Title: Hello Girls
Authors: Brittany Cavallaro and Emily Henry
Type: Fiction
Genre: YA, Contemporary
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
(HarperCollins)
Date published: August 6, 2019
A physical copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Best friends are forged by fire. For Winona Olsen and Lucille Pryce, that fire happened the night they met outside the police station—both deciding whether to turn their families in.
Winona has been starving for life in the seemingly perfect home that she shares with her seemingly perfect father, celebrity weatherman Stormy Olsen. No one knows that he locks the pantry door to control her eating and leaves bruises where no one can see them.
Lucille has been suffocating beneath the needs of her mother and her drug-dealing brother, wondering if there’s more out there for her than disappearing waitress tips and generations of barely getting by.
One harrowing night, Winona and Lucille realize they can’t wait until graduation to start their new lives. They need out. Now. All they need is three grand, fast. And really, a stolen convertible to take them from Michigan to Las Vegas can’t hurt.
⤖ My Review ⬻
Hello Girls was like no other YA contemporary that I’ve read before! I know that it’s a YA retelling of Thelma & Louise (or that it’s inspired by it) but I’ve never seen Thelma & Louise, so I’m sorry that I won’t be able to make any comparisons between the two for you guys. I have no idea how similar or dissimilar Hello Girls is to Thelma & Louise, but I can tell you that it was definitely a unique read for me. It was gritty and upsetting, and very very real! It was also about friendship and about two girls finding their way in the world when they haven’t been handed the best cards.
I found Winona and Lucille to be likeable and I definitely rooted for them. For me, though, they were completely unrelatable because I’ve never been through the things they’ve been through. But don’t worry, because I find that to be a good thing. I’d never want to go through what they went through and I’d never wish it on anyone! There was definitely a good dash of female empowerment in Hello Girs as well as a great amount of justice and revenge. Reading Hello Girls was both satisfying (when the girls got the upper hand) and stressful (when they didn’t), and I found that parts of it reminded me a little of Sadie by Courtney Summers which is one of my all time favourites! I recommend this one if anything or everything you read in my review sounds appealing.
⤖ About the Authors ⬻
Brittany Cavallaro is a poet, fiction writer, and old school Sherlockian. She is the New York Times bestselling author of the Charlotte Holmes novels from HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Books, including A STUDY IN CHARLOTTE, THE LAST OF AUGUST, THE CASE FOR JAMIE, and A QUESTION OF HOLMES. She’s also the author of the poetry collections GIRL-KING and UNHISTORICAL (University of Akron) and is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. She earned her BA in literature from Middlebury College and her MFA in poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lives in Michigan with her husband, cat, dog, and collection of deerstalker caps.
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Emily Henry writes stories about love and family for both teens and adults. She studied creative writing at Hope College and the New York Center for Art & Media Studies, and now spends most of her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the part of Kentucky just beneath it. Find her on Instagram @EmilyHenryWrites.
Yay! We liked it the same amount! It was great!
Yaaaaaaas
I was also pleasantly surprised by this book. I thought I was gonna DNF this but it never happened. Even if I couldn’t relate, I felt that I had to keep going with the story.
I know exactly what you mean! I’m glad that we both ended up liking it 🙂