If you’re looking for a fun yet emotionally impactful sapphic romcom, She Gets the Girl needs to be on your TBR. She Gets the Girl follows two freshmen in college, Alex Blackwood and Molly Parker, who each have their own girl problems to deal with. Molly has been crushing on a girl since high school who’s now at the same college as her while Alex is dealing with a rough break-up. When Alex devises a plan to help Molly get together with her crush so Alex can prove to her ex-girlfriend that she’s a good person and capable of commitment so they can get back together, neither of them expects to fall in love with each other in the process.
The vibes in this book are impeccable. If you love the types of 90s and early 2000s movies about getting the girl/guy by being trained from someone who knows what they’re doing but want to have a queer version of it, then I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
What I loved most about both Alex and Molly was how they weren’t perfect characters. They were realistic, flawed characters that made it that much more fun to see them struggle their way to success. Alex is initially almost unlikable because she has such a blasé attitude about life, faithfulness and relationships but the more you get to know her and her struggles with her alcoholic mother as well as her tendency to look for partners who make her feel like she needs to prove something, the more you can’t help falling for her a little bit. Alex has an incredibly fun personality but it comes at the cost of people sometimes having misconceptions about her or not seeing her as worthy of girlfriend material, which sometimes is the case for Molly, who lashes out for her own reasons. Speaking of Molly, she’s a super awkward girl who has a hard time meeting new people (relatable) and is often drowned out in conversations, not because she has nothing to say but because she struggles with making herself heard. I could relate to both Molly and Alex in equal parts and I loved how this set up of Alex trying to help Molly feel more confident and getting her first real relationship gave us all the trademark scenes one associates with a She’s All That inspired romcom—think makeover, dating experiments, flirting practice and so much more!
Because they are such flawed characters, there was a lot of opportunity for growth and self-discovery, which the author duo showcased beautifully. Both Molly and Alex grown on their own but also together through their eventual friendship and romance. It was such a sweet romantic journey to watch their initial antagonistic tension turn into the more fun kind of tension later on. This is for sure a slow burn seeing as Molly and Alex are both invested in other people for most of the novel, but the intimate friendship they build along the way makes the romantic payoff in the end all the more worthwhile. I love these types of narratives where characters build a strong foundation first and this book definitely delivered on that.
Beyond the fun times and the romance there are also some more serious topics addressed in this novel that rounded out the characters a lot. Molly, for example, has always seen her mother as her best friend but going to college, she wants to cut the umbilical cord, so to speak, and be on her own, hard as that may be. I could relate to Molly so much and I think a lot of readers who ever went off to college or feel anxious about it will do, too, because it’s so hard to ostensibly leave the people you love behind and not wanting them to hurt because you’re now experiencing new things yet also not wanting to feel like you owe them being available 24/7, either. It was exhilarating to see this kind of representation and I really appreciated it. Alex, meanwhile, is dealing with her alcoholic mother who only ever seems to reach out—or care about her—to her when she needs money to buy more drinks. It was so painful to see Alex muddle her way through these interactions and feeling like she was worth nothing to her mother beyond being a wallet and my heart broke for her. While I won’t spoil how this particular plotline culminates, it was truly harrowing yet incredibly empowering to see how Alex fought for herself and her future.
All in all, She Gets the Girl was an amazing read and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that one day, we’ll see a movie adaptation because I need to see Molly and Alex go rollerskating together.
With all the classic 90s romcom vibes and a pitch-perfect balance of banter and individual growth, She Gets the Girl is an engaging, fun opposites-attract sapphic romance, perfect for fans of Blake’s Delilah Green Doesn’t Care and Smith’s Not My Problem.
She Gets the Girl is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of April 5th 2022.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
She’s All That meets What If It’s Us in this swoon-worthy hate-to-love YA romantic comedy from #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Five Feet Apart Rachael Lippincott and debut writer Alyson Derrick.
Alex Blackwood is a little bit headstrong, with a dash of chaos and a whole lot of flirt. She knows how to get the girl. Keeping her on the other hand…not so much. Molly Parker has everything in her life totally in control, except for her complete awkwardness with just about anyone besides her mom. She knows she’s in love with the impossibly cool Cora Myers. She just…hasn’t actually talked to her yet.
Alex and Molly don’t belong on the same planet, let alone the same college campus. But when Alex, fresh off a bad (but hopefully not permanent) breakup, discovers Molly’s hidden crush as their paths cross the night before classes start, they realize they might have a common interest after all. Because maybe if Alex volunteers to help Molly learn how to get her dream girl to fall for her, she can prove to her ex that she’s not a selfish flirt. That she’s ready for an actual commitment. And while Alex is the last person Molly would ever think she could trust, she can’t deny Alex knows what she’s doing with girls, unlike her.
As the two embark on their five-step plans to get their girls to fall for them, though, they both begin to wonder if maybe they’re the ones falling…for each other.
