Books and Sensibility

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Hot Dog Girl by Jennifer Dugan

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Rating: 3 out of 5.

408 pages | Contemporary | Putnam | Release Date: 4/30/2019

16-year-old Elouise doesn’t love being the dancing hot dog at the dilated amusement park Magic Castle Playland but the park is her second home and she plans to make her summer working there her best one yet. But as summer commences absolutely nothing goes as she plans.

From the cover, I assumed Hot Dog Girl was a quicky romantic comedy but it feels more like a CW-style romance drama as we watch this group of teens navigate their relationships to each other. I thought the friendship between Elouise and her best friend, Seeley felt genuine and lived in. Elouise is bisexual and Seeley is a lesbian and their identities are part of the story and friendship but not the entire story.

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Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann

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Rating: unrated  | Swoon Reads | Contemporary New Adult | Release Date: 1/23/2018 

Let’s Talk About Love is an upbeat, modern romance-y novel that feels way more like millennial (Gen Z ?) women’s fiction than like a true romance.

Alice loves a pleasing aesthetic, her best friends and herself–asexuality and all.  When she meets her new co-worker the sweet, generous and soon-to-be teacher Takumi she finds herself on a journey to balances her smoldering attraction with her identity as asexual.

I think I basically agree with Carrie’s review on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, this book has a lot of drama and angst that comes from characters not talking to each other but I also like following them around as they try to tackle this whole adulting thing.

Alice was recognizable as a young person today, she loves Tumblr, fandom, bingeing tv and making memories with her friends.

I personally had a hard time seeing this book as a romance because Takumi felt–to use a term Kat uses a lot–unknowable to me. Perhaps it’s because I’m used to romances where we get into the other characters but he never felt like a real person to me. He was just a little too perfect.