She Gets the Girl, by Rachael Lippincott and Alyson Derrick, follows two girls who are just starting their freshman year of college. Molly Parker has never really had a real friend except for her mother, and is hoping for a fresh start in college. She’s been nursing a crush on Cora, a girl from her high school, for years, and wants the fact that they are going to the same college to be an opening for her to finally ask her out. Meanwhile, Alex Blackwood has spent the past several years taking care of her alcoholic mother, and has just been broken up with by her girlfriend for constantly fliritng with other girls and not taking the relationship seriously enough. She decides that helping Molly get together with Cora could simultaneously prove to her ex-girlfriend that she can take things seriously and can form connections with people without flirting with them, so that her ex might consider getting back together with her. As the two spend more time together, they begin to have doubts as to whether the girls that they’re pursuing are really the ones that they want to be with, or whether they might be better suited for each other instead.

I definitely liked Molly more than Alex, which is unsurprising considering that I tend to like characters that I can relate to personality-wise. I will say that I spent the entire book wishing that they would just say that Molly has anxiety; her issues definitely far surpassed being “shy.” I also think she needs therapy, but that’s a seperate issue. I really enjoyed her relationship with her mother; she had relied on her throughout high school, but now doesn’t know how to navigate that relationship as she shifts to her college lifestyle, which felt like one of the most interesting plots in the book. Their relationship is further complicated by the way in which Molly’s mother, who had been adopted from Korea by white parents, rejects her heiritage, which in turn makes Molly feel confused about that portion of her own identity. I really wish that aspect of the book had been explored in greater detail. Overall, Molly is very promising, but there are lots of aspects of her character that could have been explored in much greater depth, rather than relying on her chapters to simply be plot development in terms of her trying to get together with Cora with

Alex is complicated and much better-developed than Molly. She has a job to pay for college and for her mother’s expenses, and her mother’s alcoholism is an unexpectedly=explored sideplot. Alex definitely feels much more complex and rounded-out than Molly; Molly’s personality basically reduces to “shy and studious,” but Alex feels like a human. I think that Molly has the potential to match Alex’s in that sense, but just was not given the same amount of development that the authors gave the latter.

The side characters vary drastically in quality. Cora and Natalie, the protagonists’ original love interests, just have nothing appealing about them; I genuinely could not understand what Alex and Molly saw in them. Their mothers were much more interesting, and I also enjoyed Molly’s brother and Alex’s boss.

The plot is cute, even if a bit predictable. It’s clear from reading the description exactly how the plot will be structured; there is no added complexity, no surprising turns, nothing. However, it is a very light, rom-com-type read, so that isn’t necessarily what readers are looking for in this book. Do I think that the authors could have added a little more interest to the plot structure? Absolutely. Was I necessarily looking for a deep book or an extremely well-developed relationship? Nope. I wanted a fluffy queer girl romance and that’s what I got, so I’m really not too disappointed with that aspect of the book.

My main issue with the book is that the character development feels too sudden for both characters. It’s not really gradual; it just jumps a bit from extreme anxiety to mild shyness for Molly and lots of commitment issues to no commitment issues for Alex. There was definitely space to have a more gradual transition, but that just didn’t really happen.

Overall, I did really enjoy She Gets the Girl. If you’re looking for a cute, rom-com-esque romance, then this is absolutely something that you should pick up. It is fluffy and adorable and has a very shippable slow-burn romance, which helps to excuse the relatively predictable plot, and makes the hastily-done character development easier to bear. I’m giving this book 4/5 stars; I really enjoyed it and would happily read it again, but there were unfortunately a few hard-to-overlook issues with it that prevent me from rating it higher.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.