this was such a beautiful and raw portrayal of what it’s like to be a brown girl. i saw so many of my own struggles and experiences in this.

What an interesting concept! This is a character driven novel, though the character is a chorus of voices, brown girls who are friends from childhood. We follow their whole lives, which I felt was interesting and complex. In some ways it lacked depth for me and was quite repetitive, but the writing here is poetic and enchanting. The structure of this was very clever, it addresses both the universal experiences of brown women in the US in addition to the ways in which that experience is also incredibly diverse and varied. I think this will be one I stew on for a bit and may reassess with time.

Brown Girls is transportive, beautiful, enjoyable, a musical and fast-paced read. It's all feeling and rhythm. As a brown girl, as a Pilipina with immigrant parents, even though my context was/is in some ways very different, there were so many moments where my heart sang and ached (sometimes my heart sang to Aaliyah and Mariah. :)). I felt seen in a way I don't often get in novels, even as the book spoke to so many different kinds of brown girls, brown lives.

I think its form and concept is a true feat. That balance of the collective "we" voice with just enough specificity to still be real and personal rather than theoretical; the ooze of place and senses and emotion in a wide swath; the rhythm, the deft control of how the reader runs alongside pace then slows down, or turns focus one way, then the other... 

I found some of the prose itself to be cliché, and some moments to feel a bit forced,

including the inclusion of COVID-19 as another reviewer mentioned and the last chapter in general,

which is why I didn't give this a higher rating myself.

I read this in about two days! If you're the type, I think it would be a great one to read in one sitting and just let wash over you.