Girlfriends by Emily Zhou

Seven heartstoppingly gorgeous stories about transgender Gen Z life spanning the Upper Midwest to New York City.

“Like a strange, beautiful, chaotically decorated home for all those who crack its pages.”
—Vogue 

An NPR Books We Love book for 2023 • Winner of the Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature • Finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ+ Fiction • Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Best Transgender Fiction

In seven light-filled prisms of short stories, Emily Zhou chronicles modern queer life with uncompromising and hilarious lucidity. Attending to the intimacy of Gen Z women’s lives, these stories move from the provinces to the metropolis, from chaotic student accommodation to insecure jobs, from parties to dates to the nights after, from haplessness to some kind of power.

Funny and devastating, like a trans Mary McCarthy, Zhou depicts with shocking precision the choices and shifts through which we work on each other and ourselves. Tender, merciless, and gracious, Girlfriends is a breath of fresh air.