Girls Who Lie Together

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Pub Date 2 Aug 2022 | Archive Date 28 Jul 2022

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Description

Easy summers lead to hard falls in this Grease meets Mean Girls contemporary romance…

When seventeen-year-old Renata Carpenter hijacked her stepdad’s classic car, she hadn’t planned on totaling it and landing her best friend in a cast from hip to heel. She definitely hadn’t planned on being sent to a work program in New Orleans as punishment. And she certainly hadn’t planned on falling in love. But Ren’s summer of forced manual labor has a bright side: her name is Brit, and she’s everything Ren never knew she needed.

First love becomes first heartbreak when their summer romance comes to a crashing close earlier than anticipated. Adding insult to injury, Ren’s break-up with Brit is followed by a big move to a small town.

As if starting senior year completely alone isn’t bad enough, Ren soon discovers that the Hell on Heels mean girl who rules Sun Ridge Prep with an iron fist and a vicious tongue is none other than her first love. Too bad this Brit is far from lovable.

But Ren knows the girl beneath the façade, and she refuses to give up on rekindling their relationship. Secretly, the girls pick up where they left off, falling deeper in love and risking it all to be together. But when their affair is exposed by Brit’s boyfriend, Ren and Brit are faced with the ultimate choice: love or acceptance.

Because they certainly can’t have both.


CW: Homophobia

Easy summers lead to hard falls in this Grease meets Mean Girls contemporary romance…

When seventeen-year-old Renata Carpenter hijacked her stepdad’s classic car, she hadn’t planned on totaling it...


Available Editions

EDITION Ebook
ISBN 5273028964309
PRICE US$5.99 (USD)

Available on NetGalley

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Send to Kindle (EPUB)

Average rating from 71 members


Featured Reviews

The first half of this book definitely reminded me of Grease and second half definitely reminded me of Mean Girls. If that is why you picked up this book, you will not be disappointed. Overall, I enjoyed this contemporary romance story about young love. In the first half of the book, the author did a good job of creating a sense of urgency between the two main characters. Even though the description of the book gives away some of the plot, I was still shocked some of the reveals. There were a lot of cute moments that built toward their relationship and even if the ending is somewhat predictable, it was not lackluster.

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Thank you NetGalley, Jessa Russo and Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for providing me with an Arc of “Girls Who Lie Together” in exchange for an honest review.

The cover drew me in. It looks young and fun, with a colourful background.

The blurb described the story as a mix of Grease and Mean Girls. My first thought? Perfect! I am forever stuck in the eighties and I love love love Mean Girls.

The story is about teenage girls Ren and Brit. Polar opposites. Ren gets send away for a summer of physical labour, - after totalling her stepdads car - to “insert fancy French name Home for wayward girls”. There she meets Brit, her total opposite, but totally what she needs. We witness a slow burn love story. But the same as summer fades, first love begins to fade after the summer and the two part ways. Only to meet again, when Ren moves to a small town in Texas.
And guess who is the mean girl at the local high school. Yep, Brit. It will be an interesting senior year. Which one will win, first love or the battle for reputation and pretending?

A sweet, kind of coming of age story. The need to be yourself, find yourself, being accepted for who you really are and how difficult that can be. The writing style is super easy to get into,fun and captivating. They story sucked me in from the beginning. I really enjoyed reading it. Girls battling their feelings and finding out, who they truly are. Russo writes in a fun, but sensitive way. I don’t have much to “critique”. I think both female leads were written in a very realistic way. The story is exactly what I expected it to be and I like that.

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I thought Girls Who Lie Together was delightful. It was the teenage drama that I live for. It read like my favourite early 2000s Teenie films only with smartphones. I absolutely loved it and cannot wait to get this as a print edition.

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Grease meets Mean Girls, only sapphic. If you, like I, have a fierce childhood love of teen romcoms and weakness for bitchy ice queens this book is for you. I really liked this book, for me it was the perfect amount soapy teen drama and angst.

When Ren wrecks her stepdad’s vintage car, her parents ship her to an old friend’s in New Orleans. No phone, no friends, just a suitcase and a summer rebuilding houses. She meets Brit, who is definitely not her type. Stuck up, blonde, a pageant Queen, Brit is basically every stereotype she hates. Except she is also so much more than that, and their summer unfolds in to a tale of young love. Then as quickly as Brit came in to her life she’s gone.

While Ren spends the rest of her summer healing a broken heart, her parents are busy ruining her life forcing her to switch schools at the start of her senior year. Alone, in a new city, in a new school. Only she isn’t alone, because Brit is here. But not her Brit, here she’s Britta. Queen B of the school, winner of homecomings, girlfriend of the football captain, and destroyer of dreams. For Ren this can go two ways, “Badly, or so badly she’ll never recover.”

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"𝗦𝗵𝗲'𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗴𝗶𝗿𝗹 𝗜'𝘃𝗲 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗳𝗲𝗹𝘁 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱𝗯𝘆𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸 𝗺𝗲."

