Girls girls girls : a novel / Shoshana von Blanckensee.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

One of ELLE 's Best Queer Books of 2025

" Girls Girls Girls floored me. . . . It's completely extraordinary." --Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich

A vibrant queer Jewish debut "teeming with heart, angst, love, and self discovery" (Emily Austin) about a young woman who, caught between the expectations of others and her own evolving desires, is forced to make a series of fraught, life-altering decisions.

It's the summer of '96 and best friends (and secret girlfriends) Hannah and Sam are driving across the country from Long Beach, New York, to the fabled queer paradise of San Francisco, free from the harsh gazes of their neighbors and the stifling demands of Hannah's devout Orthodox Jewish mother. In San Francisco, they will finally be together as a real couple, out in the open, around other queer people . . . even if the move means leaving behind Hannah's beloved Bubbe.

When the financial strains of West Coast living push the girls to start stripping at The Chez Paree--yet another secret Hannah must keep from her family--Hannah feels trapped. Sam wants her at the club, but Hannah hates stripping nearly as much as she hates disappointing Sam. Then Hannah meets Chris, an older butch lesbian, who is immediately taken with her. Desperate to stay in San Francisco and away from the leering men at the club, Hannah proposes an escort arrangement.

But as Hannah falls deeper into Chris' world and Sam starts to meet new queer friends, a rift forms between them. Without Sam, who is Hannah? And what does San Francisco mean to Hannah alone--a space rich with queer possibility or an intimidating, unfamiliar place just as lonely as the one she'd left behind? An achingly tender and resonant story of survival, first love, and growing up queer in the '90s, Girls Girls Girls is a piercing exploration of the choices we make in the thrilling and often confounding search for ourselves and home.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

In Von Blanckensee's propulsive debut, a gay teen comes of age in oppressive 1990s Long Beach, N.Y., before heading west in search of freedom. At 18, Hannah and her girlfriend, Sam, hatch plans to leave Long Beach and drive across the country to San Francisco, where they can live openly as a couple. In Reno, they meet another lesbian pair, each of whom earns a living by stripping. After Hannah and Sam arrive in San Francisco with little money, they rent a small room and desperately try to find jobs. Inspired by the couple they met in Reno, Sam pressures Hannah into auditioning with her for a strip club whose manager is open to hiring girls without experience. While Sam takes to dancing and soon meets new friends, Hannah doesn't like it and instead finds work as an escort, which strains their relationship. When Hannah finds out her grandmother is terminally ill, she returns to Long Beach, where she reconnects with another close friend and attempts to chart a path forward. Von Blanckensee pulls the reader in with this voice-driven and heartfelt narrative, and adds texture with gritty details of 1990s San Francisco. This delivers the goods. Agent: Amanda Orozco, Transatlantic Agency. (June)Correction: A previous version of this review misstated which of the main characters takes to stripping and which finds work as an escort.

Booklist Review

Who are we in and outside of our relationships? With heartfelt introspection and refreshing self-discovery, von Blanckensee's coming-of-age novel explores this question of how our identities coalesce with those--friends, family, lovers--who hold our attention. Set in the 1990s, Girls Girls Girls follows its queer teenage protagonist Hannah as she departs Long Beach, New York, leaving behind her Orthodox Jewish mother, for what she imagines as a socially liberating San Francisco. Accompanied by her girlfriend Sam, Hannah's journey brings an exciting sense of adventure, invoking deep empathy for the human desire to belong. Navigating financial challenges, relationship anxieties, and intense grief, Hannah's first-person narration is both strong and vulnerable. This balance situates maturity as an enduring curiosity to understand the world, even in moments of fear. A largely plot-driven novel, von Blanckensee's fast-paced debut sensitively portrays how the process of showing one's authentic self is a return home. Readers interested in witnessing a character's growth may be taken by the novel's exploration of what it means to "[b]egin and end. Then begin again."

Kirkus Book Review

A young queer woman moves across the country in order to live her truth. During the summer of 1996, best friends Hannah and Sam leave Long Beach, New York, to embark on their cross-country move to San Francisco just after they graduate from high school. The girls want to leave their hometown for many reasons--including Hannah's difficult relationship with her Orthodox Jewish mother--but primarily because they are secretly dating. Once the girls get to California, they realize two things: They can finally be out as a couple, and there's a good chance they cannot afford to stay. Semireluctantly, Hannah and Sam begin stripping at the Chez Paree. As their money troubles fade, a distance slowly opens between them. Sam happily trades fantasy for cash while Hannah resents the job. Sam yearns to meet other lesbians while Hannah struggles to feel at home within the community and herself: "I want to belongtoo much. I want to belongso much, I end up not belonging at all." When Hannah meets Chris, an older, troubled lesbian at the club, her relationship with Sam begins to crumble--and she begins to find herself. Though craving a safe space for her queerness, Hannah's biggest worry is leaving her Bubbe behind. When Bubbe travels to San Francisco to visit, she tells Hannah, "When you're older you will look back at this time in your life, and then you will be able to see yourself very clearly. You will say,How on earth did I get all that chutzpah?" Their relationship serves as the tender and emotional throughline of the novel, as Hannah finds connection to her family, religion, and herself through her grandmother. Despite the dense plot, von Blanckensee deftly explores Judaism, addiction, grief, queer desire, found families, generational trauma, and cultivating the courage to be yourself. This debut is a beautiful portrait of being young, queer, and free (or "frei," as Bubbe would say). Though steeped in nostalgia, this coming-of-age debut is timeless. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.