I really wished the last part of the book was what the whole book was like. I liked Coley learning about herself and interacting with different people. Her relationship with Sonya was toxic. I did enjoy her friendship with SJ and Alex. The ending disappointed me but overall it was a good book.

After trying to finish this for weeks, I am DNFing. I wanted to love this one so much, and I believe there is an audience for it, it’s just not for me. The characters and their relationship were difficult to root for and I didn’t really like them together. Perhaps that changes by the end of the book, but I was almost halfway and didn’t really care, unfortunately!
Knowing that this is a novel based on a music video makes sense. If you really love the original video, you might like this a lot.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

While coming of age LGBTQ+ YA books are a favorite genre of mine, this book fell a bit flat for me. It took me a long time to get invested in the characters and the relationship between Coley and Sonya. I think this may have been due to the format of chapters about Sonya's feelings - online blog posts with responses from friends.

By the end, I was touched by the growing relationship between Coley and her dad, Curtis as well as Coley's self-acceptance and self-love. I'm not sure that I fully buy that there is a love story between Sonya and Coley rather than merely a strong mutual attraction.

I wanted to love this book. I thought I would love this book. I just could not get into it and found myself avoiding reading it. Every character and plot line felt like a caricature of what would realistically happen. Most of the characters were unlikeable and the story just did not flow. It went on for way too long with very little really happening. I think this would have been better had she written short stories based on all of the songs on the album. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

“i could spend my life chasing her. devotedly. doggedly. but she could spend her life running. i might never catch up with her. that's what’s so scary about it.”

based on hayley kiyoko’s music video, girls like girls follows coley who moves to rural oregon after losing her mother. there she bumps into sonya, a girl who runs with the popular crowd. as they spend the summer dancing on train tracks & getting high at parties, both girls find themselves running towards & away from each other. but you can only run from the truth for so long.

there are moments in life that are forever memorialized. sometimes a song comes on radio & transports you elsewhere; other times a certain smell will take you back to when you were young & it’s crystal clear again, like sunshine on water.

girls like girls is that for me. reading hayley’s debut novel, suddenly it’s 2015 again. i’m back in my bedroom in grubby nike sweats, sobbing to future lesbian jesus, freshly heartbroken over a girl who holds my hand & gives me her jacket. a girl who makes the songs all make sense.

(i’ve been crossing all the lines, all the lines / kissed your girls and made you cry)

it felt like watching an extended cinematic cut, the closest to a full length production many rallied for. hayley’s a musician, of course her writing reads lyrical—a little cringey & dramatic but beautiful all the same.

it was comfort i didn’t know i sought for, because it’s not 2015 anymore. now i’m on the other side of it looking back at coley and sonya, having learnt what they did: that you can’t control people—how or why they hurt us, how they leave our lives, how sometimes that trust is earned back but other times we have to learn how to let go. that things are kind of scary, but lots of good things are.

mostly, however, it was comfort i didn’t know i needed as turns out i had it in me all along. i’m no longer eighteen, no longer running after a girl. heartbroken no more. how grateful i am to every version of girls like girls for that awakening, both then and now.

thank you @wednesdaybooks for the arc. girls like girls comes out on 30 may 2023.

i wanted to love this sooooo much because this music video was so influential to me when i was younger and it’s a debut book but…. i just didn’t. i think it was very interesting in terms of the build up of their relationship and the backstories and also the story taking place in 2006! however the pacing in the beginning was off, the relationship (?) timeline was so long, the ending was abrupt, and i just couldn’t get behind some of the writing. i feel so bad because i know this is a debut and i think it had so much potential but i struggled so much to read this and almost dnf’d a few times. i know some people are going to love this and it definitely has so much potential but it unfortunately wasn’t for me. i’ll include tws i remember!!

tw/cw: homophobia, internalized homophobia, absent parent, strained parental relationship, referenced suicide

Girls Like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko is a quick and engaging read that captures the experience of coming of age and coming out in a small town. Coley, the main character, is dealing with the recent loss of her mother and struggling to come to terms with her sexuality. When she meets Sonya, she is immediately drawn to her but worried about risking her already fragile heart. As they navigate their feelings for each other, Coley and Sonya must learn to accept themselves and each other.

Kiyoko's writing style is simple and straightforward, making the book easy to read and follow. She captures the emotions and experiences of first love and coming out in a relatable way that will resonate with many readers. The development of Coley's relationships with the side characters was particularly well done, and it added depth to the story.

However, the book does have its flaws. Sonya, the love interest, felt under-developed at times, which made it difficult to fully invest in her character. The pacing of the story could also have been better, with some sections feeling repetitive or rushed. Additionally, the ending felt unfinished, leaving several questions unanswered.

