This book is one of the most beautifully poetic written books I have read in a while. I devoured it in one sitting. It reads like a collective memoir of coming-of-age stories but unique voices shining through. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the opportunity to read an advanced copy.

Written in soaring, lyrical prose, Daphne Palasi Andreades’ debut novel, BROWN GIRLS, is a love letter to girls who have worn the label of “other” for too long, all the while developing their own shimmering, passionate and deeply introspective lives and relationships.

Set in Queens, New York, the book immediately immerses readers in New York’s most vibrant borough, where airplanes fly low enough to shake the buildings, verdant trees tangle with power lines, and colorful bed sheets and clothing articles decorate the laundry lines across front yards. The main street, nicknamed the “Boulevard of Death” by the media, boasts cheap manicures, sizzling food from a multitude of countries, and a lifetime of backbreaking industry. Amid these sights, a group of young girls come of age, bound by their brown skin --- the shades of root beer, beach sand, fertile soil, grilled meat and even the white of snow --- and a shared attempt to assimilate into American culture while celebrating their own myriad backgrounds and those of the relatives who came before them.

BROWN GIRLS is told in the choral “we.” No single narrator emerges as a lifeline, which can make the novel difficult to sink your teeth into at first. But with each chapter, Andreades pulls readers in closer to the real heart of the story: the pulsing beat by which brown girls everywhere feel, love, think, grow and thrive. Each chapter, written almost like an essay mashed into a poem, highlights a singular problem or issue faced by brown girls: helping other relatives adapt to America, navigating the American education system without resources, and defending their choices not only to white Americans but to their immigrant parents. Through each vignette, Andreades unpacks the social and emotional pressures put on (young) women of color, the ways that they are always watched, judged and found lacking.

Despite her clear-eyed, unflinching reporting on these powerful issues, BROWN GIRLS remains impossibly tender and celebratory, full of vibrant culture and eclectic descriptions. Amid the admonitions of strict mothers and the microaggressions of teachers, the girls deal in the sounds of loud, raucous parties full of gossip, note the vivid color of a dripping popsicle on a steamy day, and belt out the effortlessly catchy tunes of Mariah Carey and other pop stars.

Andreades never lets her readers forget that these girls are not the ones you usually read about or watch on TV, but she also reminds us that they are still normal teenagers: emotional, hormonal and obsessive. They fall for boys, break hearts, shorten their skirts when no one is looking, and still call their mothers for help when they need it, even if it means a harsh scolding. At the same time, they form tight, almost romantic relationships with one another, their friendships so hungry that they vow never to let them break apart. Until they do.

Andreades follows her brown girls through the woes of high school applications, the draw of the city and the pull of expensive higher education. Though we learn their names only in passing, some of these characters stand out for their decisions to leave Queens behind, visit their motherlands or shed the group entirely. Whatever the deciding factor, each is drawn by some wish: to be more American, to be truer to her roots, to find a way to blend her two cultures and create something different.

Continuing through the Trump administration and even the beginnings of the pandemic, BROWN GIRLS feels searingly timely and also timeless, thanks to its firm grounding in Queens, a place the girls carry with them wherever they go. With no character arcs to follow or individual women to root for, the book asks for a big leap of faith from readers. But trust me when I say that it is worth it.

Although Andreades takes an unusual path in her choice of narrative structure, the result highlights the universality of the immigrant or first-generation experience, and speaks to the struggles of young women of color hiding, getting by or thriving in every corner of America. The fact that she can do this while maintaining a buoyant, hopeful air and a deeply immersive setting (read this book and tell me you can’t smell the food or hear the music) makes Andreades an incredibly deft writer and BROWN GIRLS an unforgettable, inventive read.

I considered this to be a decent debut novel, and I love how it features life from the perspective of brown girls growing up in Queens. However, I didn't expect the story to be told from a collective viewpoint. I think I would have preferred the story to be told from each individual's perspective; additionally, this would have made the book less confusing, and allowed the reader to connect with the characters a bit more. Overall, I did enjoy the narrative, and I loved how real the story seemed. I would read more books by this author in the future.

This was a powerful and beautiful book. While it's characterized as a novel, it feels more like a series of chronological, connected vignettes. It's told from a collective voice, which is a unique narrative device that makes the story feel very inclusive. I didn't know that's what it was going to be going in and once I realized, I wasn't sure if I would like it but it was compelling and, at the beginning, it actually make the story more fast paced. Though, toward the end, it didn't hold my attention as strongly. The social commentary is very subtle in places but always pointed.

While much of the story is not *for* me as a white woman, it was intensely relatable - especially in the earlier parts of the story.

"We grow dizzy at their advice, at their, what do you call it? Love."

"sure the dinosaur bones are cool but, more than this, the museum is air-conditioned and donation-based, which, to our fourteen-year-old ears means free."

