Lori Horvitz grew up ashamed of her East­ern Euro­pean Jew­ish roots, con­fused about her sex­u­al­i­ty, and idol­iz­ing the ​“shik­sa in her liv­ing room,” a blonde all-Amer­i­can girl whose pho­to came in a dou­ble frame and was dis­played next to a fam­i­ly pho­to from a bar mitz­vah. Unable to join the ​“hap­py blonde fam­i­lies,” she becomes a ​“hip­pie chick” who trav­els the world in search of … some­thing. The Girls of Usu­al­ly chron­i­cles each trip, each romance, each exper­i­ment in rein­vent­ing her­self that draws her clos­er to dis­cov­er­ing the secret door through which she can escape from deep-root­ed pat­terns and accept her own cul­tur­al, eth­nic, and sex­u­al identity.