Review by bisexualbookshelf - Hot Girls with Balls

bisexualbookshelf 's review for:

Hot Girls with Balls by Benedict Nguyễn

4.75

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Thank you to Catapult for the gifted copy!

Benedict Nguyễn’s Hot Girls with Balls is a wild, satirical dive into the messy, brilliant, and precarious lives of Six and Green—two Asian American trans women who happen to be professional volleyball players, celebrities, and lovers on rival teams. Written in a kinetic blend of lyricism, online chatter, and sharp social commentary, this book refuses to separate the intimacy of a relationship from the spectacle of being consumed online. It’s as much about spiking a ball as it is about surviving transmisogyny, racial violence, and the exhausting demand to be visible, consumable, and perfect.

Six and Green’s romance feels both tender and combustible. Six is restless, haunted by questions of authenticity and by a body that never seems to feel like enough. Green is polished, brand-savvy, and secretly insecure about her girlfriend’s greater online traction. Their love is sustaining, but also tested constantly—by jealousy, by trolls, by the reality that their careers keep them apart as much as they bind them together. Around them swirl friends, rivals, and an audience that believes it’s entitled to every private thought or kiss, a dynamic Nguyễn skewers with biting precision.

What startled me most, though, wasn’t just the satire—it was the intimacy. The novel asks what it means to love, grieve, and dream under the glare of relentless visibility, when even mourning is monetized and every slip can be weaponized. Beneath the spectacle lies resilience: spite as fuel, tenderness as rebellion, joy as survival. The book is outrageous, deeply political, and sometimes a little on the nose—but honestly, so is trans girl humor. I wasn’t sure what to expect going in, but I was floored by how much heart was threaded through the irony.

Hot Girls with Balls won’t be for everyone, but for me, it was a sharp, defiant reminder that trans women’s lives are never just metaphors or headlines—they are love stories, survival stories, and yes, sports stories, too.

📖 Read this if you love: biting satire, queer sports fiction, messy and tender trans love stories, and sharp critiques of influencer culture.

🔑 Key Themes: Transfeminine Visibility and Survival, The Politics of Grief and Performance, Anti-Asian Racism and Transmisogyny, Celebrity Culture and Commodification.

Content Warnings