{"product_id":"girls-girls-girls-isbn-9798217181988","title":"Girls Girls Girls","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eGirls Girls Girls \u003c\/i\u003efloored me. . . . It's completely extraordinary.\" —Catherine Newman, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eSandwich\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA vibrant queer Jewish debut \"teeming with heart, angst, love, and self discovery\" (Emily Austin) about a young woman who, caught between the expectations of others and her own evolving desires, is forced to make a series of fraught, life-altering decisions.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s the summer of ’96 and best friends (and secret girlfriends) Hannah and Sam are driving across the country from Long Beach, New York, to the fabled queer paradise of San Francisco, free from the harsh gazes of their neighbors and the stifling demands of Hannah’s devout Orthodox Jewish mother. In San Francisco, they will finally be together as a real couple, out in the open, around other queer people . . . even if the move means leaving behind Hannah’s beloved Bubbe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen the financial strains of West Coast living push the girls to start stripping at The Chez Paree—yet another secret Hannah must keep from her family—Hannah feels trapped. Sam wants her at the club, but Hannah hates stripping nearly as much as she hates disappointing Sam. Then Hannah meets Chris, an older butch lesbian, who is immediately taken with her. Desperate to stay in San Francisco and away from the leering men at the club, Hannah proposes an escort arrangement.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut as Hannah falls deeper into Chris’ world and Sam starts to meet new queer friends, a rift forms between them. Without Sam, who is Hannah? And what does San Francisco mean to Hannah alone—a space rich with queer possibility or an intimidating, unfamiliar place just as lonely as the one she’d left behind? An achingly tender and resonant story of survival, first love, and growing up queer in the '90s, \u003ci\u003eGirls Girls Girls\u003c\/i\u003e is a piercing exploration of the choices we make in the thrilling and often confounding search for ourselves and home.\u003cu\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Book of 2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElectric Hit • Autostraddle • LGBTQ+ Reads • Debutiful\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cu\u003eAlso seen in\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eELLE • Vogue • San Francisco Chronicle • TheSkimm • Glamour UK • Hey Alma • Unpacked\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Set in the summer of 1996, von Blanckensee’s debut is a grungy, glittering maelstrom of a queer coming-of-age novel, spanning subjects such as sex work, religious trauma, addiction through the cross-country adventure at its center.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eELLE\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[A] glowing, gay gem of a debut novel.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eVogue\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eGirls Girls Girls\u003c\/i\u003e tackles addiction and depression, loneliness and otherness; it’s a teary-eyed love letter to the San Francisco that remains and to its establishments that are long-gone. But above all it tenderly tells the story of a vulnerable young queer person in an unfamiliar place, just trying to create a new version of home.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A queer coming-of-age story and a nostalgic trip to the mid-'90s, this has all the makings of a breezy-yet-thought-provoking beach read.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTheSkimm\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"The most queer Jewish fiction I've ever read. It's also one of the best books I've ever read.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHey Alma\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A propulsive and compulsively readable debut! \u003ci\u003eGirls Girls Girls\u003c\/i\u003e is jam-packed with queer angst and queer joy, filled with a memorable cast of characters and a truly incredible amount of heart. I devoured this novel.\" —\u003cb\u003eKristen Arnett, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eStop Me If You’ve Heard This One\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A breathtaking coming-of-age debut that had me laughing, crying, and growing alongside Hannah. . . . A story full of highs and lows, Shoshana von Blanckensee deftly depicts ways to be young, queer and Jewish, all while navigating life, death and what it means to be frei.\" —\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eMs. Magazine\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"We’re in for a fun-as-hell ride with this one. It’s raw and authentic, nailing what it’s like to be weird in high school.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDebutiful\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Be still my beating queer heart! It's time to cancel your weekend plans and prepare for a glorious sojourn in San Francisco, AKA the LGBTQ+ capital of the USA.\" —\u003cb\u003eGlamour UK, \"Best New Books of June\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A grip­ping debut . . . \u003ci\u003eGirls Girls Girls\u003c\/i\u003e is a nos­tal­gic romp through the ​'90s San Fran­cis­co les­bian scene. . . . offer[ing] sen­si­tive por­tray­als of rela­tion­ships among women with moments that are joy­ful, uncom­fort­able, dif­fi­cult, hurt­ful, and resplen­dent in pro­por­tion­ate measures.