I highly recommend listening to this via audio. It’s a very lyrical love letter to brown women (all brown women), Queens, and the daughters of immigrants.

What a wonderful book. A powerful, beautiful, lyrical, imaginative, poetic book about the lives of immigrant brown girls living in Queens, NY. This coming of age story gave me major feels because I grew up singing all the songs, experienced some of the same sad experiences in the book. The girls in this book are a beautiful, complicated mess just like me. It was wonderful to read and see representation of myself. The book also discussed misogyny/misogynoir, microagresssions, colonialism, and imperialism…all the sacrifices, horror, wonderful times of living in the US. A literal timeline up until the current time. Her writing reminded me of Diane McKinney-Whetstone l. I loved it. Five Stars for sure. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Such an incredible book. Told in quick but tender vignettes, Brown Girls honors multiple generations of women of color in the tapestry of modern NYC. Tells really important stories about belonging, about dreams, about community, about diaspora, about identity. I recommend it to all!

As I was reading Brown Girls, I kept thinking, “This book is why we need own voices books!” It may not have always been relatable to my life (which is fine, it wasn’t written for me), but I could tell how much others would likely see themselves in this book.

The writing is superb and loved how a lifetime was told in parts through the lens of several girls; as they went to school, college, married, divorced, had kids, and grew older. As friendships stretched and grew closer, as couples fought and made up. It felt true to life and told through a unique lens.

All I can say is... wow. Brown Girls has to be one of the most incredible and heartfelt poetic dissections that explore the lives of minority women growing up in New York. I don't think I've ever come across prose so fluid and gorgeous as Andreades'. Her writing feels like a single, free-flowing poem that just happens to tell a linear story. If you're a fan of prose, poetry, and painfully incredible writing, Brown Girls is an absolute must-read. The words in this book can only be described as art.

But don't for a second assume that Brown Girls is all flowery writing with no substance. The story follows a group of minority friends from adolescence to adulthood and beyond, and it's gutting and incredibly human. It's an incredible coming-of-age tale that taps into the universal experience of being a young woman growing up in America - from boy craziness to relying on friends as your rock, engaging in shared dressing room fashion shows, basement karaoke nights or gatherings fueled by any available liquor, and feeling irrationally excited about what's to come next. Brown Girls adds an extra layer of nuance by showcasing the roadblocks, inequities, and stressors that young women of color face when they should be allowed to be freaking kids. Andreades explores her characters' struggles with culture, personal identity, microaggressions, outright racism, and the pressure to mask their true selves at school and even within their own families, making the difficult experiences and emotions that minority women endure throughout their lives tangible.

These themes don't just end at puberty. The reader grows up with these girls and witnesses how life, along with its inequities and complicated internal struggles, continues to evolve in their careers, love lives, cultures, friendships, and beyond. Some moments are uplifting, while others are heart-shattering.

From adolescence to death, one thing is certain... nobody will ever love you, understand you, or be a more genuine once-in-a-lifetime soulmate than your childhood girlfriends.

The best novel written in first person plural EVER.

This had BIG diaspora poetry vibes.

I went into it not knowing about the omnipresent "we" narrator. I found it a bit challenging because Andreades dredges into deeply vulnerable, poignant experiences and reflections of the "brown girls" but I feel like the omnipresent narration made it feel more distance and detached. I wanted to know more and feel more while reading this, but the narration didn't allow that.

In general, I do not know how I feel about the essentialization of "brown girls"—a similar critique of the use of the term "POC." Asian womanhood, Black womanhood, Latina womanhood etc. share similarities but also carry different sets of experiences and marginalization.

somewhere between 2-3 stars? at some points a 3.5—there were poignant moments, for sure.

Beautiful, lyrical prose