Overall, Girls Like Girls is a good debut effort from Hayley Kiyoko, with relatable characters and emotions that will resonate with many readers. While there are some flaws, it is an enjoyable and quick read that captures the experience of coming of age and coming out in a small town.

WOW, this is such an emotional ride!

This is a coming of age story about Coley, a seventeen year old who just tragically lost her mother & had to go live with her father who she hasn't seen or heard from in over a decade. She befriends Sonya & they get close very quickly. Everyone who's loved Coley has left & Sonya's never been with a girl before. They must navigate all these big experiences and emotions as they prepare for their senior year of high school.

Girls Like Girls is based on Hayley Kiyoko's song & music video of the same name. I absolutely lost my mind when I saw it was becoming a book! The song & music video came out the same summer I came out as bisexual so it's always had a special place in my heart 🤍 I honestly had no idea what the book would be about but absolutely loved it! My experience with realizing my sexuality and coming out couldn't have been more different than Coley & Sonya's experiences but so many young people go through the things that these two go through. And that makes books like this one SO important.

I am so happy for the teenagers that get to read books like this while they're on their own journey of self-discovery!

Content warning:
- loss of a parent
- suicide (happened prior to events of the book but mentioned often)

This story was cute and heartfelt, and I applaud the way that Hayley wrote her characters because they did feel mostly like real teenagers, which I think a new (YA) writer would likely struggle with. I also felt the story progression was realistic and very real and can imagine a lot of readers identifying with this story and enjoying it.

I think for me, this story felt just a bit under-baked. It’s still a solid read with believable relationship dynamics, but some of the layers of characterization, the extra little details that you might expect in a Jandy Nelson, Becky Albertali, or a Jenny Han book, just aren’t quite there for me.

Coley is an intriguing character, and I think her story could have been developed a bit more and the end further fleshed out, but I do think plenty of people will be happy with the story told here, and I’m pleasantly surprised by Hayley’s writing.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC! This book explains everything that comes before Hayley Kiyoko’s music video for “Girls Like Girls.” I guess I expected more of the aftermath, and maybe that’s why I didn’t love this book. Coley, the main character, is going through a lot of changes as she is forced to live with a father she never knew after her mom dies. The author does a good job at showing how hard of a transition this is for Coley, and I really enjoyed reading about her relationship with Curtis, her dad. I didn’t enjoy much else, though. The 17-year-old characters felt extremely unrealistic, including the way they talked to each other and how they talked online. I also thought Coley was just very whiny and too fake deep. Her inner thinking bothered me the entire time. I would have liked the book more if it was written in third person, so that we could get Sonya’s POV without having to read her public and private Live Journal entries. I do think high schoolers may enjoy this story, especially those who may be scared to come out, but it just wasn’t for me.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest rating and review.

CW: suicide, homophobia, bullying, teen drug and alcohol use, abortion, assault

I came into this book expecting a happy, fluffy rom-com, but oof, there were a lot of feels in this one! The reader gets to experience this story through two different points of view. The main point of view is that of the narrator, Coley. Interspersed throughout, we also get to read from the perspective of a secondary character, Sonya, through her LiveJournal entries. The characters and relationship are so dynamic. Even though the author did not provide very many physical descriptions of the characters, I felt like I could see and know each one.

I LOVED the development of the relationship between Coley and her dad. It was truly beautiful to watch them both learn how to communicate with each other and be in each other’s lives.

The only fault I see in this book is that the end wrapped up a little too quickly. It felt like Sonya flipped and had a change of heart a little too fast. Maybe if we had gotten to see a little bit more of her perspective in the end through one or multiple LiveJournal posts, it would’ve felt more believable.

I give this book 4.5/5 stars - rounded up to 5.

When I heard Hayley Kiyoko was coming out with a book based on the music video to girls like girls, I had to read it. Ultimately, this book fell a bit flat but that is not to say I didn’t enjoy it. My biggest issue is that I never felt connected to Coley and Sonya’s relationship. It felt kind of insta love and I never quite found myself wanting them to be together. Also, Sonya herself frustrated me a lot throughout the book so I wasn’t exactly rooting for her.
With that being said this book was still super engaging and enjoyable, and I think if you’ve had your eye on it, it’s worth the read.
I would definitely be interested to pick up another book by Hayley in the future.
Thank you Wednesday Books for the ARC copy in exchange for my honest review

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book brought me back to being 16, the ten age angst, the rage, the daddy issues!

While I’m not a lesbian, this book portrayed a relationship that was kept secret out of shame on one side and that is something I definitely connected with.

The way Hayley writes about mental illness, grief, and healing was incredibly real.

