the concept! no matter how well executed, i’m still a sucker for road trip books. I feel icky writing negative reviews honestly, so let’s start with my favorite things. when they both need to be at an investor meeting during one of their biggest festivals, fallon steps up to take the truck to the festival, but her only option for a copilot? chloe. (she really doesn’t, calls it “just sex” which is a whole other complaint but-) so fallon and chloe’s moms are bffs too and they own a gourmet ice cream truck called love at first bite. Quick plot summary for reference: fallon is always a planner, cares a lot, etc., and after she hooked up with her childhood best friend chloe last summer she’s been upset/overthinking it/etc, because she thinks chloe, flighty as always, doesn’t care. if anything, buddy reading made it so much better, but it wasn’t redeemable. alas, and naomi can attest for me, this book was not remotely well done. So i read one of my least favorite books in a while, but at least i had the privilege of reading it with no but i was quite let down by this book, especially because i’ve loved other books by dugan? and an ice cream truck road trip got me so excited. “i'll stop the world and melt with you, you've seen the difference and it's getting better all the time, there's nothing you and i won't do, i'll stop the world and melt with you” (from the hit 80s song i melt with you by modern english) If the premise appeals to you and you don’t mind a miscommunication-based plot, toss this one in your tote bag for your beach reading this summer! Still, it delivers on the promise of the description, and it was a quick, light read.

This made the middle chunk of the book drag for me, because despite road trip hijinks, the dynamic between Chloe and Fallon is stuck in this dynamic, which made it feel like there wasn’t any progression in the core story. Fallon even addresses that she knows everyone will think they just need to talk, but she’s sure she knows what Chloe is thinking and that it’s not worth talking about.

We’re firmly inside Fallon’s head for the narration, and I found her directly addressing the audience (“I know what you’re thinking, but…”) a little akward.Īlso, this book is dominated by miscommunication. It’s hard to imagine a better premise for a sapphic summer read! I didn’t love this quite as much as I hoped, but I think that I might have to face that YA romances just aren’t clicking with me lately, so I think that’s a me problem. To be more specific, it’s a friends-to-lovers-to-enemies?-to-lovers? ice cream truck road trip sapphic YA romance. This is a sapphic YA romance with an ice cream truck road trip, and if that doesn’t intrigue you, we have very different tastes in books.

Genre modern english i melt with you