\" —\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eJewish Book Council\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An immersive and emotional debut teeming with heart, angst, love, and self-discovery. This is a queer, touching, and charming book that makes you feel at home in 1990s San Francisco through the eyes of a messy and endearing lesbian.\" —\u003cb\u003eEmily Austin, author of \u003ci\u003eEveryone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eWe Could Be Rats\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eGirls Girls Girls \u003c\/i\u003efloored me—the nostalgic angst and agony of it, the heat and beauty and tenderness. Shoshana von Blanckensee puts it all on the page so viscerally: lust, hunger, death, sex, grief, love and every other thing a human body is and does. It's completely extraordinary.\" \u003cb\u003e—Catherine Newman, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eSandwich \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eWe All Want Impossible Things\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"One of the best books I've read this year. If you're into complicated queer friendship and coming of age stories, '90s nostalgia and extremely Jewish plots,\u003ci\u003e Girls Girls Girls\u003c\/i\u003e is for you.\" — \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKveller \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eGirls Girls Girls\u003c\/i\u003e is an exploration of first love, queerness, survival, and faith, and will resonate with anyone who came of age in the ’90s, or anyone who’s ever fought to define themselves.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAvocado Diaries\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"With heartfelt introspection and refreshing self discovery, . . .von Blanckensee’s fast-paced debut sensitively portrays how the process of showing one’s authentic self is a return home. Readers may be taken by the novel’s exploration of what it means to '[b]egin and end. Then begin again.'\" —\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eBooklist\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"von Blanckensee deftly explores Judaism, addiction, grief, queer desire, found families, generational trauma, and cultivating the courage to be yourself. This debut is a beautiful portrait of being young, queer, and free (or \"frei,\" as Bubbe would say). Though steeped in nostalgia, this coming-of-age debut is timeless.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[A] propulsive debut. . . .von Blanckensee pulls the reader in with this voice-driven and heartfelt narrative, and adds texture with gritty details of 1990s San Francisco. This delivers the goods.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"Girls Girls Girls\u003c\/i\u003e is girly indeed, in the best way, as well as queer and young and retro and joyous and fraught and heartbreaking and hopeful, also in the best way. Shoshana von Blanckensee’s debut is a moving coming-of-age romp about friends, families, and forgiveness, the endless ways they overlap, and all of their many wonderful, difficult, beautiful complications.\" —\u003cb\u003eLaurie Frankel, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eOne Two Three\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Finally, a novel about being queer, Jewish, and obsessed with your grandmother. Shoshana von Blanckensee’s \u003ci\u003eGirls Girls Girls\u003c\/i\u003e is a tender and electric coming-of-age story. Come for the shenanigans, stay for the textured portrait of grief, desire, and the making and remaking of what it means to be family.\" —\u003cb\u003eRuth Madievsky, bestselling and award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eAll-Night Pharmacy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eGirls Girls Girls\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e is the rare many-layered coming-of-age novel that addresses lust, confusion, longing, and grief in equal measure. I wanted to live inside Shoshana von Blanckensee’s vivid evocation of 1990s San Francisco queer community long after I finished reading—and I can't remember the last time I had such a big crush on a fictional character.\" —\u003cb\u003eAmy Shearn, award-winning author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Mermaid of Brooklyn \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eand \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAnimal Instinct\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Girls Girls Girls \u003c\/i\u003eis a gorgeous, tender, and hopeful coming-of-age novel. von Blanckensee writes with wisdom and insight about self-discovery, first loves, queer community in 90s San Francisco, what it means to carve out a life for yourself, and ultimately, what and who makes a home. It’s a road trip novel in the literal and metaphorical sense, a love letter to queerness, youth, and the courage it takes to leave so that one day you may return. \u003ci\u003eGirls Girls Girls\u003c\/i\u003e is a triumph, a big beating heart of a book, full of hard-fought victories. I loved every second of it.\"\u003cb\u003e —Marisa Crane, author of \u003ci\u003eA Sharp Endless Need\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Shoshana von Blanckensee has crafted a stunning debut full of heartache and hope. I loved this book.\" \u003cb\u003e—Michelle Tea, author of \u003ci\u003eKnocking Myself Up\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Shoshana von Blanckensee’s first novel is luminous, insightful, tender, and hot.