"She knew that curly hair was the hair of creative geniuses. It was a mark of originality in a woman, though she found it frivolous on a man"

I'll be honest, I bought Paulina & Fran, by Rachel B. Glaser, for three reasons: 1. the cover is bright pink, 2. the name Fran is in the title, and 3. the tag line: "a story of love, enmity, and curls". As a curly-haired Frances (often shortened to Fran) with a rainbow bookcase that has a fabulous pink section, this was obviously going to appeal to me.

Paulina and Fran are the best frenemies you sort of wish you had. Of the two, Fran is more down-to-earth, closer to someone you would recognise from real life, while Paulina is a character straight out of a Weetzie Bat novel who has been rudely transplanted into a world in which she has to deal with banalities. She is the personification of a Tumblr 'aesthetics' post; a manic pixie dream girl with none of the redeeming qualities - and as such, without the annoying 'save the male protagonist' story line (there is a good old love triangle, though Glaser has a fresh take on that tired old trope). Both of them are excellent party dancers and have curly hair. They meet at art school, on a class trip to Denmark, and bond over a million similarities despite the fact that Fran's best friend at the school is Paulina's nemesis. Yes, she has a nemesis. Could you like her more?

This is a rare example of a book that acknowledges modern technology in a way that doesn't immediately date it (see: all YA books that mention MySpace). But for the odd mention of laptops and the Internet, it could be set anytime in the last twenty years: the characters and plot are timeless. It is also one of those books in which both nothing and everything happens. The plot isn't held together by big, benchmark moments but is rather a string of moments in the two girl's tangled, sometimes tortured relationship, following them from art school through graduation and into the awful, awkward post-graduation, fuck-what-am-I-going-to-do-now phase and just beyond. With it's slightly detached third-person narrative and the snapshot chronology, it feels like the middle-class rebel kid cousin of books like The Group or Valley of the Dolls with a Wes Anderson or Baz Lurman-esque filter. It bursts with so much imagery that you can easily imagine it as a cult indie film, all pinks and vintage clothing and slightly homoerotic undertones. Sofia Copella would doubtless be involved.

And yeah, there are some lesbehonest (points if you get the film reference) suggestions in the relationship between Fran and Paulina, though I won't spoil the ending for you. Like the relationship between Evie and Suzanne in The Girls, the friendship at the centre of Paulina & Fran toes the line between obsession and several different kinds of love. I don't know if it's because I read this straight after reading The Girls or because it's actually there (and I'd love to hear from anyone else who's read it), but it felt to me that there was a darkish current running through the book that I really enjoyed - a sort of lurking something-bad-might-happen energy that is never fully resolved and leaves you with a lingering someones-looking-over-your-shoulder sort of feeling.

All of that aside, the hands-down best part is a plot line (apart from the descriptions of the girls' fantastical outfits) involving the creation of a magical line of curly hair products, SUPERCURL, which revolutionises curly hair care. I want. I want so, so bad.

Read while:

Wearing | a blush pink faux fur coat, knee-length, over a vintage negligee and the most fabulously ugly shoes you can find.

Listening to | Marina and the Diamond's Electra Heart album

Drinking | absinthe cocktails