Sarvat Hasin's new novel is about a magnetic friendship between 'Strange Girls'

Summary

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NPR's Book of the Day – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Sarvat Hasin's new novel is about a magnetic friendship between 'Strange Girls'
Host: Juana Summers (with Tin Bidermias introducing)
Guest: Sarvat Hasin, author of "Strange Girls"
Date: March 23, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Juana Summers interviews author Sarvat Hasin about her new novel, "Strange Girls." The conversation centers on the evolution and complexity of intense female friendships, especially those forged during college years, and explores questions of identity, ambition, and cultural background. The discussion dives deep into how such relationships can transform—or fall apart—over time, all through the lens of Hasin’s book and its protagonists, Ava and Alia.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Nature of "Strange Girls" Friendship

• Novel Premise: Ava (American) and Alia (Pakistani) meet in a London college and quickly form a bond, calling themselves “Strange Girls.”

  • [02:05] Sarvat Hasin explains:

    “Both of them are just sort of defined almost by their similarities as much as their differences... They’re both bookworms... very creatively ambitious and want to be part of that world.”

• Defining 'Strange':

  • [02:33] Hasin elaborates how the two feel disconnected from traditional models of womanhood:

    “They feel like they can’t see the models for womanhood... what they want necessarily is that strange, but... it feels very alienating.”

• Personal Reflection:

  • [03:19] Asked if she sees herself as a 'strange girl':

    “I’m probably not very strange anymore. I think that strangeness is almost defined by both a defiance, but also by a desire to be strange... It felt like you had to pick a side.”

  • Hasin reflects on a cultural landscape that used to pit women against each other, noting a hopeful shift away from this dynamic.

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Genesis and Evolution of the Story

• [04:10] Hasin began developing the characters after her previous novel. The story “was a role playing game at one point, a period piece at another... the characters stayed the same.”
• She was interested in an intense relationship “in between friendship and romance... difficult to define,” and what happens when such intensity isn’t resolved or doesn’t evolve.

  “Can that intensity sort of like toxify?”

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The Shifting Dynamic: Ambition, Envy, and Adult Life

• Shifting Power and Insecurity:
  • [05:29] Summers observes how envy and admiration shift from Alia’s awe of Ava to a reversal later in life.
  • Hasin responds:

    “University is this sort of great flattening... It’s only when you leave university that all these other forces start to take control... Time and creativity and talent and drive are not the only things that make authors. Writing is something that requires quite a lot of time, and time is very expensive, and the peace that you need to have that time is expensive.”

  • The book explores how external circumstances—family obligations, especially for Ava—begin to diverge their paths.

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Growing Apart: The Unscripted "Breakup" of Friendship

• [06:38] Hasin discusses the fragility of adult friendships:

  “When you’re young, you have a lot of time to devote to those friendships... then it feels like... every decision... can either bring you closer or further from your friends.”

  • Life milestones (relationships, career, children) can bond or divide.
  • [07:30]

    “There’s a sense almost in the way we organize our lives where friendships aren’t prioritized.”

  • For Ava and Alia, intensity and ambiguity leave “space for misunderstanding,” as there’s “no script for the kind of breakup they’re having.”

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Vocabulary and Expression of Female Friendship

• [08:50] Summers notes the women lack vocabulary to define their relationship.
  • Hasin agrees:

    “The book’s also a period piece... early 2010s... that was a slightly different time for young women and their sexuality and how comfortable they were expressing certain things.”

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Notable Quotes

• “[Strangeness is] almost defined by both a defiance, but also by a desire to be strange.” — Sarvat Hasin ([03:19])
• “Can that intensity sort of like toxify?” — Sarvat Hasin ([04:29])
• “University is this sort of great flattening... It’s only when you leave university that all these other forces start to take control.” — Sarvat Hasin ([05:29])
• “There’s a sense almost in the way we organize our lives where friendships aren’t prioritized.” — Sarvat Hasin ([07:30])

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Memorable Moments & Timestamps

• [02:05] – Hasin describes the twin ambitions and obsessions of Ava and Alia.
• [02:33] – The alienation from traditional femininity is discussed.
• [03:19] – Hasin reflects on her own strangeness and the binary nature of feminine identity.
• [04:10] – Evolution of the manuscript and intense friendship.
• [05:29] – The impact of post-college realities on friendship and creativity.
• [06:54] – How diverging adult choices impact intimate friendships.
• [07:30] – The lack of a roadmap for ending intense friendships.
• [09:01] – The novel as a reflection of early 2010s attitude toward queerness and self-definition.

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Conclusion

The episode offers a nuanced look at “Strange Girls” as both a literary exploration and a mirror for anyone who’s experienced the intensity—and ambiguity—of intimate friendships, especially those that must evolve or end as adulthood sets in. Through Hasin’s reflections and candid commentary, listeners gain insight into the challenges of sustaining identity and intimacy across changing life stages.

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Transcript

[Tin Bidermias]

Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Tin Bidermias, filling in for Andrew Limbong. A good friendship can transform your life. That's certainly been the case for me, and it was especially true when I was in college. There's this intense intimacy that comes from living in close quarters with your favorite people, you know, figuring out classes and parties and crossing that threshold into adulthood. But but what happens when you graduate? Life takes over and the nature of that life altering friendship changes. Strange Girls by Sarvat Haseen takes on this topic. She spoke about it with All Things Considered host Juana Summers.

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[Juana Summers]

Many of us have had that one friendship. You know, the one where you get really close really fast and then the real world gets in the way, the friendship falters, and suddenly it has been a decade since you've even talked. In author Sarvat Haseen's new book, Strange Girls, protagonists Ava and Alia are those friends to each other.

