I really wanted to love this book and went in with high hopes. The subject matter isn’t the problem, but the book itself is hard to follow. The pacing is odd and frequently changes and it was difficult to discern the timeline or what was happening and when. I didn’t feel like enough time was spent on any of the three main characters and didn’t find myself caring too much for either of them. None of the stories but Dawn’s was wrapped in in a real or satisfying way. Some of the plot points are handled poorly as well, with Dawn getting over a traumatic experience too quickly to be realistic. The writing itself seemed juvenile, even for YA. Overall I think this book had potential but squandered it.

This story shows the amazing diversity of LGBTQ+ people through its characters. The author is dedicated to showing different experiences. Each character represents a different part of being LGBTQ+. There's Dawn, a brave transgender girl; Georgia, a confident lesbian; and Edie, who's queer and shows that sexual orientation is complex.

The story not only talks about LGBTQ+ experiences but also the challenges everyone faces while figuring out who they are and growing up. The characters' journeys are like a woven picture, showing how they understand their LGBTQ+ identity while dealing with growing up. They also have dreams and deal with family relationships.

When I think about how this story would have helped me when I was younger, I know it would have meant a lot. Seeing different LGBTQ+ people in the story would have helped me feel understood and okay with myself. This book could help young people feel like they belong and understand themselves better. It's a special book that's not just fun but also teaches important things.

What a sweet book. Dawn, Edie and Georgia are three graduating senior queer best friends in Houston, sorting out their own lives and relationships against the backdrop of Dawn's documentary-in-progress, that's up for a scholarship-winning big prize at the Austin Film Festival. The OPPOSITE of hilarity ensues, besides the times the group's youth and strong friendship gives them ten minutes to let down their hair and laugh between family, school, and self-created crises.

I cared whether Dawn got her movie done, I wanted to see what happened with Georgia and her crush, and I felt invested in Edie's outcomes with her conservative Christian parents. (Although I was less interested in her as a character than any of the others in the book, even the more minor ones.) Walls' writing is much more lyrical that that in most YA novels, and it suited the art and media interests of the main characters. Sometimes I could just focus on that and it moved the story along no matter what was going on.

I enjoy books with a strong sense of place, and don't read that many set in Houston, so this was interesting.

An entertaining, hopeful book about queer joy. Though this book shows its characters suffering under transphobic and homophobic violences of varying degrees, it always focuses on the fact that these characters ultimately deserve love, happiness, and fulfillment. I loved watching these characters go through teenage angst and find themselves more clearly, fall in love in a hundred different ways. I also enjoyed that the characters consistently were the focus, not their relationships. It was always about how they were feeling, how they were experiencing the world, not about getting us squealing over their romances. It was important that they loved, not who they loved.

Highly recommend for queer teens.

i love talking about queer love. i love how we, as a community, are able to free ourselves from the restrictive definition of “love” dominated by white, heterosexual (including alloromantic and allosexual), cisgender and able-bodied thinkers. how we immerse ourselves in the love of our friends, our partners, our (sometimes chosen) families and anyone else we might love.

so what is queer love?

“it’s resistance.
your best friend in the entire world telling you something at 3:00 a.m. something they’ve never said out loud before.
yearning, dude, just yearning.”

“the queer girl is going to be okay” by dale walls is about a trans girl called dawn attempting to juggle finding (romantic) love and caring for her father with depression, while editing a short film for a festival to win a scholarship for film school. it’s a novel that shows us the many facets of queer love. queer love is the love dawn has for her friends, edie and georgia, who have their own struggles which are explored in this novel through multiple third person limited narrations, one for each of the best friends. edie’s christian parents expect her to be perfect: straight As, heterosexual, simply a daughter to brag about. georgia wants to be a writer, but her anxiety surrounding college applications and her friends leaving her is huge and all-consuming.

what i loved most about this novel is that queer friendship was at its centre, and one of the key answers to the question what queer love is. to me, queer love is not inherently romantic, it can be (and for many people, this is the main form of queer love they experience) platonic, finding community among other queer people, who you love deeply. (queer) platonic love is beautiful, and i love to see it being celebrated in fiction, so reading this was very validating.

the characters were all complex with unique issues that made it interesting to read about them, and i enjoyed reading from all three perspectives, although the slightly odd pacing of this novel made certain plot lines quite difficult to follow.

unfortunately, the rest of the book fell a bit flat for me. the plot felt a bit jumbled, and although i did appreciate seeing the three distinct point of views (in third person, which i always enjoy), it made the narrative feel a bit messy, as it would jump mid-chapter and leave me a little confused. some plot lines were satisfyingly resolved. others were resolved off-page and others were left hanging in the air by the end of the novel, which i did not enjoy as much. i usually like open ends, but in this case, the sudden ending caught me off guard and i felt like there could have been some more character development.

i also sadly did not really like the writing style. like the plot, it felt a bit jumbled, with confusing sentence structures and strange descriptions, as well as some jarring repetitions that took away from the flow of the novel.

dale walls clearly has many interesting ideas and a talent for developing endearing, flawed and lovable characters so i’m interested in what she releases in the future while acknowledging that this wasn’t for me in terms of plot and writing!