"We are fifteen, and are learning to memorize the subway lines as if they are the very veins that run through our bodies."

"At school, we learn things we're certain our parents don't know, never had the time to learn."

The language is lyrical and the imagery is vivid. I was often able to picture myself right there in the moments.

I really liked this debut novel. The vignettes show one girl’s experience growing up in the “dregs” of Queens. The girls come from so many different countries, Alll have families who come to live with them from these countries for lengthy periods of time. These girls are all the shades of brown possible. The writing is descriptive as she talks about things like picking a high school to attend. What the reader leaves with is the shared family of immigrants. She showed me a world of which I knew nothing. Even though I never really connected with any of the characters, I’ll view my next visit to Queens and riding Train 7 differently as I move thorough so many cultures.

What a beautiful book! Brown Girls is a love letter to Queens, a love letter to women of color, a love letter to identity, Written in the collective we, and told through chronological vignettes, Brown Girls reads like a long poem that guides us through the lives and experiences of these women growing up in the “dregs of Queens.” I just loved it.

Young brown girls growing up in Queens encompass a variety of eclectic experiences. As the girls grow up, they're told to be good girls, to follow the rules, to listen to their mothers. Some of the girls follow those directions, but others leave the borough as they try to find a place for themselves in the world. Sometimes this takes them all over the world, and sometimes they circle back to Queens all over again.

This debut novel is written as a series of vignettes, so it's easy to take it in smaller pieces. Some of the pieces make me incredibly nostalgic for the Queens I grew up with, from the signs and the "Boulevard of Death" reference, the push for education in specialized high schools, the description of the myriad neighborhoods and people within. Many fragments are told from the immediate-yet-distant "we" narration style. At once we're part of this experience, taken into confidence and kept somewhat separate by the fragmented sentences that turn experience into sensory snippets. The "brown" runs the gamut of ethnicities and races, and the universality of these snippets means there isn't a single ethnicity represented. Instead, it's the moments that stress girlhood and being not-white that are stressed.

I think some of this is done in a deliberate way; that becomes very clear with "Musical Chairs." Teachers mean one girl but call her by another's name because they can't tell the brown girls apart. They don't know if a girl is Pakistani or Guyanese or from the Ivory Coast or Spanish or Chinese, or any other darker-skinned ethnicity. The earlier discriminatory behaviors are in sharp relief then, and it's an additional constant along with the subtle digs at being a girl. Those aspiring to be more are picked on, and growing up is difficult when the girls don't feel like others understand their experiences and there are few role models to look up to.

Different phases of life are separated into different parts of the book, which is an interesting way to do it when this isn't written with a clear three act structure in mind. The plaintive "nobody looks like us" is haunting, mirrored throughout the snippets involving dating, attending school, and thinking about family, whether in or out of race. So much of this book rang true, and the branches of possibility between the "us" of narration is a wonderful tactic to show the ways that these girls are the same even when paths are different. The familiarity continues even into the paths that aren't like my own, and I enjoyed seeing the directions that girls can take. It's a thoughtful and interesting way to present the many experiences of minority Queens girls. You can take the girl out of Queens, but you really can't take the Queens out of the girl.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.

The book is written from a "we" point of view of multiple "brown" girls growing up in the "dregs of Queens." The author does an excellent job of describing the difficulties and hardships families face when moving to this country from a variety of foreign lands. The girls are all new immigrants or first generation Americans. They worry about acceptance, school, dating, college, and careers. Are they viewed differently because of their colors, accents, and backgrounds? Do they have the same privileges as their white counterparts?

Some want to get out of the neighborhood to explore different cultures and possibilities. Others are more content to stay where they are. If they should leave, will they lose their ties to their culture, their families and friends?

This ARC was offered in exchange of an honest and impartial review:
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5*
Pros: The first and I already know my favourite book of this year. In spite of its shortness, it is a detailed and intricate portrait of life as a woman of color. Astonishing how many themes are approached in this masterpiece: growing up in poor communities, complex and flawed family and love relationships, generational trauma, societal pressures and expectations, struggling with mental health, identity crisis, self-love and self-understanding... The author managed to highlight many universal and still incredibly specific experiences women of color have gone through, in a way that regardless which country/continent you descend from or the shade of your brown skin, you will feel seen and understood, even to your darkest thoughts.
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Cons: Absolutely none, a must-read.

Good for middle school to high school age. I read 18%. If it continues as it has, a very quick read and an easy three to four stars. The right reader would give it five.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the ARC.

I LOVE the plural first person narrator and I hope authors continue to use this style. The author uses that structure in this book perfectly and effectively. This was a quick but poignant and important story. So much of it read like poetry, which I particularly love.

