Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!
More importantly, Happy Bisexual Visibility Day…one day late! 🩷💜💙 I figured I would center a bisexual story for this week, and between my readings for school, I’ve been trying to squeeze in some books for this occasion and for Latinx Heritage Month as well. I’ve read a handful of Jennifer Dugan’s other novels, and I can always count on her for a solid queer YA romance. Some Girls Do wasn’t her best work, but when it hit the right notes, it was appropriately sweet.
Enjoy this week’s review!
Some Girls Do – Jennifer Dugan
Ruby Torino is intent on keeping her head down until she graduates high school. Even though she’s sick of competing in beauty pageants to appease her mother, she knows that it’s the only way out—the next one’s prize is a scholarship to a community college. There, she can be openly bisexual and not have to please her parents. But when Morgan Matthews, an out-and-proud athlete who was kicked out of her Catholic school after they found out she was a lesbian, transfers to Ruby’s school, her world is turned upside down. Against all odds, the girls end up falling for each other. But Ruby can’t risk coming out—and Morgan can’t seem to let it go.
TW/CW: homophobia, biphobia, verbal and emotional abuse, pressure to come out
Some Girls Do wasn’t a perfect romance, but it was about imperfect people, and for half of the main cast, it worked out. It didn’t blow me away, but it was a solid read for Bisexual Visibility Week!
I wasn’t a fan of both members of the couple (more on that later), but Ruby was such an excellently complicated protagonist! All of her life, she’s been in a volatile position, what with her mother, who had her when she was a teenager, pressuring her into competing in beauty pageants to fulfill the dream she never got to live out herself. Between that and her abusive, homophobic father, she’s learned to guard herself, making her outward personality prickly and unapproachable, even as she blends in with the popular crowd. She’s far from a perfect person, and yet I found myself rooting for her in a way that I couldn’t bring myself to root for Morgan; Ruby’s struggles were tangible and her victories hard-won, and the biggest aspect that kept me reading Some Girls Do was the desire to see her dreams fulfilled.
I find that there’s a limbo that a good amount of queer media doesn’t talk about in terms of environments that people can grow up in. The hometown of Ruby and Morgan is in an in-between place: on paper, it’s mildly liberal and accepting, but there’s still a stigma around queer people. The high school has a pride club, but its members fear holding hands in the hallways. Some of Morgan’s friends act supportive, yet turn up their noses at the idea of the pride club. It’s a dynamic that I haven’t seen explored in queer media often, and Dugan did such a wonderful job in both portraying it and shedding a light on it. Like Ruby and Morgan’s relationship, it’s uncertain what the next day will bring, but there are pockets of unconditional shelter and safety if you look hard enough.
With that out of the way…Morgan. I was not a fan of her. To Dugan’s credit, it’s shown pretty clearly where she’s coming from; by being out, she’s had to risk everything, and is adamant that those who wronged her are proven wrong. But in being so out and proud, she comes off as callous and selfish in all of the wrong ways. When she and Ruby are trying to make it work, she continually pressures Ruby to come out, seemingly oblivious to the very real consequences that could befall her if her parents found out that she was bisexual. Even in her staunch “warrior defending the LGBTQ+ community” stance, she somehow completely forgot that not everyone has the privilege to be openly queer. There was some reconciliation of her attitude and said privilege towards the last part of the book, but in the end, it felt like too little too late.
In concept, Ruby and Morgan’s relationship was cute; once they got into a good rhythm, they had moments of quiet, tender bonding and sweet banter in equal measure. Yet despite Dugan’s efforts to make it work, the way that Morgan was written made it so that it never fully landed. It felt as though no matter how hard they fell for each other, Morgan would never accept that Ruby wasn’t comfortable with public being her girlfriend; even though there were moments at the Pride Club meant for Morgan to learn the error of her ways, she continued to pressure Ruby to do things that weren’t just uncomfortable but unsafe for her. If you took all of that out of the equation, they had some solid chemistry. But Morgan’s unwillingness to accept that Ruby had to stay closeted for her safety made the foundations of what could have been a good romance fold. Encouraging your partner to put her safety in jeopardy is decidedly not romantic.
All in all, a sapphic romance starring some girls that were thoughtfully written and easy to root for, but some girls that were too selfish to even try to like. 3.5 stars!
Some Girls Do is a standalone, but Jennifer Dugan is also the author of several other novels for YA and Adult audiences, including Hot Dog Girl, Melt With You, Verona Comics, The Last Girls Standing, Love at First Set, and many more.
Today’s song:
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
The Bookish Mutant 