[Sarvat Haseen]

Both of them are just sort of defined almost by their similarities as much as their differences. So they're both bookworms and they're both obsessed with novels and writing and storytelling and are very creatively ambitious and want to be part of that world.

[Juana Summers]

Ava is American. Alia is Pakistani. They meet in college in London and quickly declare themselves Strange Girls. When I talked with author Sarvat Haseen about the book, I started by asking her about that phrase and what it means to them.

[Sarvat Haseen]

They're 18 when they sort of define themselves as Strange Girls, and I think they feel like they can't see the models for womanhood They've been fed an idea of femininity and what their life should be like when they grow up. And it doesn't really resonate. So they feel sort of strange and disconnected from it. I think they're also just very, you know, as any two young aspiring writers, quite pretentious and determined to set themselves apart from the rest of the world. I don't think what they want necessarily is that strange, but because they don't have examples of people who've lived those lives in front of them, it feels very alienating.

[Juana Summers]

And in fact, they come to classify all girls, all women really, as either strange or not strange. I do have to ask, where would you classify yourself?

[Sarvat Haseen]

I'm probably not very strange anymore. I think that strangeness is almost sort of defined by both a defiance, but also by a desire to be strange. And I think it's sort of difficult as you get older to keep, you know, choosing to make your life in those unconventional decisions. I think also for me, the sort of strange and not strange came from feeling very much like I was growing up in a popular culture landscape that pitted women against each other. And you were either the sort of like cool alternative person or you were the more traditional feminine person. And there was no space to have aspects of both or no space to be both. It felt like you had to pick a side. And hopefully I feel like it's not like that as much anymore. Yeah.

[Juana Summers]

Tell us about where the idea from the story came from. When did you start to think about it?

[Sarvat Haseen]

So I started to play with these characters around the time that my last novel, the Giant Dark, came out. And I was searching for a new idea and these two characters sort of came to me. And actually the story itself has had many different forms. It was a role playing game. At one point it was a period piece. At another point, the vessel kept changing, but these characters stayed the same. I think I was really interested in their particular relationship, which is something that is in between a friendship and a romance and incredibly intense and difficult to name and difficult to define. And I was really interested in what happens to a relationship like that. If you are very close and sort of completely entwined in each other's lives and the relationship doesn't progress and becomes something else. If it doesn't change shape but also doesn't lessen its intensity, what happens to that? Can that intensity sort of like toxify?

[Juana Summers]

It's so interesting because there's this magnetism between these two characters, but there's also this through line of insecurity and Envy of the other person. Alia seems to really worship Ava in school, and she wants her confidence and her talent and her social skills. And then as they get older, the tables really seem to turn. How do you think that happens?

[Sarvat Haseen]

It's so interesting, isn't it? Because I feel like one of the things that's at the core of the book for me is how you can have such similar ambitions and such similar sorts of life goals when you're at university, because the sort of, like, material shape of your lives and your days are so similar. University is this sort of great flattening where everything to do with class and cultural backgrounds and things like that sort of becomes smoothed out a little bit. And it's only when you leave university that all of these other forces start to take control. And I think that for me, Ava's journey is very much about, you know, one of care. She is, in the intervening years that we don't see them, she has been looking after her mother, and sometimes she's not been directly her carer, but she's been the person who's responsible for her. And that's really defined her. Time and creativity and talent and drive are not the only things that make authors. Writing is something that requires quite a lot of time, and time is very expensive, and the piece that you need to have that time is expensive.

[Juana Summers]

We see them come together, but there's also the aftermath for relationship when you have this intimate connection that you've treasured, where it breaks apart or fades. And we experience that in this book, too. Talk about what you were hoping to show or illustrate with the distance that grows between them.

[Sarvat Haseen]

Yeah, I think that female friendships and all friendships actually, when you leave university, become very tenuous, because when you're young, you have a lot of time to devote to those friendships, and it's very easy for your life to revolve around them. And then it feels like in the intervening years, every decision you make can either bring you closer to or further from your friends. So if you're both single at the same time, there's a sort of bonding in that, and you can continue to keep that intimacy due to that. If you both end up in relationships around the same time and your partners like each other, there's a bonding to having that. If you have children around the same time, if you choose similar careers, those are ways that you can maintain that intimacy. But if the opposite happens and you go in different directions and one of you stays single and the other person gets married or one of you has children and the other doesn't. Or one of you becomes very career focused and the other person is more focused on travel or something else. Those things can really bring you apart. And there's a sense almost in the way we organize our lives where friendships aren't prioritized. I think in Anya and Ava's case, because it's so intense and so intimate, there is also this sense of the unspoken between them and this ambiguity that I was really interested in that gives them so much space for misunderstanding because they haven't agreed who they are to each other and they haven't made the rules or the map for what they owe each other. So there's so much space for them to get it wrong and for those expectations to be mismatched. Therefore, there's no sort of script when they're falling apart. There's no sense of, oh, we were in a relationship, now we've broken up and now we're not gonna speak for this amount of time, but maybe we're consciously uncoupling and we'll go, no contact and then we'll resume a polite friendship in so many years. There's no space for that because there's no script for the kind of breakup they're having. Yeah.

[Juana Summers]

It felt like these were two women that simply didn't have the vocabulary for what they were to each. Or if they did, they didn't feel ability to say it out loud. Was that intentional?

[Sarvat Haseen]

Yes, definitely. And I think in a funny way, the book's also a period piece. Right. Because the University is a set in the early 2010s and that was a slightly different time for young women and their sexuality and how comfortable they were expressing certain things and how comfortable they were with those different expressions, I guess. And that was definitely something that I was considering.

[Juana Summers]

We've been speaking with author Sarvat Helsin. Her new book is Strange Girls. Thank you so much.

[Sarvat Haseen]

Thank you.

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