In this outrageous and deeply serious satire, two star indoor volleyball players juggle unspoken jealousies in their off-court romance ahead of their rival teams’ first rematch in a year.
Transphobia.
Six is 6′7″, scheming to rejoin the starting lineup, and barely checks her phone. Green is 6′1″, always building her brand, and secretly jealous of her more famous girlfriend. Together, they’re going where no Asian American trans woman has gone before: the men’s pro indoor volleyball league. Our hot girls with balls just thought playing with the boys would spare them some controversy . . . haha.
In between their rival teams’ away games across the globe, Six and Green stay connected on SpaceTime and selflessly broadcast their romance to fans on their weekly Instagraph live show. After a long season, they’ll finally reunite for the championship tournament, the first to accommodate in-person fans since the COVIS pandemic struck the world a year ago. Just as they enter an airtight bro bubble of the world’s best, they’re faced with a crisis that demands an indisputably humiliating task: make a public statement online.
Can Green stock up enough clout for her post-ball future? Can Six girlboss her team’s seniority politics? Can they both take a time-out to just grieve? Their rabid fans and horny haters await their next move. We’re all just desperate for a whiff of the sweaty feminine energy that makes that ball thwack with such spectacular force.
Don't just take our word for it...
“If you thought Challengers made tennis sexy, just wait and see what Hot Girls with Balls can do for volleyball . . . All in all, the novel is the outrageous, hilarious, and biting social commentary that we need in a time where the government continues to invalidate and target the trans community.”
– Chelsey Sanchez, Harper’s Bazaar
“A mixed-media satire told with style and verve, Hot Girls with Balls has plenty going for it beyond its incredible title. The narrative will inevitably draw comparisons to Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, but with volleyballs instead of tennis rackets, a much heavier dose of internet culture, and two Asian American trans women as its leading characters… Benedict Nguyễn’s sharp, funny-yet-serious debut explores the constant pressure to present identity ‘correctly,’ especially when that identity is under equally constant threat.”
– Lauren Puckett-Pope, Elle
“It’s hard to find a better opening sentence than the beginning of Benedict Nguyễn’s debut novel: ‘No one could think straight because everyone was actually gay.’ Hot Girls with Balls gets only funnier and more audacious from there.”
– Isle McElroy, Vulture
Taste the very first page
No one could think straight because everyone was actually gay. At least, that was how the kids on Flitter complained about a year of the COVIS pandemic frying their brains. And they weren’t wrong. For example, one Sunday the following text scrolled below two very hot gay girls’ faces across so many beaming screens:
omggggg this is so adorable, my heart is literally MELTING!
Obsessed! With! You! Two!!
Why are you wearing a shirt? Show us the titties!
Pinned: @everyourgreen @sixsosweet ~Six & Green~ 4/19/21
@6nGreenENVIES and 34,987 others joined
Omg! Yes Green, the strength! I can see your pelvic floor!
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