The Queer Girl is Going to Be Okay

by Dale Walls

Overview

Publishers Weekly Best of the Year

Queer Love. Something Dawn wants, desperately, but does not have. But maybe, if she can capture it, film it, interview the people who have it, queer love will be hers someday. Or, at least, she'll have made a documentary about it. A documentary that, hopefully, will win Dawn a scholarship to film school. Many obstacles stand in the way of completing her film, but her best friends Edie and Georgia are there to help her reach her goal, no matter what it takes. A touching and joyous story of queer friendship and girlhood set in the vibrant city of Houston, THE QUEER GIRL IS GOING TO BE OKAY will make you laugh, make you cry, and make you believe that eventually, everything will be okay.

P R A I S E

★ “Art imitates life in Walls’s timely and emotionally raw debut….Walls expertly navigates sometimes-overwhelming feelings of grief, internalized self-hatred, and love, as well as the complexity of queer teenage relationships.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred) 

★ “Walls has created an enveloping, affirming world and a story that moves at a steady clip, thanks to their witty dialogue interspersed with text messages, emotional gut punches, and profound truths… Spoiler alert: the queer girl is okay at the end, and it is because the fiercest love is between friends.”
—Booklist (starred)

“Funny and moving…The Queer Girl is Going To Be Okay is an explosion of queer joy and healing, and it’s absolutely going to be your new favorite book."
—Mark Oshiro, New York Times Bestselling author of Into The Light

“Three queer best friends navigate love and relationships as they prepare to graduate high school… Emotionally moving.”
—Kirkus

“Touching, beautifully written. I hope every queer teen learning to trust their voice and searching for their own place in the world reads The Queer Girl is Going to Be Okay.”
—Brynne Rebele-Henry

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781646142705
Publisher:	Levine Querido
Publication date:	11/21/2023
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	446,809
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Dale Walls is a culture writer, curator, and art historian based in San Francisco. They are currently pursuing an art history PhD and are a Knight-Hennessy Scholar at Stanford University. Dale has written for Teen Vogue, Artsy, and Google Arts and Culture and is a 2022 Lambda Literary Fellow. The Queer Girl Is Going to Be Okay is their debut novel.

Editorial Reviews

★ 09/18/2023

Art imitates life in Walls’s timely and emotionally raw debut. When transgender Latinx teen Dawn, an aspiring director, learns that the early version of her documentary on queer love, The Queer Girl Is Going to Be Okay, has moved on to the second round of judging in the 30th annual Austin Film Festival, she’s eager to finish and submit the final short film. If her feature does well, she could receive a full-ride scholarship to the University of Texas, money she desperately needs as her ailing father’s sole caretaker. To round out her movie, Dawn wants to document queer love and “all its caveats and inconveniences” through the perspectives of her friends Georgia and Edie. Meanwhile, Korean American wordsmith Georgia’s close relationship with her mother is jeopardized by Mom’s new boyfriend, whose unpredictable behavior makes Georgia uneasy, and Edie, who is Black, feels compelled to hide her nonbinary partner from her family due to her religious upbringing. Via the girls’ alternating POVs and interview excerpts from Dawn’s documentary, Walls expertly navigates sometimes-overwhelming feelings of grief, internalized self-hatred, and love, as well as the complexity of queer teenage relationships. As the protagonists encounter mental health struggles, misgendering, and sexual harassment, their close-knit friendship highlights queer platonic love, and emphasizes how chosen family gives them a safe space to weather any storm. Ages 12–up. Agent: Garrett Alwert, Emerald City Literary. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Three queer best friends navigate love and relationships as they prepare to graduate high school… Emotionally moving.” — Kirkus

[STAR] “Art imitates life in Walls’s timely and emotionally raw debut….Walls expertly navigates sometimes-overwhelming feelings of grief, internalized self-hatred, and love, as well as the complexity of queer teenage relationships.” –Publishers Weekly (starred)

"Funny and moving... The Queer Girl is Going To Be Okay is an explosion of queer joy and healing, and it’s absolutely going to be your new favorite book."—Mark Oshiro, New York Times Bestselling author of Into The Light

“Touching, beautifully written. I hope every queer teen learning to trust their voice and searching for their own place in the world reads The Queer Girl is Going to Be Okay.” –– Brynne Rebele-Henry

[STAR] “Walls has created an enveloping, affirming world and a story that moves at a steady clip, thanks to their witty dialogue interspersed with text messages, emotional gut punches, and profound truths… Spoiler alert: the queer girl is okay at the end, and it is because the fiercest love is between friends.” – Booklist (starred)

From the Publisher

12/08/2023

Gr 8 Up—Life in Houston isn't all roses for queer seniors Georgia, Edie, and Dawn—but at least they have one another. Georgia wants to be a writer but feels like she is the only one who hasn't been accepted into college yet. Edie keeps her nonbinary beau a secret from her Southern Baptist family. Dawn channels her woes of dating as a trans girl into a documentary project about queer love that makes it into a student film festival. With everything going on, can the girls savor their last year together before graduation? Walls's debut is an insightful yet brief look at queer love in its many forms. Some chapters include direct excerpts from the documentary's monologues, giving voice to identities beyond the racially diverse main trio. While romantic love certainly gets its air time, the exploration of platonic queer love especially shines. VERDICT A winning combination of film, friendship, and queer possibility. Highly recommended.—Alec Chunn

School Library Journal

2023-09-09
Three queer best friends navigate love and relationships as they prepare to graduate high school.

Dawn Salcedo is spending her senior year completing her passion project, a documentary about queer love starring her best friends, Georgia and Edie, and other queer students at their school. When her entry makes it to the final round of the student category of the Austin Film Festival, Dawn has the chance to win a life-changing college scholarship that would allow her to pursue her dream of becoming a filmmaker, using her savings to pay for a caregiver for her sick father. Dawn, who is Latine and trans, also wants a relationship with a boy that is “normal and good and sweet.” Korean American Georgia adores her single mother, but their closeness is strained when her mom begins dating a man who has a disturbing side. Edie, who is Black, is trying to be the perfect daughter and hides from her religious parents the fact that she’s dating someone who’s nonbinary. The third-person narrative primarily focuses on Dawn, but Georgia’s and Edie’s stories unfold with complexity as well. Unfortunately, the novel feels too short for readers to fully get to know and become invested in the characters. This debut sincerely explores feelings that will resonate with readers, but many of the serious themes threaded through it would have benefitted greatly from more extensive and deeper treatment.

Emotionally moving but underdeveloped. (Fiction. 13-18)

Kirkus Reviews