Shoshana von Blanckensee’s Girls Girls Girls blends togeth­er a clas­sic queer com­ing-of-age sto­ry with a bud­dy road trip nar­ra­tive in order to deliv­er a delight­ful and grip­ping debut. Set in 1996, Girls Girls Girls begins with Han­nah, Sam, and April. The trio are high school friends in Long Beach, New York. Han­nah and Sam fall in love and, as they spend more time togeth­er, their friend­ship with April frays. Watch­ing tele­vi­sion one evening, Han­nah sees a les­bian on the small screen, and not just any les­bian, an activist — a Les­bian Avenger, a mem­ber of the direct-action group orga­nized in the ear­ly 1990s and oper­a­tional through the end of the decade. The Les­bian Avenger from tele­vi­sion lived in San Fran­cis­co. Han­nah and Sam decide to go there in search of queer life. 

Han­nah and Sam’s epic cross-coun­try road trip in a van they name ​“Scoo­by” reflects the safe­ty con­cerns for women dur­ing the 1990s and harkens back to free-and-easy expe­ri­ences of 1960s hip­pies. The jour­ney is pri­mar­i­ly mono­chro­mat­ic with action con­fined to Wal­mart park­ing lots; Han­nah observes ​“Nebras­ka is flat­ter than a thin-crust piz­za.” The wide swath of land from New York to Neva­da offers lit­tle to the cou­ple, but a stop in Reno begins to intro­duce the tech­ni­col­or of San Fran­cis­co and fore­shad­ows themes of their new life — par­tic­u­lar­ly drug use and sex work — while build­ing excite­ment for the great arrival. 

Although the two pro­tag­o­nists have a child­like antic­i­pa­tion of life in San Fran­cis­co, the real­i­ties require adult grit and deter­mi­na­tion. As recent high school grad­u­ates Han­nah and Sam do not have an easy path. Secur­ing hous­ing and find­ing employ­ment are their first chal­lenge­sand soon their rela­tion­ship, ethics, choic­es, and deter­mi­na­tion are tested.

Von Blanck­ensee effec­tive­ly weaves togeth­er the var­i­ous strands of the sto­ry into a well-plot­ted and reward­ing nar­ra­tive. Girls Girls Girls is a nos­tal­gic romp through the ​‘90s San Fran­cis­co les­bian scene. The con­clu­sion includes a com­pelling ren­der­ing of the epic open­ing of the Lex­ing­ton Club which will delight many read­ers. The queer women that Sam and Han­nah encounter feel authen­tic and well-ren­dered. In par­tic­u­lar, the old­er lover for whom Han­nah works as an escort is pow­er­ful, vul­ner­a­ble, appeal­ing, and flawed. Girls Girls Girls offers sen­si­tive por­tray­als of rela­tion­ships among women with moments that are joy­ful, uncom­fort­able, dif­fi­cult, hurt­ful, and resplen­dent in pro­por­tion­ate measures.