\" \u003cb\u003e—Andrea Lawlor, recipient of the 2020 Whiting Award for Fiction\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eShoshana von Blanckensee \u003c\/b\u003elives in Berkeley, California, with her partner and kids. She is an Oncology Nurse by day, and a writer by any available moment. \u003ci\u003eGirls Girls Girls\u003c\/i\u003e is her debut novel.1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSam doesn't think I'm weird. I know by the way she rolls toward me, by the way she reaches for me, her fingers tangling in my hair. In the damp of the van, she bites my neck and wraps a leg over my hip, her knee high on my ribs, the weight of her thigh rolling me onto my back. Our sleeping bags have shifted and the industrial carpet scrubs against my skin, the smell of the life it had before us souring the air. She finds my mouth with hers right as the storm cracks, the rain pecking at the roof like gravel. I feel my heartbeat rise into my neck and ask, \"What if a cop pulls up?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSam doesn't say anything. She sinks me in her hair, still wet from our swim; her warm breath; her dewy skin. She pushes her hips into me like, Come on. Why are you so scared? Do it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI slide my hand between her thighs. I want her more than I'm scared. We aren't in Long Beach anymore. I don't have to listen for the sound of footsteps in the hall. I don't have to double-check the twist lock on my bedroom door.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven though we left Long Beach early this morning, we've only made it to the swimming quarries on the outskirts of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. One of Sam's pockmarked cousins told us about this place, described the graffiti on the turnout sign, marked the spot on our map with an X.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSam led me by the hand, out of the van and into the woods, through the buggy shade of the birch trees until they stopped abruptly, dumping us into sun. A rocky bowl the size of a football field pitted itself in the earth before us, the sky mirrored on the water. It was like looking into an enormous eye.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe ditched our clothes, scattered them on a boulder, and spent the afternoon spitting long streams like fountain cherubs, jumping into backflips, doggy-paddling wide circles around each other. Treading water in the center, I watched Sam's head ride the surface toward me like a magic trick. We explored a shelf of granite, stood naked on it, shin-deep in warm water. I pushed my short hair back with both hands, closed my eyes, and opened my chest toward the sun, thinking about the last time I'd felt its heat on my naked body. I was four, maybe five years old, decorating the sukkah in the backyard with Bubbe and my sister, Rachel, in preparation for Sukkot. My clothes were itchy and tight, so I'd wriggled out of them. It was late September and my mother had objected through the kitchen window. \"She'll get cold!\" she'd shouted, eyeing my dress and underwear discarded in the crabgrass. \"Nu?\" Bubbe said, and shrugged. \"So she'll get cold.\" A frown had settled on my mother's face before it migrated like a bird into my chest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSam yelled my name and it echoed through the quarries. I opened my eyes and found her with a half smile, her hands cupped and dribbling, a tadpole circling the pool in her palms, like a turd with a tail doing laps.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Let's get you pregnant,\" she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Gross!\" I laughed, covering my crotch with both hands. \"Marriage before babies!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"We'll have nine months. We'll get married when we get to San Francisco,\" she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"You're such a dork.\" I shook my head. \"And girls can't get married anyway, not even in San Francisco.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Who says?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The law?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Then we'll break the law,\" she said, grinning. I pushed her wet hair from her shoulders, leaned in, and kissed her. She must have dropped her tadpole, because her hands moved to my waist, her breasts and belly pressing into mine. Away from Long Beach we could do this in daylight. We could swim back across the quarry when the clouds rolled in, make it to the van before the storm. We could find each other in the mess of sleeping bags and wet towels and empty coffee cups. She could pin me against the industrial carpet, and I could move inside her until she quaked in my hands, the sound of her free to rise now, free to lift in the hammering rain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSam and I met on the first day of eighth grade when our science teacher, Mr. Jeeter, plucked her from a group of chatty girls and punished her with a seat between April and me. April had crossed her arms over her chest and shot me a smirk that drew a circle around the two of us, a signal we shared a disdain for this particular type of girl, the overly friendly type who took a crimper to her blond ponytail. But when Mr. Jeeter turned his back, Sam told April she liked her thick black eyeliner, she said it was cool and she wished her mom would let her wear more makeup than just lip gloss. April, disarmed by the compliment, opened her mouth to respond but said nothing. I watched Sam pinch her palms between her knees, cross her ankles and swing them back and forth under her chair, before turning to me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"And you,\" Sam whispered. \"You have pretty eyes.