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A review by themermaddie
Hello Girls by Brittany Cavallaro, Emily Henry
5.0
YES.
sharp, smart, thrilling, and absolutely brimming with feral teenage girl rage. winona and lucille are cutthroat and honestly so unhinged, but they're also teenage girls with no one but each other. cavallaro and henry have proven that they are a force to be reckoned with together, the writing is so dynamic and fresh and unexpectedly funny at times, the way this story flows together is so seamless.
this book is crazy, it moves so fast and it was so easy to finish in a day. winona and lucille run away from their abusive home and start on a cross-country road-trip to find winona's apparently not dead mother. along the way they meet a cast of quirky and shady characters while they scam, rob, and gamble their way across the country: hijinks ensue.
i was so taken by the way feminine rage is portrayed in this book. i feel like this could've been just an unhinged book about two best friends doing crazy shit on a road trip, but it's really a testament to cavallaro/henry's writing ability that elevated this story to a real Coming-Of-Rage tale. i loved winona's gradual unraveling from her hair to her clothes to her mannerisms, and the exploration of the rage that's been inside her all along. lucille was SO fun as a pov, i think my favourite bit was the passage where she talks about loving to make herself more unattractive. both these girls shed their 'member of society' skin when they're with one another; i hesitate to say that they bring out the 'best' in each other, given all the looting and crime in this book, but they definitely bring out the truth in each other.
cavallaro/henry explore so many themes in this book, from class to privilege to misogyny and the nature of beauty and value and it's just SO MUCH but it's also done so well. even when winona and lucille start to feel each other drifting, they are reunited by their shared rage and desperation, and it's feral and disgusting and primal and it's perfect.
tldr; high stakes teenage girl coming of rage story full of catharsis and devastation. this book is a beast with blood and flesh between its teeth.
sharp, smart, thrilling, and absolutely brimming with feral teenage girl rage. winona and lucille are cutthroat and honestly so unhinged, but they're also teenage girls with no one but each other. cavallaro and henry have proven that they are a force to be reckoned with together, the writing is so dynamic and fresh and unexpectedly funny at times, the way this story flows together is so seamless.
this book is crazy, it moves so fast and it was so easy to finish in a day. winona and lucille run away from their abusive home and start on a cross-country road-trip to find winona's apparently not dead mother. along the way they meet a cast of quirky and shady characters while they scam, rob, and gamble their way across the country: hijinks ensue.
i was so taken by the way feminine rage is portrayed in this book. i feel like this could've been just an unhinged book about two best friends doing crazy shit on a road trip, but it's really a testament to cavallaro/henry's writing ability that elevated this story to a real Coming-Of-Rage tale. i loved winona's gradual unraveling from her hair to her clothes to her mannerisms, and the exploration of the rage that's been inside her all along. lucille was SO fun as a pov, i think my favourite bit was the passage where she talks about loving to make herself more unattractive. both these girls shed their 'member of society' skin when they're with one another; i hesitate to say that they bring out the 'best' in each other, given all the looting and crime in this book, but they definitely bring out the truth in each other.
cavallaro/henry explore so many themes in this book, from class to privilege to misogyny and the nature of beauty and value and it's just SO MUCH but it's also done so well. even when winona and lucille start to feel each other drifting, they are reunited by their shared rage and desperation, and it's feral and disgusting and primal and it's perfect.
tldr; high stakes teenage girl coming of rage story full of catharsis and devastation. this book is a beast with blood and flesh between its teeth.