“The Girls Will Be Okay” Is a Minnesota Slice-of-Life Queer Romance

The Girls Will Be Okay by Minnesota writer (and former Twin Cities Geek editor and contributor) Linnea Peterson is a debut novel with elements inspired by their own life as “a Scandinavian American writer, a Jewish conversion student, and the attentive oldest child of a Lutheran feminist theologian.” The book is a slice-of-life, “nerdy, interfaith queer YA romance” about Solveig, a bisexual Lutheran teenage girl, and her Jewish lesbian best friend, Sarah.

The story starts with, of all things, lefse making. It’s two days before Christmas, and Solveig and her family—her grandmother, two sisters, and father, although he’s not involved in this scene—are continuing a tradition that’s been a little painful since her mother died. It represents a key part of the book: Solveig’s Norwegian heritage, and the way it connects her to her family. Her grandmother speaks Norwegian with them, and while we don’t see it on page (the book takes place from just before Christmas until the end of the school year), Solveig spends the summers at a Norwegian immersion camp. Her dream college is St. Olaf, not only because her parents went there, but also because it has a well-known choral program and offers Norwegian as a foreign language class.

Linnea Peterson/cover art by Venessa Kelley

Solveig’s best friend, Sarah, whose father is Tamil and whose mother is Jewish, loves singing but wishes choral music didn’t focus so much on Christian religious works. Yet Solveig and Sarah are very close: They and a mutual friend, Heidi, write fanfiction for a (fictional) British show called The Detective Collective; Solveig and Sarah also sing together, not just in school choir, but for fun at home, and Heidi occasionally accompanies them. Fandom, both of the TV show and the musicals they share a love of, forms the backbone of the relationship between the three of them.

One day, while watching The Detective Collective, Solveig suddenly realizes that she has a crush on Sarah. Sarah’s been out as a lesbian for years, but Solveig hasn’t realized that she might also be queer until this moment. It’s difficult for her, because she knows that her grandmother—who has lived with the family since Solveig’s mother died—would not be okay with it. Her grandmother still isn’t comfortable around Sarah, and has argued that Sarah should not be allowed in Solveig’s room with the door closed.

On top of all that, it’s Solveig’s senior year of high school, and everything is a “last”: her last holidays at home, her last choir concert, her last math team competition. She’s also deeply aware that it’s her last few months being around Sarah and Heidi, as Sarah wants to go to Harvard and Heidi to a Seven Sisters college. They won’t be able to sit on a bed together and watch The Detective Collective when the next season comes out—they’ll be 1,000 miles apart.

It can feel uncommon for characters to be both religious and liberal, but Peterson has written two leads who are. Solveig’s mother used to be the pastor of their (liberal) Lutheran church, and she was the one who led it to becoming queer-affirming almost two decades before the time the book is set. Solveig herself sings in the children’s choir and helps teach Sunday School, in addition to singing her heart out in church services. Sarah is observant as well, teaching Hebrew school and singing in her synagogue’s children’s choir. Later in the book, she invites Solveig to a seder. Their religious beliefs and their queer identities never come up as a point of conflict, nor should they have to. As someone who was raised ELCA (liberal) Lutheran, I found it refreshing to see religious characters who were like the people in my family.

Solveig and her friends’ involvement in fandom was also refreshing to see. They are deeply into their favorite show—watching episodes as soon as they come out, writing fanfiction, and spending time on Tumblr—and it’s portrayed as normal, not some sort of weird obsession or a childish thing they will quit when they go to college. Certainly they’re the only three people in the fandom in their high school (that they know of), but they are part of a flourishing group of fans online. Solveig writes throughout the story, using fanfiction to work through difficult things happening in her life, and Heidi is her ever-loyal beta reader.

Solveig’s relationship with her younger sister, Berit, is another foundation of the story. It was lovely to see the evolution from antagonism at the beginning of the book to a closer connection. The last few years have been difficult for the family since the death of their mother, and Solveig feels like she needs to be a replacement mother figure. The relationship is more complicated than “I’m a nerd and she’s a jock,” and even when they’re actively annoying each other, it’s clear that they both care.

Overall, I find the “slice of life” description of the book’s plot to be accurate. There are a couple of major fights in the story, but otherwise not a lot of conflict. Perhaps some of it is resolved a little too quickly or a little too neatly, but if you’re looking for a story that’s as much a character study as a romance—a story where you know everyone will be safe and happy at the end—The Girls Will Be Okay absolutely delivers.

The Girls Will Be Okay is available now.