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI remember sitting there feeling like I'd won a prize, the sleeves of my Esprit sweatshirt pulled over my hands, my long mousy hair matted privately at the nape of my neck. I studied her. She had a gap between her two front teeth and amber eyes with dark flecks in them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yours are amber with little-\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Little bits of prehistoric insect legs,\" she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat day after class, Sam followed us out to eat our bagged lunches on the field behind the cafeteria. She asked us if we'd heard the new Smashing Pumpkins album, then looked shocked when we told her no.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Why aren't you sitting with them?\" April asked, angling her chin in the direction of the girls Sam had been talking to in class.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"They're fine,\" Sam said, \"for normies. Maybe I like you guys better.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eApril shot me a glance, this time curious, while Sam explained she'd just transferred in from a Catholic school and was looking for friends who weren't 110 percent lame like the ones she'd had in seventh grade. She said her parents were splitting up and splitting up was expensive. They couldn't afford private school anymore, but it was fine since she'd hated it anyway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"We're not even Catholic, and dress codes are idiotic,\" she scoffed. April agreed. I did too. The circle was redrawn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe spent eighth grade in cahoots, complaining about everyone and laughing at everything: our buzzkill teachers telling us to spit out our gum; George Bush's comments on his distaste for broccoli; the boys who yelled \"Booyah!\"; and the girls who called the guys \"toys,\" cackling audaciously like they'd really flipped the script.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the time summer rolled around we were jumping the waves at Neptune Beach with our hands clasped together. We shared Popsicles and popped each other's zits. We passed a single journal between us, taking turns entering long-winded whiny rants and cataloging our big dreams: where we would go and what we would do. Promise we'll be best friends forever, April had written. To seal the deal, Sam made us promise bracelets. They were like regular friendship bracelets but better, with beads knotted into the threads. \"You hold each one, make a vow, and say our names,\" she explained, \"like rosary beads.\" She wrapped them around our wrists and tightened them with her teeth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the night before we started high school, Sam brought us to her house and painted my nails gold, while April and I hung open our jaws watching the \"Pretend We're Dead\" music video on MTV. Neither of us had that channel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"That drummer's a girl,\" I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"They're all girls,\" Sam said. My eyes bugged wider.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I can't believe your mom pays for MTV,\" April said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"She can't afford it, my dad pays for it even though he doesn't live here anymore,\" Sam said. \"He's an alcoholic. He just moved in with his fake-boobs girlfriend in Manhattan, and I think he feels guilty.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI darted my eyes at April, wondering if she'd say anything about her birth mom, the addictions that had crumpled her childhood up like paper. Instead, she offered, \"Well, my real mom doesn't even know who my dad is, and my foster dad is so not cool. He's obsessed with baseball and collects Yankees shit and puts it up on the walls like it's decoration.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI thought I could win the Disappointing Dad prize. \"Mine died when I was three,\" I chimed in. \"I don't remember him at all.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe looked at each other knowingly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnce we started ninth grade, I began taking them to Bubbe's after school. We'd sit on the stools at her counter, devour hot apple cake, rugelach, warm challah, while she told us stories about growing up in the tenements, her father schlepping her up and down the stairs on his back until she was strong enough to climb them with her arm crutches. Sam's mom had recently taken a job at a car dealership an hour and a half away in Yonkers, and Sam was hungry for baked goods but also attention. Bubbe provided both. \"The three of you eat like soldiers,\" Bubbe would tease before sliding another serving onto each of our plates. \"Samantha, come. See if you recognize who's in here,\" Bubbe would say, lifting her chin and pointing to the gold locket slung from her neck. And Sam would happily oblige every time, prying it open with her fingernails to coo at the baby pictures of Rachel and me inside.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eApril, on the other hand, moved shyly around Bubbe. She'd learned the hard way to keep her mouth shut around adults, especially adults as warm and kind as Bubbe. It had been warm and kind adults who'd gently asked about her homelife, the scant contents of her Care Bears lunch box, softly eyeing her dirty clothes, her unwashed hair. April had tried and ultimately failed to protect her mother from CPS intervention and was placed in foster care at age ten. A home with kind Christian parents doing \"the good work of God,\" a foster dad who loved the Yankees, a foster mom who taught Sunday school. At church, adults leaned in to tell her how lucky she was.