The Girls: A Different Kind of Love Story
- 4.8 out of 5
- 49 ratings
- 368 pages
Overall Content Rating: Restricted R
This multi-decade novel follows a circle of women, especially a writer recounting how they supported one another from the 1960s toward a future marriage-equality milestone. Same-sex love, closeted lives, and custody loss after a hostile marriage are major threads; expect frank talk about lesbian identity and bars, community, and family pushback. Parents should expect frequent adult language from mild to very strong, including insults during abuse and arguments. Sexual content is mostly reference, shame, first-time teen intimacy with bleeding, and crude name-calling—not lengthy explicit scenes in the samples. Domestic violence, mental health, and war-era trauma appear in backstory. A few period lines express racist attitudes about neighbors moving in. The tone mixes humor among friends with heavy social and personal cost; overall intensity aligns with mature teen or adult readers rather than younger children.
Reviews first uploaded December 27, 2023 6:07 pm. Revised October 6, 2026 8:44 pm. Page updated October 6, 2026 8:44 pm.
These summaries are AI-generated from relevant Amazon reviews of this book.
Crude Mild
8Characters use demeaning labels like foolish or idiot when shaming a pregnant teen or mocking peers. Homophobic slurs appear in quoted husband rage; those lines are cruel rather than playful.
Amazon reviews mentioning crude
Specific words
- stupid: 7
- idiot: 1
Fbombs Moderate
16The strongest single word appears a handful of times—not on every page—in road rage, breakup scenes, war stories, and blunt banter. Some lines tie that language to sex or prostitution offers rather than ordinary annoyance.
Amazon reviews mentioning swearing
Specific words
- fuck: 16
LGBTQ+ Heavy
22Lesbian identity and same-sex relationships are central: coming out, friendship turning to love, bars and community, headline custody battles, slurs from hostile spouses, and a near-future marriage-equality backdrop. Customer notes describe gay marriage and a group of supportive women as core subjects.
Amazon reviews mentioning lgbtq
Specific words
- lesbian: 22
Profanity Heavy
75Swearing is common across decades of adult life: teasing among close friends, marital blowups, teen anger at a parent, and reporters or professionals under stress. Milder terms appear often; stronger insults show up in custody fights and family secrets.
Amazon reviews mentioning profanity
Specific words
- damn: 28
- hell: 18
- shit: 14
- bitch: 4
- bullshit: 4
- goddamn: 4
- ass: 2
- bastard: 1
Sex Moderate
4The book discusses desire, affairs, and hidden reading material more than it depicts prolonged explicit acts. There are motel and backseat references, crude labels during a pregnancy discovery, joking among women about recent intimacy, and a teen’s frightening first experience with bleeding. Nudity appears in a tragic death reported in the past.
Specific words
- grope: 1
- slut: 1
- smut: 1
- whore: 1
Violence Moderate
2Domestic abuse is a recurring theme in memory and dialogue—pulling hair, hitting, kicking—along with bullying and emotional cruelty. Review notes highlight domestic violence alongside marriage rights. Playground menace and medical bleeding are present but samples are not sustained graphic gore.
Amazon reviews mentioning violence
Specific words
- blood: 1
- kick: 1
About this book
It is 2020, and President Julia Moorhead has signed the Freedom to Marry Act into law. Riots rule the streets as a nation struggles to find a new balance. To help the people understand and embrace equality, THE GIRLS’ lives and loves must be revealed. Meet the seven feisty, funny, brainy, zesty, opinionated, passionate and resourceful women affectionately known as THE GIRLS. Char, a psychologist, is more than familiar with keeping dark secrets... including her own. Em, the storyteller, has written a series of novels about a group of women who risk their lives to rescue the abused. Iris, a United States Senator, finds romance on both sides of the gender aisle. Les, a wunderkind, discovers a love far greater than her passion for medicine. Max, the mechanic, can make the human heart purr as sweetly as any engine. Frankie and Bobbie pack up their dishonorable discharges from the military and hop onto their Harleys for the freedom ride of their lives. Join THE GIRLS and celebrate with them as they make their way through a decades-long journey of laughter and tears. Read more