Review: Girls of July

Girls of July
by Alex Flinn

Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: June 4, 2019

In the month of July, four girls sharing a cabin in the Adirondack mountains go from strangers to close friends. There’s Meredith, a hardworking student who may be a little stressed out; Britta, a talkative drama queen who came to get away from it all; Kate, a socialite hiding away from her family’s scandal; and Spider, an aspiring filmmaker with chronic pain who feels isolated from other teens. When Spider and her grandmother rent out rooms in their summer home to Meredith, Britta, and Kate, there’s plenty of tension between the different personalities. Over their month together, the girls learn not to judge others by their first impression and become good friends.

GIRLS OF JULY is a very character-driven book. Each girl has her own character development, for example, Meredith learning there’s more to life than perfect grades and it isn’t the end of the world to be imperfect. Accompanying the main four is a cast of side characters, with their own development and stories. They get some focus, but in a way that reflects the main characters’ development rather than distracting from it. There are some parts that feel a little tropey, such as the bonding-through-telling-deep-personal-stories-over-the-campfire, but they fit with the story and aren’t too cheesy. The girls have their individual plotlines with points of intersection that keep the book interesting without over the top drama. I wouldn’t call it groundbreaking, but it is an interesting and thoroughly enjoyable story.