She Gets the Girl Rachael Lippincott and Alyson Derrick
CW: Alcoholism, Car Crash, Cheating, Underage Drinking, Racism, Misogyny, Financial Problems, Absent Parent, Manipulative Parent, Anxiety, Gaslighting
5/5
If I wasn't a sensible person with a decent grasp on reality, I would say that this book was literally written for me. When She Gets The Girl was announced but not out yet, I let Rachael Lippincott know what this book means to me, but it means even more to me now that I have read it. I am a Pittsburgher, born and raised. As someone who has a great desire to move to Scotland, there are many reasons that I see Pittsburgh as being the best city in the United States. It's home, it's weird in the most wonderful ways, it has a lived-in urban charm, and it certainly has the same vibes I crave from Scotland. It's a friendly city with a rough-and-tumble exterior. It's not perfect, but it deserves more books like this one.
I have wanted there to be a contemporary YA/New Adult romcom set in Pittsburgh for SO LONG. The fact that the first one also happened to feature a WLW couple? I guess my birthday came early this year. I complained to my mother several months ago that there were no books to fill this void in my life. She said that I should write one. Now, I admittedly do have a project with my sister in the works, but we are still in pre-writing and have been for a while. I thank Lippincott and Derrick for getting the ball rolling. I have aphantasia (the lack of a visual in my mind). Having a book filled with places I've been strengthened my grasp on the setting. However, I do think that this book will do well for those who don't live here and have never visited.
For those that do or have, there are going to be location-based or informational treats once you get past Alex calling Oakland small. The first is the featured froyo shop in the book, Tutti Fresh, an amalgam of two popular froyo places in Pittsburgh! Tutti Frutti of Squirrel Hill, unfortunately closed. Razzy/Berry Fresh/ in Oakland (it went through a name change a few years ago).* Then the library/museum (it's the same building, two different sides), I grew up with it! Personally, I spent after school during middle and high school at the Carnegie Library in Squirrel Hill, but I've been to the Oakland one enough times to second the biscotti recommendation. I've also been to the Ross Park Mall, but I'd recommend the Monroeville Mall instead.
Now that I've gotten my gushing out about this book's relationship to Pittsburgh and how that elates me personally, I do wish to talk about the rest of the book. She Gets The Girl is so well written and felt quite natural throughout. Alex Blackwood has just moved to Pittsburgh from Philadelphia with hopes of making some improvements to herself and getting away from her alcoholic mother. Molly Parker is a social shut-in with anxiety that's kept her from being close to anyone not in her immediate family. When she starts attending Pitt, she hopes to come out of her shell and maybe get a date with the girl she's been pining after for four years. Alex needs to prove to her musician girlfriend that she can be committed and good. So, she hatches a plan to help Molly get the girl she likes despite the fact that Alex and Molly annoy each other. Except, with all that time spent together and what they say about opposites, will these two girls really get through this plan without falling for each other instead?
This book strives off of the relationships built between characters, not just romantic. Being a freshman in college, especially going to a main campus, it can be frighteningly huge and rather lonely. I benefited from going to a branch of Pitt and having a friend already there. My first friends were set in stone and many other friendships easily formed. Molly gets stuck in a single and I felt so bad for her. I'm so glad she found some students in her hall that enjoy gaming, as that's a reliable way to make friends in college. Even more so, I'm glad she took her brother's advice and went to that party the night before classes.
Both Molly and Alex have important bonds they are working on during their first month of school. Alex's mother is an alcoholic, but yet recovering. I've seen what that's like up close and nearly cried while reading some of the scenes between them, especially later in the book. Alex also has a new boss who is rough around the edges but exactly the kind of adult she needs in her life. As Molly is struggling to find herself, she knows her relationship with her mother needs to change. Her mother has been her closest friend for so long and has ingrained a negative regard toward her Korean heritage in her. She doesn't want her mother out of her life, but she can't keep going on like this.
While I appreciated that the pacing of the book felt natural, I was left wanting more. What we say of Alex and Molly clearly wasn't their whole story, it was just the start. I hope for a sequel so that I may have more time to know Molly, Alex, their mothers, Jim, and Cora. I almost feel as though if I were to bus over to the museum, Cora would be there at the art show still, ready for someone who took art history to hang out with and distract her from that night's events. Strictly, platonic, of course, at 24 I am too old to be dating an 18 year old.
If you like foolish dating plots that will inevitably lead to the guru and the one being helped falling in love, this is the next book for you! You'll get treated with the Pittsburgh cityscape, froyo the way it's meant to be done, the comfort of a library, and strong opinions about literary classics. She Gets The Girl will make you laugh, smile, tear up, and swoon. What more could you want? Yes, aside from a sequel.
*I have not actually asked the authors about this. It could be a coincidence and not intentional.
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