“people think it’s the same. they want to say we’re just like everyone else, but we’re not. queerness is itself. queer longing is specific”
and so is, in my opinion, queer love.
it’s beautiful, it’s revolutionary, it can be anything you want and i love talking about it.

thank you to netgalley for the arc!

First thing that I should’ve realised before even reading is that I’m not the target/intended audience. I didn’t connect with a lot of what was happening because of that, which is fine, but it brought down the overall reading experience for me.

The representation is amazing and I liked the characters, I think there’s something in each of them that will speak to you as the reader. I think the characters definitely triumphed the plot and the writing, but again this might be down to the age range of this book being pitched lower than myself.

I didn’t have a bad time at all, and would definitely recommend this for a younger audience!

This book follows Dawn, Edie and Georgia as they each face their own obstacles before leaving for college. Dawn is trying to win a film festival with a documentary about queer people and their experiences. Edie is trying to figure out her relationship with her non-binary partner while trying to fit into her parents’ golden child image. While Georgia tries to figure out what she wants from her future while starting a new relationship and dealing with family drama.

I really enjoyed this book, the characters were quite relatable and I’d love to have read this when I was in highschool. Dawn, Edie and Georgia aren’t perfect, but they felt quite real because if it.

This was such a cozy and heartwarming story about friendship and facing new beginnings as a teenager. Thank you so much Netgalley and Levine Querido for providing me with this arc.

[Thanks to NetGalley and the author Dale Walls for providing me with an ARC copy of The Queer Girl is Going to be Okay]

I must admit that I requested this book impulsively after seeing its fabulous cover, but I stayed till the end for the meaningful content. I'm sure this book will save teenagers girls' lives, empower them, make them feel seen. This book screams "you are not alone, girl!"

This book has everything in it: a beautiful friendship between three high school girls, family issues, queer representation and relationships, school problems, but above it all, love.

Love is everywhere between these pages, and I can see how much love the author put into their book: queer love, love between family members, love between friends (let's not forget that friendship is a type of love), love for one's passions, love for one's life, body, and identity. I felt all of it.

Love is also the main theme of Dawn's documentary, which is what ties Dawn, Edie, and Georgia's stories together as we follow them in their daily life.

Since I'm in my mid-twenties, I'm not part of the target audience of this book anymore, but this didn't stop me from deeply caring for these three girls: I cheered for them and cried with them while following them along the difficult journey that is the last year of high school. Each one of them has something to learn.

Dawn has to learn that her dreams are worth pursuing and that working towards her goals doesn't necessarily mean leaving her family behind; Georgia knows she wants to be a poet and a writer but she's afraid she's not good enough and that she hasn't done enough in school; Edie has to learn to fight for herself and her loved ones, and that sometimes taking care of yourself means keeping a distance from people who hurt you even if they claim to love you.

The book structure is made of chapters each one adopting one of the girl's points of view. I loved how Edie, Georgia and Dawn perspectives blended to form a complete and detailed picture of their friendship and daily life. It made the characters feel very dynamic and real, as if I had known them in real life.

Another part I deeply enjoyed are the excerpts from Dawn's documentary about queer love: I really liked listening to all these different stories and perspectives. I think this strategy also helps the reader see Dawn's documentary coming to life as she proceeds to watching the clips and editing them.

I recommend this book to anyone, no matter their age. This is a great debut novel, and I can't help but wonder what Dale Walls might write next!

The characters in this debut novel are engaging and have interesting backstories and character arcs. It is inspiring to watch them struggle and emerge victorious from the realistically-portrayed challenges of growing up queer.

I think this is an author to look out for... but unfortunately, I don't think their standard of writing is quite there yet. There are moments of genuine luminosity, but also confusing sentences with nebulous metaphors. This has the bones of an excellent novel, but it needs more work to get it there. With a good edit to remove basic errors like it getting dark in one paragraph and the sun setting in the next, and the architectural impossibility of a cylindrical ceiling, I'd raise it another star.

Overall, it was a good story and I wanted to love it, but the writing kept jarring me out of being completely engaged.

