Hollis Beckwith isn’t trying to get a girl—she’s just trying to get by. For a fat, broke girl with anxiety, the start of senior year brings enough to worry about. And besides, she already has a Chris. Their relationship isn’t particularly exciting, but it’s comfortable and familiar, and Hollis wants it to survive beyond senior year. To prove she’s a girlfriend worth keeping, Hollis decides to learn Chris’s favorite tabletop roleplaying game, Secrets & Sorcery—but his unfortunate “No Girlfriends at the Table” rule means she’ll need to find her own group if she wants in.
Enter: Gloria Castañeda and her all-girls game of S&S! Crowded at the table in Gloria’s cozy Ohio apartment, the six girls battle twisted magic in-game and become fast friends outside it. With her character as armor, Hollis starts to believe that maybe she can be more than just fat, anxious, and a little lost.
Christen Randall (she/they) writes Young Adult fiction that centers queer, fat, geeky kids. We spoke with them about the anxiety rep in her debut novel, the “not like other girls” trope, and their writing plans for the future.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
A big aspect of “The No-Girlfriend Rule” is D&D (or S&S, as it is called in the book). I like that it explores how gameplay is a way for people to explore identity and romance. Could you tell us a bit about that theme, how D&D influences your story and characters?
One of the things I really love about tabletop gaming is the liminal space it creates halfway between the reality of who you are and the possibility of who you could be. Like, yes, we’re sitting down to play silly little guys going on adventures on a very surface level, but just beneath that sits the possibility to imagine not just epic journeys and boss battles and cool loot but also a world where we can be flawed characters and still loved and supported by a group of our closest, most trusted friends. As queer people, that is not always the case in Real Life: there are Landons out there (I really am sorry about him), there are unsupportive families, or limited access to queer space, or any number of things that Other us. I just really love TTRPGs as a gateway to start believing we are worth being the hero in our own lives through the guise of pretending to be one at the table. It felt important to capture a little of that magic on the page so that other Hollises out there can maybe start to imagine like she does, too.
Also, on a very practical level, I did a lot of actual rolls and stuff for some of the events in this book, so often the fate of my characters (and their characters—including that scene toward the end of the book) were a roll of the dice.
There is an important moment in the story that reverses the “not like other girls” trope. It makes readers ask the question, “Why wouldn’t we want to be like other girls?” In young adult novels, we so often see girls get encouraged to be different, to reject being like their peers. What made you want to subvert this trope?
The line that comes to mind with this question is when Hollis says, in a key moment, “I’m exactly like other girls,” and I remember the moment I wrote that vividly because it felt so revolutionary for me to write. The truth is that I wasted so much time in my teen years trying to be Not Like Other Girls. It was in every book I read, every manic pixie dream girl movie I watched. I bought into the lie that in order to be cool—in order to matter—I had to distance myself from other girls. It wasn’t until I was in my 20’s that I realized girls are awesome, and that being like them is also awesome, and that there is something so inherently powerful about a bunch of girls being exactly themselves all together. That maybe that is why the whole Not Like Other Girls thing is A Thing at all: because when you get a bunch of girls together who believe in each other and themselves, we’re kind of unstoppable. I wanted to celebrate that with Hollis, Aini, and the girls.
Hollis has anxiety and panic attacks. What sort of research and/or experiences did you draw upon to write Hollis’ mental health?
I have anxiety and panic attacks, and so Hollis’s anxiety was written from my own lived experience as a person with anxiety moving through the world. One of the most amazing parts of this book being out is other folks with anxiety reading letting me know they felt really seen by Hollis’s headspace on the page. Writing from lived experience can be intimidating—I can, imagine this, get really anxious about getting it right—but every time someone shares their story with me, it reminds me it’s also so important.
What are your writing plans for the future?
To keep doing it! I’m in the finishing-up stages of my next YA romance, ACCORDING TO PLAN, about Mal Flowers, a fat, non-binary, neurodivergent teen whose capital-p Plan for senior year falls apart when their school’s literary magazine gets canceled, forcing them to take it rogue as a DIY zine with the very all-caps LOUD, very their-opposite-vibe (but also very neurodivergent and very adorable) Emerson Pike. That will be out in fall of 2025!
Whatever happens next—I am happy to stay in YA and am looking toward adult romance, too—you can always count of my stories to be queer, fat, and neurodivergent.
What are your go-to inspirations?
I’m inspired by the city where I live and the people who live there with me, so if I ever feel untethered, I take a walk around Covington, Kentucky. It’s weird and wonderful here, and I love to just tuck into a coffee shop and write near a window to people watch. I’m also always inspired by music. I playlist anything I’m working on, and have lately been jamming some old favorites like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Shins, and John Prine and Tammy Wynette. Reading good books also makes me want to write, and lately I had the pleasure of reading an early copy of Get Real, Chloe Torres by Crystal Maldonado which had me itching to start a new YA.
Anything else you would like to add?
Just that I am so glad you had me! Also, if y’all want to keep up with me, follow me on socials @ByCRandall. I kind of suck at posting, honestly, but I did just accidentally adopt a new kitten named Gelato, and am kind of obsessed with her so you can expect to see more of her, at least!
