Synopsis: 

Morgan, an elite track athlete, is forced to transfer high schools late in her senior year after it turns out being queer is against her private Catholic school’s code of conduct. There, she meets Ruby, who has two hobbies: tinkering with her baby blue 1970 Ford Torino and competing in local beauty pageants, the latter to live out the dreams of her overbearing mother. The two are drawn to each other and can’t deny their growing feelings. But while Morgan—out and proud, and determined to have a fresh start—doesn’t want to have to keep their budding relationship a secret, Ruby isn’t ready to come out yet. With each girl on a different path toward living her truth, can they go the distance together?

Review:

Some Girls Do was my first book from Jennifer Dugan and it definitely won’t be my last. This was an entertaining read from start to finish, even if I do have some pain points with. Let’s get those out of the way first.

I’m really not a fan of Morgan, well I was to begin with but as the story went on she got more and more self centred and she didn’t care about how her actions were hurting other people. She basically tries to force Ruby to come out and doesn’t think of the consequences. Thankfully, this is not something the author supports as Ruby makes a statement about how she should be allowed to come out on her own terms and rightly so. You can’t claim to love someone if you don’t respect their privacy. There’s also the lawsuit and her parents but I don’t want to spend this entire review complaining about one character.

I can forgive some of Morgan’s and the other character’s actions as they are teenagers, so this makes their actions realistic. I do also think these issues were dealt with in a great way through the narrative. This book raises more serious questions than you’d think and it provides some pretty good answers.

To begin with I liked the back and forth with Ruby and Morgan, I just wish we got to see them as friends more first. Instalove is something that happens a lot with teens, we’ve all been there, but saying you’re IN love with someone after knowing them for a few weeks is a little wild–I do love the drama of it all though.

Ruby was a great character. She was fairly selfless, but her ability to convey what she was feeling was sub par. She continued doing pageants for years even though she hated them just to make her mom happy. I would have liked to see more of the fall out of their relationship. I’m not about to excuse her mom’s bad behaviour, especially surrounding Ruby’s sexuality, but it would have added that little bit of emotional depth this book was missing.  

I really liked the LGBTQIA+ representation and how everyone was at different levels of being out/comfortable with their sexualities. It made for an interesting cast of characters and it would be great to see some of their stories written. The side characters definitely outshine Morgan and Ruby–Dylan and Billy were two of my favourites.

Overall, I did enjoy Some Girls Do but mostly because it was a quick and easy read. I know it doesn’t seem like I did from this review, but honestly, not much happened plot wise to comment on. There wasn’t anything particularly special about it or anything glaringly wrong (other than disliking a main character). I’ll be giving this a generous three stars and I will potentially check out more of Jennifer Dugan’s books in the future.

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