Book Review: ‘Strange Girls’ by Sarvat Hasin
There’s something almost feverish about the kind of friendship Sarvat Hasin writes in Strange Girls. Not warm. Not easy. Not even necessarily healthy. But magnetic in a way that makes you understand why two people would keep orbiting each other long after it stops being good for either of them.
[Note: While I am reviewing this novel independently and honestly, it should be noted that it has been provided to me by Dutton for the purpose of this review. Warning: My review of Strange Girls contains some spoilers!]
Strange Girls brings an unsettling nostalgia
Strange Girls follows Ava and Aliya, who are pulled back into each other’s lives over a wedding weekend in London after years of distance. From there, the story moves between past and present, slowly unpacking their university years and everything that followed. It reads less like a straightforward reunion and more like a study in memory. What actually happened matters less than how each of them has chosen to remember it.
There’s also something deeply nostalgic running underneath all of this, and not in a soft or comforting way. It’s the kind of nostalgia that makes you wince a little. Reading this pulled me straight back to being a teenager and early twenty-something, when identity felt like something you could only figure out through other people. Through the friendships that consumed everything. The ones that burned so bright they were almost blinding. There’s a level of secondhand embarrassment here that feels very intentional, because it forces you to recognize parts of yourself you might prefer to keep tucked away.
What stood out most to me was how Sarvat Hasin refuses to tidy up this relationship. There’s no clean label for what Ava and Aliya are to each other. Their connection shifts constantly. At times it feels like friendship, then rivalry, then something more intimate that neither of them fully names. It moves between limerence, a kind of sapphic curiosity, and simply two women who collided at a formative moment in their lives and never fully processed it. And that’s what makes it feel honest. Relationships like this are rarely balanced, and they almost never mean the same thing to both people.
The sections set during their university years feel almost intoxicating. There’s that specific kind of closeness that only exists when you’re young and still figuring yourself out. Ava and Aliya build a shared creative identity, shaping themselves in response to each other. It feels collaborative, but there’s an undercurrent of competition that quietly builds over time. And then things begin to shift.
Sarvat Hasin weaves a story of real-life uncertainty
What Strange Girls captures really well is how uneven adulthood can be. One person moves forward, the other lingers. One ends up living a version of the life you both imagined, while the other is left circling what could have been. That imbalance slowly reshapes everything between them, turning admiration into resentment and closeness into something much sharper.
We never get a fully reliable version of either woman, and that feels intentional. The story filters Ava and Aliya through different lenses. You see them through Aliya’s fictionalized retelling of their past, and through Ava’s present-day perspective as she reconnects with her. Both are partial, shaped by bias and distance. It creates the sense that their relationship was always slightly out of sync, like they were never fully meeting each other in the same moment.
That uncertainty mirrors real life in a way that really worked for me. You don’t always get access to what someone else is feeling, especially when you’re young and still trying to make sense of your own emotions. It becomes much easier, later on, to reshape those experiences into something more coherent. To turn them into a story that makes sense, even if it isn’t entirely accurate.
That idea, the stories we tell ourselves about other people, runs through the entire novel. Ava and Aliya don’t just remember things differently. They reinterpret them in ways that justify their own choices and protect their sense of self. By the time they reunite, it feels like they’re not just facing each other, but the versions of each other they’ve been holding onto for years.
There are smaller details that ground Strange Girls in a very specific kind of youth. The music references. The subtle competition over taste. The way sharing books feels like staking a claim on identity. That desire to define yourself through what you love, and to be seen as the person who discovered it first. It’s such a particular stage of life, and it’s captured here without feeling forced.
There’s also something quietly unsettling in how the novel handles dependency. This isn’t a balanced friendship. It’s built on need. On wanting to be seen, to be chosen, to feel significant through someone else. That intensity can feel like love, but it’s also unstable. Once one person changes, the entire dynamic starts to fracture.
The writing leans into that emotional tension. It’s reflective without feeling overly heavy, and there’s a slightly hazy quality to the way scenes unfold, like memory itself. You’re not always sure how much you can trust what you’re reading, but it feels emotionally grounded in a way that matters more than strict accuracy. At times, the pacing slows, especially in the middle, where the introspection deepens. But it didn’t feel unnecessary. It felt like sitting with something uncomfortable and letting it play out.
I found myself feeling for Ava in a way I didn’t expect. Not always liking her, but recognizing something in her. There’s a sense that she never quite moves past certain versions of herself. That she stays stuck in old narratives. I kept wanting some glimpse of her further down the line. A version of Ava who had done the work, taken accountability, and learned how to live with herself more honestly. That absence feels intentional, but it leaves a quiet ache behind.
Final thoughts on Strange Girls by Sarvat Hasin
If there’s a question running through the novel, it’s whether relationships like this are ever meant to last, or if their impact comes from the fact that they don’t. That they shape you in a specific moment and then leave you to deal with what’s left behind.
Strange Girls ends up being less about what happened between Ava and Aliya and more about what they represented to each other, and how that meaning shifts over time. It’s about ambition, envy, identity, and the quiet ways people misunderstand each other.
And maybe most of all, it’s about how the relationships that shape you the most aren’t always the ones that are good for you. They’re just the ones you never fully shake.
Strange Girls by Sarvat Hasin is available now for purchase! Have you read this novel yet? Did you enjoy it? Share your thoughts on social media and tag @bsb.insider to continue the conversation!
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