Stay Sweet by Siobhan Vivian

ARC, 356 pages

Release Date: April 24, 2018

Published by: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Read from: April 13-18, 2018

Stand-alone

Source: TxLA

For fans of:  Contemporary, Romance, Summer Lovin, Feminism, Stand-alones, YA 

    A summer read about first love, feminism, and ice cream.
     Summer in Sand Lake isn’t complete without a trip to Meade Creamery—the local ice cream stand founded in 1944 by Molly Meade who started making ice cream to cheer up her lovesick girlfriends while all the boys were away at war. Since then, the stand has been owned and managed exclusively by local girls, who inevitably become the best of friends. Seventeen-year-old Amelia and her best friend Cate have worked at the stand every summer for the past three years, and Amelia is “Head Girl” at the stand this summer. When Molly passes away before Amelia even has her first day in charge, Amelia isn’t sure that the stand can go on. That is, until Molly’s grandnephew Grady arrives and asks Amelia to stay on to help continue the business…but Grady’s got some changes in mind…

*MY THOUGHTS*

     I was SO set on getting this book in my hands. It had everything I knew I would love about a book. In some ways it worked, and other ways it didn’t. But overall, I was certainly glad this was my first Siobhan Vivian book.

“And, as it is with most disappoinments, the promise of ice cream makes things a little bit better.“

pg. 95

    Sand Lake in the summer for Amelia has been the same for the last four years: Hang out with her best friend Cate while they work at the famous ice cream stand, Meade Creamery. The stand has been opened every summer for years, run by local girls that serve Molly’s homemade ice cream. But then Molly passes away and Amelia and the girls fear that the stand may be in trouble. Even more so when Molly’s grandnephew comes with ideas that don’t quite match the traditions that come with Meade Creamery.

“Look for green lights, not stop signs, remember?“

pg. 177

    I know for a fact that I’m a character driven reader. I love to be inside the heads of the characters and find out what they’re thinking and what they know. This made this book a bit difficult for me because it was written in third person point of view. I never realized it even bothered me. But that didn’t matter much. What bothered me most about the characters was mainly just what bothered me about the MC. I kept waiting on Amelia to gain some nerve and stand up to everyone. It took her a bit to long for her to finally decide she wanted to finally become a boss. And Cate and Grady didn’t really knock my socks off either. They treated Amelia terrible and by the end I was totally frustrated with them.

“If the ship is going to sink, you’ll regret not being on it with us.“

pg. 219

    Fortunately, everything else in this book was BOSS. I LOVED the plot. I’m not one for historical fiction, but this was one that had a love story/ feminist story mixed in and I was ALL FOR IT. Throwing the mix of the past really made the story engrossing. Towards the end I didn’t want to put it down because I was so interested in what happened with the characters after the war.

“Though life may not always be easy, it still can be plenty sweet.“

pg. 238

    And then there was the romance.  At first I wasn’t sold with it, but towards the end when I saw that he was growing up and he wasn’t as scatterbrained as I was thinking he was, he warmed up to me. The little instances that led up to them being together was really cute as well. Until things went up in smoke.

“The war changes people. […] But I think the war is changing me , too. I’m not sure I can go back.“

pg. 297

    This book is the perfect summer read! I wish I had been able to read this while I sat on the beach! It’s light, airy, flirty, and fun. Meade Creamery has left a mark in this book, but also on me.

Overall, I give this

Real rating was 3.5 but I rounded up.