Brown Girls is a beautifully poetic and incredibly original novel - exploring the varied experiences of brown girlhood from a young age well into adulthood. Because of the collective "we," it felt too generalizing at times and I felt that it was harder to connect with individual characters as no one's story or experience is ever exactly the same. But overall the "chorus of unforgettable voices" come together for a truly ambitious debut novel. Very grateful to Random House and NetGalley for the chance to read this novel.

what a beautiful, emotional, touching story on what it means to be a woman of color in the US, and specifically a brown one. i'm chinese american and i'm not from queens, and yet i felt seen and related to many of the experiences of the women in this book, and i know that my friends and family from the city will relate even more. a joy to read. thank you for this catharsis!

This is a sweeping, lyrical debut of a modern coming-of-age story centering brown girls of immigrant families in Queens, NY. It doesn’t focus on plot or, really, character, but is instead filled with those tender observational moments of life’s little joys and hypocrisies.

I really enjoyed the pace and atmosphere-setting of this book and how it seemed to capture whole lifespans in such a short, sweet package. I was not personally a fan of the “we” chorus narrative perspective, but that may just have been me.

Brown Girls is an ambitious coming-of-age story about the lives of the “Brown Girls”, a group of young women growing up in Queens. Told in first-person plural, this story follows these women as they grow up, go through high school and college, get jobs, have children of their own, and die. There are characters mentioned by name but for the most part, the story focuses on their varied yet similar experiences as a collective. Touching on the experiences of POC women, immigrant families, and gentrification, Brown Girls feels quite timely. Lyrical and well-written, I was often moved by the prose. 4.5 stars.

A unique work of fiction (based very much in fact) told in an equally unique voice. The eponymous brown girls in the title are primarily high-achieving young women who grew up in an immigrant Queens neighborhood. As many of them attend rigorous high schools, go on to college and careers, they face many of the same problems—their relationships with their family and ethnic heritage, how they define and inform their trajectory, and how every success will be measured against expectations and guilt for leaving some behind.

It’s hard to summarize this book. A lot of it will be relatable and all of it should be eye-opening as we examine our privilege and prejudices. #BrownGirls #NetGalley

Thank you to the author, Random House Publishing Group, and NetGalley for an e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Brown Girls
By Daphne Palasi Andreades

Told in the first person collective thought in five parts, this anthem to brown girls' experience set in Queens NYC, of the American experience growing up from immigrant families. I loved the writing and feeling all the angst, emotions, and struggle - i thought this was a powerful anthem for the lived experiences of young women from diverse backgrounds.

I love supporting Filipino authors and I am so happy to see these books available for me and for my children.

What Daphne Palasi Andreas does with this “novel” is just a bit short of astonishing. However, I felt very mislead going into the book. Based on the synopsis I read, I expected a coming of age story about a group of friends. Yet, what we got was a lot more. This is not a book about one group of friends. This is a novel, that feels like a series of short stories, about many Brown girls and many friendships. This book almost feels like a primer on Brown, immigrant girls and New York City.

Brown Girls is poetic and lyrical. But what I loved most was the exploration of the lives of Brown girls. There are Brown girls of Asian, African, Carribean, Latinx descent. There are Brown girls who are not even sure they are Brown girls and Brown girls who are queer. These Brown girls get to have love, doubts, and aspirations. They get to BE and I’m a little amazed at how this very small book does justice for an entire segment of the population.

The blurb describes BROWN GIRLS as a poetic love letter to a modern generation of brown girls. I agree. 

Told in a choral “we” voice, BROWN GIRLS is the story of a group of young women of color growing up in Queens, New York. BROWN GIRLS captures the collective and individual experiences of their childhood, high school, and adult years through detailed imagery.

If you are a POC, BROWN GIRLS will speak to you regardless of whether you grew up in Queens. BROWN GIRLS conveys the complex feelings and emotions that come with grappling with identity, being caught between two worlds: the “colonized” and the “colonizer,” and navigating white-dominated spaces.

BROWN GIRLS speaks to the hypervisibility and invisibility of POC. 

“We gain recognition for our work. How does it feel to have achieved SO MUCH as a Woman of Color in your field? What does Your Community think of your work? (Are you their hero, villain, savior?) (...) Nobody asks about the work itself. We are so visible we have become invisible. Odd that this moment we dreamt of, we are faceless.”

The part on interracial dating feels all too familiar.

“But some of our friends don’t understand; instead, they imply that we are self-hating for choosing white partners, that they themselves are better for picking brown. But is anything ever that simple? Many of us are merely women who have tumbled into love. Who must learn to balance history with the individuals standing before us.”

Daphne writes with tenderness, warmth, and vulnerability. I’m in awe of the range of tones—fierce, sarcastic, introspective, heart-wrenching—this book is testament to the power of the written word. 

Let this book heal your (heavy) heart 🫀 during these trying times 🤍