This is a really good book and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes this genre.
The Queer Girl is Going to be Okay follows three perspectives, Dawn, Edie and Georgia
Edie has a very religious family and is trying to find a way to introduce Ben, the person she's dating to her parents, the only problem?, Ben is nonbinary, And because of this is finding it hard to really express herself to Ben.
Georgia is trying to get used to her mom's new boyfriend
And finally Dawn, (Who made a documentary named The Queer Girl is going to be Okay) who is trying to finally, find someone to love.
It simplifies and shows queer love in a way that it doesn't feel forced, But... understood..
Good for anyone wanting a deep, and inspiring book to read.

I absolutely love this book and I'm so happy that I stumbled upon it and picked it as my first e-arc read. A huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this review copy, all opinions are my own.

This coming-of-age story follows a group of friends as they try to navigate life and love - queer love, to be precise. There's Georgia who's struggling with college admissions while also dealing with a difficult situation at home. Edie having to hide her queerness and relationship from her very strict, religious parents. And Dawn, working on her film about queer love, which could get her a scholarship for a fresh new start, while she tries to get a grasp of what queer love means to her.

It's a beautiful book. The kind I wish I had access to as a teenager. It celebrates queerness in so many different ways but it also doesn't shy away from portraying the struggles of it. I found bits of myself in each of these characters and it felt extremely comforting to feel that seen and understood. One of the things I also loved about this book is how it really put emphasis on the preciousness of having friends who love you for you, who are going to support you through everything.

The writing style flows very easily and has emotional depth. I also enjoyed the many references to movies, music and poetry. It's full of little details about things that make life beautiful, I found that very endearing.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to everyone, but specifically queer people and even more specifically queer teenagers. It's a book that I believe can bring comfort and joy to so many of us and help us love ourselves even more.

This is an amazing coming of age story following three queer friends and their pursuit of love. These three high school girls tackle all kinds of love. From loving your family, even when it’s hard to be your authentic self around them, to finding new love even, when it’s not what you expected it to be, you’ll be hooked from the first page. The incredibly raw and painful parts of this amazing book are beautifully balanced by the heart filling and hopeful parts. If you need a quick queer coming of age read, I would highly recommend adding this to the top of your TBR.

I always think about how different my teen years would have been if there was books like this available. Then I get angry that some kids still won't get the chance to read a story like this. Walls has written a book that should be available in all high school libraries.

Thank you to Levine Querido and NetGalley for providing an eARC for a honest review.

Thank you Net Galley and Levine Querido for sending me a free copy of the book in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own.

The Queer Girl is Going to be Okay is a story that follows three best friends - Dawn, Georgia, and Edie - who are queer. Dawn is working on a documentary capturing her fellow queer peers and their stories to a film festival. If she wins, she will get a scholarship to go to college to study film. This story features some difficult topics of love, being queer, the stress of college applications, and friendship between these three girls.

I absolutely adored the girls' friendship! Each person contributed to the friendship, and they had each other's backs during difficult times. By the end of the book, their friendship bond grew stronger, and it was a beautiful thing to witness.

Dale Wells did an amazing job with the characters, giving them their unique personalities. Although this book is for a younger audience than me (young adult), I felt I was able to relate to the characters presently as a 23-year-old - especially with being queer. I also remember feeling scared to come out in high school, trying to find healthy relationships, and worrying about college.

Wells also did a beautiful job with the LGBTQ+ representation and I felt this was a great read if you are looking for a spectrum of representations (lesbian, transgender, non-binary, etc.).

There were a few issues I had with the book. One was the descriptions. I felt like I skimmed through the descriptions, since at times it felt dragged out. Personally, I am more of a dialogue person and would prefer not as many descriptions.

Another issue I had was I felt like I was left with some unanswered questions with Edie's part of the story. To me, it didn't feel like her issues resolved with her family. Maybe Wells will be writing a sequel and resolve it there? I don't know, but it left me unsatisfied.

One last issue - which did not affect my rating at all - was the amount of spelling, grammar, and formatting issues. I wasn't sure if it was because it was not a final product (as it mentioned in the beginning of the ARC). I would hope these issues get fixed before publication.

Overall, I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars.

don't think i can articulate how much this books means to me but trust me, it is good and hopeful and so full of love and joy and tragedy and bittersweetness like it's beautiful. this was the perfect thing i needed at the moment and im telling you, it's worth it (so much so i sent an email to the author telling how much i felt seen by it)

the queer girl is going to be okay was a good young adult book, I really did enjoy but as someone in their late 20s I don't think I was the intended audience for the book, I would recommend this book to a friend or fellow book lover. but still I would give it a 5 stars it was really a sweet book.

Not for my age group but I do think that high schoolers should be reading this. Loving the representation!