The main character, Coley, 16, moves in with her father, who she hasn’t seen or heard from in 13 years, after a traumatic and tragic incident. Reading how their relationship went from guarded and untrusting to an understanding and beautiful father daughter bond healed something in me. Even if I don’t get that in my own life, reading it happen to someone else really helped.

Coley meets the beautiful, outgoing, and definitely “straight” Sonya at the beginning of the summer and immediately knows that this girl is something special. It was such a roller coaster of emotions. I loved this book! I won’t give too much away, but I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone that has struggled with their sexuality, felt shame for loving someone they felt was “wrong for them”, or just needs to learn to love themselves a little more. Thank you for this book, Hayley! It is truly a beautiful story that deserves to be shared.

I really enjoyed this book! I would’ve absolutely loved reading this in high school and I think it captures the mid-2000s high school experience well while also benefitting from hindsight of mental health struggles. I found the struggles to be true to life of that era especially - really engaging read, I loved the main character and the small town vibes. Recommend wholly to anyone who knows Hayley Kiyoko by name or just likes some sapphic YA.

Girls like girls was cute like a YA movie, and very much Sarah dessen vibes. We know there’s more to the female MC right away but we don’t know what. And her developing relationships and how she handles finding friends is classic for this age group!
I think this is written well for the age but reading it as an adult wasn’t as fun!

If you know me, you know that the Girls like Girls music video completely changed my life as a teen. To say I was excited for the book is an understatement. I went into this with lower expectations as I doubted I would like this as much as the video and unfortunately, I was right to do so.
Although it was great to get more informations about our 2 leads, I found the book lacking emotional depth. Plus, I found that the pacing was a bit off. A lot of the scenes were repetitive, while others were very rushed.
With that said, I am still so glad I got to read this and I would still recommend it to anyone who to, just like me, the music video meant so much.
Thank you to Netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

e-arc provided by Netgalley

I liked this but it wasn't what I expected. We get to the part that's in the music video in the last 5% of the book and I thought this was going to be after that. Overall this was good I liked Coley but I didn't feel like there was a lot of build-up for the romance mostly telling and not showing and I wasn't really rooting for them I wanted Coley to help herself and find someone better suited for her

I had a hard time starting this one, as the set up was a basic YA romance and I was nervous about the rest of the book but eventually I was hooked and I finished it in 3 days.

It was probably the best book i've read this year! It was amazing to learn more about the story that Hayley created in her Music Video!

Book: Girls Like Girls
Author: Hayley Kiyoko
Rating: 3 Out of 5 Stars

I would like to thank the publisher, Wednesday Books, for sending me an ARC.

This is a young adult summer romance book. In this one, we follow Coley who is going through several changes. Her mother has just committed suicide and she finds herself living with her father-a man whom she barely knows. She is alone in the world and isn’t ready to let someone in. She believes that her heart cannot take it anymore. Then, she meets Sonya and feels something. There is this pull that she cannot deny. The two hit it off, but as things progress, there is a change and this leads to a whole lot of drama.

It is my understanding that this is based on the author’s song and music video. I have never heard of either one, so I am going into this one blind. I felt like the bones of a great story are here. We have this girl who is going through a lot right now and is trying to find herself. She meets someone and things end up going in a different route. She is with a new group of people and is in a new place. Coley’s life is just messy right now. I am going to go ahead and say it. I wish that it had been explored more. I felt like this aspect of the book was underdeveloped and it made the overall impact lacking. It felt like we were going through the motions of setting this stage without really giving us the how and the why behind it. It felt as if these big moments were just scenes instead of chapters or even a book. We were getting bits and pieces of the story rather than the whole picture.

The writing needed to have more depth. It was basic and lacking in the punch that was needed to drive the story home. This could have been an emotional and coming-of-age story that would have ranked right up there with Morgan Matson, Sarah Dessen, and Kasie West. However, it ended up being a collection of sequences that were missing the details that we needed. The drama and the bullying were greatly downplayed. There is a character here who is supposed to be a bully. The only reason I knew that he was a bully was because we were told that he was. While he wasn’t a very likeable character, his action did not make him come across as being the bully, but rather a jerk. If you are going to make a character a bully, then you have to have something in their character that makes them a bully.

This brings me to my next point. The characters were lacking development. There were characters in here whose story should have had more of an impact, but they didn’t. They didn’t come alive for me at all. I had a very difficult time remembering who is who and what their role is supposed to be. Not only that, but the lack of development just made me not care about them. I would have liked to see them explored more.
Overall, I felt that the bones of a great story are here, but it just wasn’t developed enough for me.

This book comes out on May 28, 2023.