Actor and singer Hayley Kiyoko is writing a young adult coming-of-age novel based on “Girls Like Girls,” her 2015 viral hit song, Wednesday Books announced in a news release.
The publisher says the novel “goes a step further to tell a story about messy beginnings and learning to love hard, no matter what—or who—you want.”
Kiyoko started her career as a member of the Stunners, a Los Angeles pop band, in 2007. Over the next several years, she acted in films including Jem and the Holograms and Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins and television series such as The Fosters and CSI: Cyber.
Four years after the Stunners broke up, Kiyoko released “Girls Like Girls,” a track from her solo EP, This Side of Paradise. The music video for the song, which features the lyrics “Girls like girls like boys do, nothing new,” went viral; it currently has more than 148 million views on YouTube.
“Ever since I released the music video for ‘Girls Like Girls,’ it has been a dream of mine to tell the whole story of Coley and Sonya,” Kiyoko said, referring to the characters in the video. “I am so excited to explore these characters further in a novel—to really get inside their heads, and their hearts, and to take readers on their quest for love. I am forever grateful for my fans who continue to champion me and help fuel my passion for storytelling.”
Girls Like Girls is slated for publication on May 30, 2023.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
