally could not get into the characters, so I will not be finishing this book. I appreciate the opportunity to read it, but it's just not the book for me.

I confess. . . I picked up Girl Crushed by Katie Heaney because I thought the cover was cute, but I quickly realized this book is not for me. It feels like an adult book that tried to be YA; the themes are too mature for me to be comfortable using it in the classroom.

I loved this book so much. I think it's a fun LGBT+ tale that deserves a space in YA lit. The story was really great as well.

Girl Crushed was ... good. I liked it, didn't love it. I thought it was cute but lacked substance in many ways. The characters were okay. The main character, Quinn, I liked, and thought that she had some depth and interesting elements to her personality, but it seemed like all of the other characters just served to tell Quinn's story. Even Quinn's two love interests, Jamie and Ruby, were sort of one-note and somewhat boring. I couldn't get what made Quinn like either of them, didn't see the attraction, didn't feel any chemistry. But I enjoyed the story and found myself caring about what would happen to Quinn, who she would end up with, what college she would be accepted to, what would happen with her other relationships, etc.

I have to say that there are a LOT of reviews on Goodreads accusing the author of biphobia. I guess I can kind of see their point, but honestly I think that Heaney brings the idea of someone being bi TO the attention of the reader, and in my opinion it's not negative at all. If nothing else, the characters' eyes are opened more through interacting with the character who is bi. Also, it's clear that many of these reviewers haven't read the book. That, to me, is totally unfair and I think it should be required to read a book before criticizing it publicly. Anyway. In my very humble, and mostly ignorant, opinion, this book is not biphobic.

Overall, Girl Crushed was fun, nothing incredible, but I enjoyed reading it.

I tried getting into this book on several occasions but just couldn't see the story through to the end. I really wanted to like this story, The synopsis immediately drew me in, as someone who likes finding diverse stories, I thought Katie's first YA book would be enjoyable and captivating. I went so far to understand WHO Katie was as an author to provide context while reading the book, but it still was not enough to make this book palatable.

As a Bi-Sexual person I'm always looking for books with positive queer representation and I had high hopes for this book and in the end I was very uncomfortable with it's queer representation. It seemed problematic and two dimensional. The characters come across as very flat and not well developed. Additionally a lot of what was happening in the character's daily lives that seemed important, was glossed over and only mentioned in passing. 

The adults in this book were problematic as well and the main character defended their inappropriate actions most of the time. For example when the main character defends her father's sexism. I think it's a really bad example to present, especially to teens. Sexism is never okay and for the main character to defend her father I think sets a really bad example to teens reading this. Books have a huge impact on readers and this is just one example of several events in the book that could have negative impacts on readers. 

I also did not appreciate some of the language the author used to describe queer people. While I know there is power in taking back certain terms that have historically been used to degrade queer people, the use of it here felt forced and inappropriate. 

I think this book had the potential to be really insightful and deep but instead it dismissed or trivialized many of the experiences queer youth go through in high school and even beyond into adult life. 

While I won't deter customers from buying this book I will not be recommending it.

Quinn Ryan is girl crushed. Her best-friend-slash-girlfriend, Jamie, broke up with her the summer before they embarked on their senior year of high school, and now Quinn is torn between still having feelings for Jamie and developing new ones for resident cool girl Ruby Ocampo. It doesn’t help that Jamie seems to be completely over Quinn. On top of relationship drama, Quinn’s dream of playing soccer for UNC and moving on to play professionally seems to be slipping through her fingers and her favorite lesbian coffee shop is in danger going out of business. Quinn spends her senior year feeling lost, but also determined to get what she wants: a girlfriend who loves her as much as she loves them, a spot on one of her top school choice soccer teams, and to save her one safe haven from shutting down.

Girl Crushed is one of those books that you need to read when you’re feeling a bit lost and confused yourself at any age. Quinn has had the same idea of what her life would look like for so long that she isn’t even sure that she wants it anymore beyond fulfilling that dream—so what happens when you realize it’s okay that things don’t go as planned? By the end of the book, Quinn learns an important lesson: everything can go wrong, but it’s possible to make it out alive and lean into the unknown. Beyond exploring the terrifying uncertainties of high school, Katie Heaney accurately captures the experience of being a lesbian in high school down to the last word. The only concern I have is Quinn and Jamie’s tendency to assume other people’s sexualities, but Heaney does address that issue when Ruby sternly tells Quinn she’s wrong to do so.

This ARC was provided for review, but in no way affects the following impartial and unbiased review:
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3*
Pros: LGBT lead. Beautiful wlm romance. Great focus into long-term relationship hardships. Important notes about queer small businesses and queer representation in high schools. Includes feminist points. Awesome introduction on soccer and female soccer players.
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Cons: Lack depth in all aspects of the book. Ending was essentially back to the beginning.