Review: The Maidenheads by Benny B. Peterson

The Maidenheads by Benny B. Peterson

Blurb from Goodreads:

A bighearted debut novel about queer yearning, indie musicians, and bushwacking a thorny path back to your first love

Jamie is bad at endings, which is why she's stuck at a dead-end Baltimore newspaper job, continuing to have break-up sex with her first-ever hetero partner, and haunted by the what-ifs of her ex-girlfriend Mari—a charismatic and brilliant musician—and their former band together, the Maidenheads. Since they (and their band) broke up a decade ago, Jamie hasn't been able to sing.

Then an unexpected opportunity to perform in DC with Mari's successful new band arises, and Jamie jumps at it. What begins as a return to music becomes a reckoning—with the weight of unfinished love, the voice she long buried, and her own complicated past. But as Jamie channels more of her energy into the band, other threads in her life begin to fray, and she must make some urgent choices about her future.

Electric, spine-tingling, and filled to the brim with tenderness and honesty, The Maidenheads is a novel about the tenacity of first love, the life-changing power of music, and the difficult, necessary work of becoming yourself.

My Review:

I really enjoyed this.  Even though it delves into a few toxic relationships, it felt true.  It was also scene-y without being a show off.  And, the relationships also felt genuine.  Sometimes it takes a while for someone to figure themselves out and this book allows for that exploration.  Give it a try!

The Maidenheads comes out next week on May 26, 2026, and you can purchase HERE!  

WHEN I THINK of Mari, and I am always thinking of Mari, we're onstage.  We're surrounded by darkness, we can barely see the upturned faces of the crowd. But we're in the light, and I can see her distinctly as she takes her spot behind the keyboard: black hair shaggy over huge black eyes, wide mouth curling upward, one haunch balanced on her stool. Our bodies are separated by several feet of space, at least you'd think so looking at us. But I know, she knows, we're one. She bends to pick up her drink and I feel it slide down my throat. I push back my hair and it's her fingers stroking my scalp. There's a bite mark above her T-shirt collar, my teeth preserved in her skin. I can feel the pressure of her touch aching in my breasts, my cunt. All of me has been shaped by her shape; we are cast and mold, mold and cast.