-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
In September Girls, Sam is spending the summer in a beach town filled with beautiful blond girls who all seem inexplicably attracted to him. But that's not the only reason why he thinks the Girls are strange. They only wear flats because heels make their feet bleed. They never go swimming in the water. And they all want something from him.
Sam finds himself in an unexpected summer romance when he falls for one of the Girls, DeeDee. But as they get closer, she pulls away without explanation. Sam knows that if he is going to win her back, he'll have to learn the Girls' secret.
Bennett Madison, author of The Blonde of the Joke, brings a mix of lyrical writing, psychologically complex characters, and sardonic humor to this YA coming-of-age novel about first love…and mermaids.
"Starred Review. A meditation on manhood takes a turn into magical realism in this mesmerizing novel...[a] not-mermaid story for boys. Ages 14+. - Kirkus
"Starred Review. Madison maintains the same hazy, syrupy languidness that distinguished The Blonde of the Joke. A surprising story of a kid finding love and himself, when he wasn't looking for either." - Publishers Weekly
"Eerie and desperately romantic, September Girls is a myth measured out in summer days, game shows, French fries and women's magazines. Bennett Madison makes a seedy beach town into the stuff of legends, and he has worked an intoxicating magic. Amazing." - E. Lockhart, author of the National Book Award finalist The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks and The Boyfriend List
"Beneath the dreamy warmth and languor of beach days and summer romance, September Girls delivers an intricate story of identity and freedom, the ties and histories that thwart those things, and love. A truly original coming-of-age tale." - Sara Zarr, author of How to Save a Life
"Reading this book is like holding your breath underwater - you won't want to come up for air." - Jenny Han, author of the New York Times bestselling The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy
"I came away enthralled by this transfixing story and overcome by Bennett Madison's breathtaking talent as a writer. Gorgeously rendered and teeming with shocks and deep truths, September Girls is a daring book that reveals the boundless possibilities of YA fiction." - Nova Ren Suma, author of Imaginary Girls and 17 & Gone
This information about September Girls was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Bennett Madison is the author of several books for young people, including The Blonde of the Joke. He attended Sarah Lawrence College but remains two classes shy of graduation, and he lives in Brooklyn, New York.
If you liked September Girls, try these:
by Cynthia Weiner
Published 2026
A dazzling novel about one young woman's summer of infinite possibility...
by Nyani Nkrumah
Published 2024
Resonant with the emotional urgency of Alice Walker's classic Meridian and the poignant charm of Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, a gripping debut novel of female power and vulnerability, race, and class that explores the unlikely friendship between a precocious black girl and a mysterious white woman in a small Mississippi town in the ...
The Most Precious Substance on Earth
by Shashi Bhat
Published 2023
Journey Prize winner Shashi Bhat's sharp, darkly comic, and poignant story about a high school student's traumatic experience and how it irrevocably alters her life, for fans of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, Girlhood, and Pen15.
No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
