BookBrowse Reviews Hot Girls with Balls by Benedict Nguyen

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Two Asian trans women compete in a professional men's volleyball league in this alternate universe exploration of fame, sports, love, and community.

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The title of Hot Girls with Balls is clearly meant to grab the reader's attention and inspire questions about the meaning of its double (triple?) entendre. It refers to the protagonists, two Asian trans women who are adored stars of a male professional volleyball league. In the universe of the novel, posited as a satirical parallel to our own, pro volleyball emerged as a popular sport around the time the "COVIS" pandemic first hit the world, and its rise in popularity is due in large part to these two incredible athletes, who are also savvy cultivators of their personal brands. It is this latter feature—rather than sports and athleticism, rather than trans life—that takes center stage in the novel, as the women experience the pitfalls of fame.

When we are introduced to Six and Green, they have just completed a broadcast on "Instagraph Live" streamed by 35,000 of their biggest fans. Since both are professional athletes, their relationship is usually a long distance one, but they come together shortly after the novel begins to compete against one another at the Sonus Volleyball Tournament. The joy of their reunion is marred by a hate crime: the murders of three Asian trans women in Alpharetta, Georgia. Both Six and Green are distraught when they hear the news, but Green especially feels spurred to do something to help her community. The weight of these conflicting priorities—fame, love, political action—drives the story forward as Six and Green prepare to compete.

The premise is remarkable: that two Asian American trans women of roughly the same age would have transitioned and developed a career in men's volleyball at roughly the same time, entirely independently of one another. Author Benedict Nguyễn makes a clever choice to remark on these circumstances very little. The reader is swept along through this world of coincidence like a fun improv game, required to "yes, and" each unlikely detail to keep up with the manic pace of the story.

Unfortunately, the plot doesn't entirely come together into a cohesive whole, in part because of the pacing that propels the reader through hastily constructed backstory and forward through incident after incident. There is very little time for quiet reflection with the protagonists—the kind that builds depth and development, and connection with the reader. It often feels like too many things are happening—the storyline about the murders of the Asian trans women is more or less subsumed in the end by another misfortune that befalls Six and Green during their tournament. Most likely this is partly the author's point. Fame creates circumstances that prevent the famous person from behaving and experiencing life like a civilian; being constantly monitored and commented upon leaves someone very little room to appropriately work through grief, or other feelings.

Nguyễn is adept at capturing the mind-numbingly dull aspects of fame, through pages of comments on Six and Green's social media pages, descriptions of their posting regimens, and petty jealousies: "After [filming a dance video] was an action shot accompanied by her usual caption contest. Yemma's team sent Green the top ten, and Green reposted her five favorites. Once, Green complained to Yemma how Six didn't have to work as hard to boost her own engagement. Yemma gave her such a pitying look, she never complained about it again." There is a great deal of commentary about how engaged famous people should feel obligated to be with politics and social justice issues. But what emerges as an even greater theme is how small a famous person's life can become. There isn't room for much that isn't volleyball, social media and other publicity commitments, and their own (lucrative) relationship. Everything larger simply falls away.

Though it has its flaws, Hot Girls with Balls also has all the wild audacity you would expect from its title and premise. It is formally inventive (the big tournament pitting Six and Green against one another is narrated entirely by crowd and announcer commentary) and extremely fun. Its commentary on fame, sports, and gender is very smart and often very funny. The imaginative powers Nguyễn displays in crafting this oddball universe suggest great things to come.

This review first ran in the July 2, 2025 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.