Book Review: Girls Like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko

Title: Girls Like Girls
Author: Hayley Kiyoko
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Release Date: May 30th, 2023
Rating: 2//5 Stars

I requested this book because I’m starting to really like contemporary romance and trying to expand myself within the genre, however this one was a huge miss for me.

Now I didn’t know any of this until after I finished the book, but apparently Hayley Kiyoko is an actress and singer, and the book is based off of a music video for her song “Girls Like Girls” which is a super cute concept, but you can tell it is her first book.

Coley is not a super likebale character – she starts off by talking about how she’s not like other girls: but not in the way boys mean it, and then talks how she’s not like other girls because she’s sad and moody and likes girls not boys. *eye roll*

This book is set in the summer of 2006 and it’s very obviously so, Sonya uses a LiveJournal to blog her summer, they speak on AIM everyday, and yet somehow the small town homophobia is set in the early 1990s.

Now I grew up in the suburbs of a major city, so my teenage years in 2006 were way different than those of a small town, but the way characters responded to the lgbtq characters just felt off to me. They just really seemed to ramp up the homophobia for ~plot reasons~ and I was not a fan.

This was also a very character driven story which is fine, not always my thing personally but it helps if the characters are likable. I despised Sonya, almost all her friends except SJ and the side character Faith.

I just felt like neither love interest had much of a personality outside of each other and like one hobby.

Overall this book just wasn’t my vibe, it was predictable and too character focused for my liking, and you can tell it was a first book. I do hope Kiyoko continues to write though and I’m curious to see what she does in the future.

Thank you NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the chance to read this book, and although it wasn’t the book for me, I do hope it finds its target audience .

Girls like Girls comes out on May 30th!!