Saturday nights with The Golden Girls were my fave when I was a kid. Still, anytime I am flipping through channels and find that they are on, I’m sat. Doesn’t matter what else is happening, because sometimes you just need Dorothy, Blanche, Rose, and Sophia to remind you that life is going to be OK. The show was so ahead of its time, and I have always loved every one of those women. So when I saw a book about four gay men who live together in Palm Springs and put on a regular drag tribute to The Golden Girls, I did not hesitate to snatch it up.

Teddy is a sharp-tongued older gay man living in a pink mid-century house in Palm Springs with three friends. There’s Barry, who used to be an actor and still hasn’t moved past something that wrecked his career. There’s Ron, a transplanted Midwestern Christian with a huge amount of love and no obvious target for it. There’s Sid, who didn’t come out until later in life and is still waiting for love to find him, though afraid it might be too late for that. Once a month, the four of them get into full drag and perform a tribute show as the Golden Girls and call it the Golden Gays. Then Teddy’s ultra-conservative sister, who he hasn’t spoken to in years, shows up out of nowhere with her teenage granddaughter, and the careful little world these men have built starts to topple. Secrets come out that will either strengthen or topple this close-knit friend group.

Each of the men in this house is so well drawn. Their personalities all map back to a Golden Girl in some way, which is part of the fun. The book is told through each of their points of view, and I loved getting each of their perspectives. The voices are distinct. Nobody is used as just a punchline.

The arrival of Teddy’s sister is the engine that pushes everything into motion, and the dynamic she brings is great. She’s complicated and irritating, but also grieving things she hasn’t admitted to yet. Her teenage granddaughter is the wild card that tips everything on its head. I won’t spoil the why of their visit, but it lands well and gives the whole book a satisfying shape.

What I appreciated most is what this book is actually about underneath the drag and the campy fun. It’s about older gay men dealing with the stuff us elder gays know all too well. Health scares. Finding love late, if at all. Aging in a community that has not always been kind about getting older. Homophobia that doesn’t go away just because the calendar changes. Friends becoming family because the family you were given couldn’t, or wouldn’t, show up for you. All of that lives in this book alongside the jokes, and it’s handled with a ton of warmth.

The writing is loose and funny. The book moves at a Great pace and it’s also got a real emotional core that snuck up on me. I expected to laugh, but I did not expect to choke up as much as I did. Rouse manages both, sometimes in the same scene, and that’s not an easy trick to pull off.

This is a perfect Pride Month pick. It’s cute and a little campy, but very heartwarming. It’s about gay found family, and how friends are often the ones you can always count on even if you want to strangle them sometimes. If you grew up on The Golden Girls like I did, you are going to feel right at home in this book. And if you didn’t, this might be the nudge to go watch the show afterward. Either way, it’s a really good time.