Long story short, I loved this. It was an absolutely incredible summer read, and I never wanted it to end.

Summary:
When seventeen-year-old Renata Carpenter hijacked her stepdad’s classic car, she hadn’t planned on totaling it and landing her best friend in a cast from hip to heel. She definitely hadn’t planned on being sent to a work program in New Orleans as punishment. And she certainly hadn’t planned on falling in love. But Ren’s summer of forced manual labor has a bright side: her name is Brit, and she’s everything Ren never knew she needed.

First love becomes first heartbreak when their summer romance comes to a crashing close earlier than anticipated. Adding insult to injury, Ren’s break-up with Brit is followed by a big move to a small town.

As if starting senior year completely alone isn’t bad enough, Ren soon discovers that the Hell on Heels mean girl who rules Sun Ridge Prep with an iron fist and a vicious tongue is none other than her first love. Too bad this Brit is far from lovable.

But Ren knows the girl beneath the façade, and she refuses to give up on rekindling their relationship. Secretly, the girls pick up where they left off, falling deeper in love and risking it all to be together. But when their affair is exposed by Brit’s boyfriend, Ren and Brit are faced with the ultimate choice: love or acceptance.

Because they certainly can’t have both.

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Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book! “Girls Who Lie Together” by Jessa Russo describes itself as ‘Grease’ meets ‘Mean Girls’, and it definitely has that vibe, just much more gay. But it’s very much it’s own story too. Our story is in two parts, which I personally enjoyed as it enhanced the time divide and what I would say is a more personal divide between Brit and the her she is at home. Ren and Brit’s story had me hopeful and heartbroken every other minute. I love seeing more lgbtqia+ representation in books, especially in a protagonist!

We start with Ren Carpenter, who took her stepfather’s classic car for a spin and ended up wrecking it (as well as putting her best friend in a large leg cast). She’s spending the summer in New Orleans as punishment with a friend of her stepdad’s, Dev, helping him build houses. Of course, what she doesn’t expect is to meet and fall head over heels for his blonde princess-y niece, Brit. These two start off disliking each other before jumping to friends, and then more than. But as quickly as their romance begins, Brit leaves early, and their summer together is cut short.

But when Ren heads home, she finds out she’s being moved to a tiny Texas town for her senior year. And of course, the first day, she finds out that the school’s queen bee is none other than her Brit, or better known as Britta. From there, they start a tumultuous secret rekindling of their more than friendship, all the while avoiding Brit’s homophobic jock boyfriend, Carter.

Things get complicated, hearts are broken again, but by the end, our girls are together, out and proud.

If you’re a fan of either aforementioned teen movie, or even just teen romance, this is definitely up your alley.

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Thank you to NetGalley and Jessa Russo for giving me advanced access for an honest review in return. This is my first ever ARC review, and I am so grateful that I was able to do one for this book.

Girls Who Lie Together is a twist of Mean Girls and Grease. It follows two senior girls who meet while away for the summer as they work on building houses for those affected by Hurricane Katrina. It goes through many different ups and downs as these girls try to fit their lives together as they fall in love. This novel does an amazing job of portraying someone's first same-sex love and the process behind it. As someone who fell in love with their best friend around the same age, the same thoughts ran through my head. The story leans on family relationships, friendships that never end and true love. It shows that you can do and be anything when you have family and friends by your side.

Jessa Russo does an amazing job at adding another sweet and wholesome story to the list of LGBTQ+ books that exist. The two girls have unmatched banter from the very beginning that roped me in right away. I could tell they had chemistry from the moment they laid eyes on each other. It falls into the themes of forbidden love- as they must sneak around, keep secrets and face the opinions of others about their 'taboo love'. There are many scenes of characters exploring their sexuality, and it is written perfectly. With a little bit of spice without going past the Teen/YA rating, Russo describes the novel as being part Mean Girls and part Grease, which perfectly describes this book. The feeling of believing you have all summer together when it gets cut short way too soon. If you've seen Grease you can guess what comes next, if you haven't... you'll have to read to find out. (Either way, it is absolutely worth it to pick up this book).

Overall, this book will look amazing on my shelf after its release date in August. I had some tears and a lot of smiles and heartwarming feelings while reading this novel. I never expected to fly through it so quickly after seeing the page count. However, I picked this book up earlier today and finished it only a couple of hours later. I am looking forward to reading more by this author. I truly enjoy her writing style and was never bored while reading. This book is a must-read for those who love a wholesome YA romance, especially one with LGBTQ+ characters.

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Perfection, this is the kind of book you cannot put down and that stays with you. The story was captivating and the characters well built. Highly recommend!

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10/10 would recommend this book to anyone; it's a striking tale of acceptance, friendship, love and family - overcoming obstacles to make sure your happiness is front and centre. The characters are funny and well-written, and the storyline is gorgeous.

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