ARC Review: Hello Girls

Okay, so I’ve been sitting here for the past ten minutes trying to figure out how to write an intro to this blog post, and I’ve got nothing. Mostly because I just want to dive into absolutely yelling about this book. Spoiler alert: this is going to be an ARC review. And my friends, you are in for a wild ride. In the absolute best way possible.

So without further ado… WOW.

This is Hello Girls, the ferocious and lightning-fast young adult novel coming your way later this summer from Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins). Authors Brittany Cavallaro & Emily Henry have teamed up for what is honestly the most exhilarating, unapologetically female YA contemporary I’ve ever read. Its release date (8/6/2019) is the day before my nineteenth birthday, so you best believe I’m going to be yelling on the Internet.

Okay. Let’s go.

Hello Girls is the story of Winona and Lucille, two very different seventeen-year-old girls who hail from the same small town on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. They’ve been best friends ever since they met one brutal night outside the police station, where they were both debating whether to turn their families in. When Winona’s home situation reaches its breaking point, the two tear down the highway in a stolen car, en route to Las Vegas and an escape from everything holding them down.

Winona’s life looks picture-perfect from the outside in. She’s the daughter of a celebrity meteorologist whose sunny demeanor only exists for the camera. At home, he’s a stone-cold, abusive father, who has mistreated Winona to no end ever since her mom has been out of the picture. Winona stays fully silent about her father’s abuse— until the night she meets Lucille, who sees her scars and shows her her own. Lucille lives dirt-poor with her mom and her certifiably awful brother. She works a full-time job to sustain her family, even though her leech of a brother makes a habit of stealing her money to support his own drug-dealing.

The two girls have already collided when we open the story, and it doesn’t take long for them to get out of dodge— as in, the hell out of Michigan; an escape has always been their plan. When Winona learns that there’s a possibility her long-gone mother might not have died of an overdose after all, it’s destination Vegas— and they’ll do anything to get there. Together.

Here’s the thing about this book. It gives literally zero (expletives) about what anybody thinks. And I mean that in terms of Winona and Lucille themselves, but also about the general theme that I’m getting here, which is girls being tired of being pushed around. Winona and Lucille’s escape is not about running away for fear— it’s about taking charge of their lives and saying no to the mistreatment and abuse. They’re not settling for what they have anymore. They’re saying no, we deserve more than this. We deserve a world that looks better than this.

The story zooms by you faster than their stolen convertible— this is such a quick read, mostly because everything happens so fast. The girls start out with next to no money, and they’ll do anything to get what they need to get by— and yes, that includes breaking the law. A lot. (I saw this pitched as Thelma and Louise for the next generation, and honestly, there’s nothing more accurate I could think of.)

Nothing goes the way you think it’s going to go. It kept me on the edge of my seat, but not in the way a thriller or suspense novel would. Instead, it’s this reckless urgency, the do-or-die survivalism of it all, the notion that whatever comes next, they’re going to brave it together, and absolutely kick its ass no matter what it costs. There’s no turning back from their pasts— they can only look forward.

Winona and Lucille are unapologetically ruthless; they’re angry and fed-up and starving for revenge. And it is awesome. They don’t give a single flying heck what anybody else thinks. They’re tired of being treated like girls; they’re more than ready to grow up and think and act and live for themselves. They belong to themselves first, and nobody else— especially not the men who have mistreated them and beat them down and tried to make them feel worthless.

Another thing that this novel does fantastically is the love between best friends. The only thing the girls each have in the whole world is each other— and they would do anything for the other person. They make sacrifices and watch each other’s backs, all for the sake of persevering together. And somehow, even with all their reckless abandon, they aren’t just an angry tag-team trying to stick it to the world. They live in sync with one another, laughing together and finishing each other’s thoughts and sharing heartfelt, all-too-real conversations. They’re the perfect team.

And regarding setting… pretty much the only place you need to look to get a feel for the setting and atmosphere of the novel is the cover. It’s the neon Americana vibe; it’s everything a gritty summer road trip story should be. I’m a huge sucker for road trip novels, and this is bathed in limelight and grime and street signs.

This story is atmospheric and reckless and absolutely kick-ass, until the very end. Come August, I seriously urge you to let Winona and Lucille take you along for the ride. It is a decision you won’t regret.

Many thanks to the publisher for providing an advance digital copy of Hello Girls via Edelweiss for review. I’m a writer, literary intern, and college student. Here’s where else to find me.

Pre-order Hello Girls: Amazon | Barnes & Noble