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Are people constantly telling you you're lucky?\" she asked us once. Sam and I both said no. \"They took me from my mom! Why do people always tell foster kids they're lucky?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Because they're stupid,\" Sam offered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yeah. Stupid,\" I agreed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNearly all my high school memories feature the three of us together: the goth foster kid, the awkward Jewish girl, the pretty one who could have been popular if she’d tried a little harder. It was always the three of us, until something shifted. Sam and I shifted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe summer before our senior year I started to feel Sam's gaze holding me when I wasn't looking, and when I'd glance at her and ask, \"What?\" she would smile at me until I covered my face with my hands. Sometimes, just looking at each other would trigger a long bout of the giggles. April kept telling us we were being super weird. I could see by the way it quieted Sam, super weird was a slight she couldn't bear. That's when she started asking me to hang out alone, without April. Not all the time, but enough that it wouldn't go unnoticed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen classes ended on the first day of our senior year, Sam and I snuck off, just the two of us, to her house. On the count of three, we fell backward into the hammock that hung between two trees in her yard. She wrapped her legs around me. I swallowed. She took my hands in hers, examining my fingernails, praising the ones I hadn't bitten to stumps, testing the length of each by dragging it across her cheek, then her lips. I couldn't speak.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt went on like this, ditching April a few times a week to sneak off with Sam. April was losing her footing, and she knew it. She'd ask where we'd been, why we hadn't invited her. I'd flush with guilt while Sam stumbled through excuses. And April would pretend to buy them-put on a forced smile, the hurt seeping through her stale grin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne afternoon, Sam and I sat side by side in front of her closet-door mirror. We made up a game where we pretended to be conjoined twins in one stretched-out T-shirt. The goal: to suck each other’s thumbs without laughing. Impossible. It took a zillion attempts, always aborted by someone’s cackling. When we finally pulled it off, our eyes caught in the glass and went soft, the heat we’d stumbled upon undeniable. It was silly, but with Sam even childish games had become seduction. When she slept over, the lights would go out and she would pull me closer under the covers, falling asleep with her nose against my back. I would lie awake for hours. My heart thudding, judging the gravity of the situation. I was falling for a girl, and the girl was Sam. There had never been anyone more compelling, or anything more terrifying. I would never act on it, I promised myself, never admit it to her or anyone else.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut then, on a regular old Wednesday in November, Sam and I were bundled in coats, hoods pulled up, sitting in the dirt underneath the bleachers while the sun went down. Her amber eyes practically glowed. She slid her ChapStick over her lips and then held it up in front of me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"You want some?\" she asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said sure. But instead of swiping the tube along my lips like she usually did, she capped it, pinned my head in her hands, and wiped the ChapStick on me with her spearmint-flavored gooey lips. Then she paused, my head still pinned; looked me in the eyes; and kissed me for real. Her mouth was warm and wet and slow, and I melted into it. Even after she pulled away, my whole body continued to hum.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Did you get enough?\" she asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI rubbed my lips together, while heat spread across my face, burning my ears. I knew I had turned splotchy and red, and the thought of turning splotchy and red made me more splotchy and red. I looked down at my shoes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Why are you blushing, Hannah Banana?\" She laughed. I wanted to look up and see if she was blushing too, but I couldn't. The only thing I could do was grin, keep my eyes on the ground.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter that, I was wrecked. Totally dead. At that point I still thought boys were inevitable, and eventually I'd have to find an entire husband, but with that kiss Sam became everything, blotting out the rest of the world. I wanted to tie myself to her like a carnival balloon, string knotted at her wrist. How would I ever find some tolerable Jewish boy, invite him to Shabbat on Friday, when I belonged to Sam? Sammie, Sam, Sam. Sammie with the thick thighs, Sammie with the amber eyes.","brand":"G.P. Putnam's Sons","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48532149829861,"sku":"NP9798217181988","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9798217181988.jpg?v=1773182844","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/girls-girls-girls-isbn-9798217181988","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}