The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Andreades, Daphne Palasi. Brown Girls. Random House LLC, 2022.

Daphne Palasi Andreades's novel Brown Girls is written from a first person plural point of view and in the present tense. This first person plural narrator represents the voices and identities of a group of brown immigrant girls growing up in Queens, New York.

Brown girls grow up on the outskirts of Queens. They are the children of immigrant parents and grandparents. They love their families and their neighborhoods. They are close with other brown girls, no matter their ethnic, racial, or cultural background.

By the time the girls are 10, they have learned that they must be good and obedient daughters. They try to follow their parents' strict codes of behavior, help their siblings, and do well in school. However, when the girls reach puberty, they gain new awareness of their bodies, their peers, and the world around them.

At the end of middle school, the girls know that their lives will soon change. Many of them have applied to schools outside of Queens. Some of them worry that they will fail their parents and do poorly. Some of them feel upset that their families scorn their decisions to attend school outside the neighborhood. They call their friends, desperate to talk. The girls encourage one another.

The girls start attending high school. They often feel our of place. They try to work hard and do well. They are always glad to return home and to reunite with their friends.

Some of the girls leave home for college. Some travel to other areas of the city. Some leave the city and even travel across the country. No matter where they end up, most of the girls feel out of place and alone. They wander their campuses, longing for escape. Yet because they know they are supposed to be good girls, chasing the American Dream, they force themselves to finish what they began.

After the girls graduate from college, they enter the workforce. New divides begin to form between the girls who left Queens and the girls who stayed. The girls who left feel that the girls who stayed are incapable of talking about their true feelings. The girls who stayed think the girls who left are trying to forget their origins.

The girls who left realize that almost everyone in their life is white. Terrified of this realization, they go for a drive through the city. They end up at Rockaway Beach, longing for their old friends.

The girls decide to quit their jobs and visit their parents' homelands. While overseas, they learn new things about their ancestral and familial pasts. Once they return to New York, they realize that they can call more than one place home.

The girls begin to marry. Some of the girls marry white men and white women. Some marry brown men and brown women. Many of the girls feel lonely in their marriages. The girls with white partners are haunted by dreams of brown partners. Some of the girls leave their partners for new partners, or remain alone.

Some of the girls have daughters. They realize that just as they were their mothers hope, their daughters are their hope.