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Published: 4 April 2017
Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
Category: LGBT (FF)/Young Adult/Contemporary
Seventeen-year-old Delilah Green wouldn’t have chosen to do her last year of school this way, but she figures it’s working fine. While her dad goes on a trip to fix his broken heart after her mom left him for another man, Del manages the family cafe. Easy, she thinks. But what about homework? Or the nasty posse of mean girls making her life hell? Or her best friend who won’t stop guilt-tripping her? Or her other best friend who might go to jail for love if Del doesn’t do something? But really, who cares about any of that when all Del can think about is beautiful Rosa who dances every night across the street. . . . Until one day Rosa comes in the cafe door. And if Rosa starts thinking about Del, too, then how in the name of caramel milkshakes will Del get the rest of it together?
Rating: 4 Stars
This was a neat book to read because it’s one of the few that takes place in Australia. It’s sad that so few do because the ones I’ve read have been so much fun (including The Rosie Project).
Delilah is a strong character that, admittedly, has her flaws. She’s trying to do too much for the adults in her life, either ignoring the mother that abandoned her or the father who’s heart was broken in the process and caring for his cafe while he heals on a trip abroad. Doing so makes her school work suffer, her main passion being geography, though with the way the teachers and the students were treating her as a lesbian, I don’t blame her for wanting to not attend anymore.
Rosa was a cool character that I got to like not only because she was Delilah’s crush, but because she was trying to save the local library, an action sure to win over my heart. The supporting characters in this novel as well, the patrons of the Flywheel, were fun, though not especially fleshed out. They were present but not so much so that they too away from the people we were really meant to care about i.e. Delilah and those closest to her.
I liked how, though the book is written like a traditional novel, there were parts where it felt like Delilah was speaking directly to me as the reader. It was like having a one-sided conversation, but it never felt awkward. I was hearing her tell her story, anything from the meanness of Georgina to the weirdness of a night spent drinking with Charlie to a moment enamored with Rosa.
The story was an easy read in the sense of style, though there were some moments that upset me, such as how Georgina and Ella treated Delilah at school. This book doesn’t gloss over the elements of homophobia that Delilah had to face, from her fellow classmates or from her guidance counselor. These events didn’t encompass her, though. Her attitude may have been brusque, understandably so considering everything, but Delilah was still an admirable girl for not only dealing with those bullies, but also for supporting her family, such as it was in it’s non-traditional state.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
