She Gets the Girl (2022)
A sapphic romance about the difference between fantasy and reality, and not taking people at first impression.
This is the story of two students – Alex and Molly – who leave behind troubled home lives to go to college, and strive to improve themselves and their love lives along the way.
I enjoyed the parts where they learn to look deeper than their initial perceptions of one another, and realise that fantasy isn’t truth. Both of them are chasing an idea of a relationship that will make them happy, but reality is harsher than fiction. I also liked the parallel of their difficult home situations, and the vulnerable conversations they have about them.
Some of the conversations and plot lines feel quite nonsensical, even for a romance novel, and the early chapters hit my second-hand embarrassment squick several times.
That said, I raced through it and finished the whole thing in just three sessions. I was captured by the characters quickly and I wanted to see the resolution.
Plot summary
Alex is fleeing a broken home and broken relationship; her mother is a self-destructive alcoholic and her girlfriend Natalie has criticised her for being emotionally unavailable. She wants to prove to Natalie that she can be a “good person” and win her back. Molly is shy and has an overprotective mother, and is determined to find her voice and date Cora, a girl she’s had a crush on since school.
After a chaotic first meeting, they hatch the sort of cunning plan only found in fiction: Alex will help Molly get a date with Cora, and her altruism will win Natalie over. This means spending a lot of time together, and they quickly become best friends, more open and vulnerable with each other than anybody else in their lives. (I’m surprised nobody assumes they’re already a couple.)
Alex’s mother gets into a car accident and she has to return home to bail her out of jail; her employer from a food truck job is a recovering alcoholic and helps get her mother checked into rehab. Molly has a difficult conversation with her mother about her Asian identity, and the two resolve to find a healthier balance in future.
The plan works – Alex meets Natalie when her music tour brings her to town; Molly gets her date with Cora – but they both realise they prefer each other’s company, and the book ends with the two of them starting to date.
Quotes and highlights
Chapter 5, when Alex is settling into Pittsburgh and feeling how different it is to her home (page 55):
It’s not that there isn’t a wealth of options, even if this is an unfamiliar city. I mean, it would be easy. I could just tag along with one of these groups to a frat party. Find a grungy bar to hang out at. Sneak into a concert and disappear into the crowd after someone buys me a drink.
In another world I’d do it in a heartbeat. But in this one, even with the distance between us, I’m trying to keep on the straight and narrow. I promised Natalie I would, and I want to keep that promise.
Still, I can’t help but feel like a washed-up old man, reminiscing about his youth. The good ol’ days.
If I could roll my eyes at myself, I would.
Chapter 7, when Alex looks back on the party where she met Molly and realises she misjudged her (page 86):
And all at once it dawns on me that she wasn’t judging me. She was just… frustrated. That she couldn’t find a way to get close to Cora.
I think about our game of Never Have I Ever. All the rounds Molly was left sitting there with five fingers. All the rounds she got us all out with all the things she hadn’t done, from never smoking a cigarette to never pulling an all-nighter to never going to a concert.
And now I feel like the biggest asshole in the entire world for what I said. Especially because she’s sitting here doing the one thing I can’t. Being honest. Being vulnerable about something, even when it’s a sensitive subject. Even when it’s hard.
Chapter 21, when Alex witnesses Molly’s mum be visibly disgusted by Korean food at a food market, even though she’s Korean herself (page 228):
I’m silent, waiting for her to continue. Or to stop. I’m not going to push her to talk about something when she doesn’t want to. Especially because I get what it’s like when it’s hard to talk about your mom.
“She’s got a pretty twisted view of her heritage.” Molly prods at the bulgogi with her fork. “She was adopted from South Korea and grew up in a white family in this total crap hole of a town, and people were just really shitty to her.…” Her voice trails off, and she cringes. “And part of me gets it. When you grow up getting called racial slurs and being pushed into thornbushes in elementary school, or shot with a BB gun on your walk home from the grocery store, I can see why you’d start hating that part of yourself and everything else associated with it.”
Chapter 26, when Molly remembers how she misjudged Alex based on her appearance, and her boss turns out to be a good egg (page 264):
“Well, you’ve got my name. You want my number, too, babe?” he asks, grabbing on to his oversize belt buckle like he’s the campus sheriff.
I wait for her to flirt with him, to brush her long blond hair behind one ear and charm him into leaving a big tip. But instead, she drops the phony smile, giving him an almost despondent look that I’ve seen only once before.
It’s the way she looked at me before rugby tryouts, when she talked about how people treat her like a “bimbo” because she looks the way she does. I’ve never given much thought to how people thinking you’re hot could possibly be a negative, but… clearly it can suck around assholes like this. Or even not total assholes. I jumped to conclusions about her, which, after seeing this… makes me feel even crappier. I didn’t treat her much better than Belt Buckle is.
I always accused people of not giving me a chance, but that’s what I did to her.
“Come on,” he presses. “I’ll take you somewhere real nice.”
Alex rolls her eyes as she digs his change out of the register. Normally I’m sure she’d defend herself just like she did with me, but maybe she doesn’t want to make a scene in front of her boss.
Just as she’s about to hand him the change, Jim steps up from behind her. He takes the guy’s ten back out of the register and leans out the window.
“Why don’t you take yourself somewhere real nice?” he says, throwing the bill out the window, making Belt Buckle chase it all the way down to the sidewalk.