Delilah Green Doesn't Care

THIS WAS MCFREAKIN' DELIGHTFUL

this book was so much fun, from the banter to the shenanigans, and steamy, with mari-approved smut, to the heartstring-pulling conversations around the complications of unconventional family structures. fell in love with delilah, absolutely adored claire, iris made me laugh often, and astrid somehow in the end became my favorite character

i am SO excited for astrid's book!!

“She couldn't change anyone's mind, couldn't make someone love her who had no interest in doing so, and couldn't keep someone from leaving her if that's what they wanted to do.”

I am sad to say that it's been a while since I read an LGBT book and I am so happy that this was the one I picked up.

Small town, tattooed photographer and a single parent? This was magnificent. I ate this up. When I say that I annotated this from cover to back, I mean it.

The characters of this book are what drew me into loving it as much as I did. Delilah was a character I didn't expect to love and relate to so much. It felt like I was falling in love with her along with Claire. She had a feisty and take no prisoners attitude on the surface but underneath it all, she just wanted to feel like she belonged. Delilah had been hurt so many times in her life and had begun to believe it was because of her own doing. It was so refreshing to see her learn to accept herself and the love she deserves. Claire was such a beautiful character and I loved seeing her also realise she deserved good things too.

I would love a book about Iris. I found her hilarious and would just devour anything with her present in it.

I loved that underneath, this was more than just about the romance between Delilah and Claire. It was about friendship and family and forgiveness. The important lesson I got from this was that people aren't always what they seem, sometimes they are fighting their own battles.

I am so excited to read Astrid's story and hopefully see her get the happiness she deserves.

Hmmm...

I try to read “outside my genre” and I was intrigued by the setup on the back cover. I was also intrigued by how the back cover listed the author as a debut author, and then the About the Author caption listed her as the author of over five books that received wide acclaim. Perhaps she has a time machine.

The first scene pretty much sums up all the problems with this book. The MC wakes up after a casual hookup with a woman whose name she can't remember. A rich white woman whose name she can't remember. Every character is introduced as a “white woman” although men are merely mentioned and every character is white. The story proceeds from there into a fairly typical “beach house” sort of thing where the main character who isn't rich hangs out at country clubs and goes to brunch with people who are in a small town somewhere in the Pacific Northwest (it's either there or New England, right?). Except for the two people about to get married, everybody is trying to hook up like they're 24 years old. Even the people with kids. Even the single mom who right away is the love interest.

Other than the annoying habits the author has, such as the “white woman” mentioned above, and how all the characters are horribly irritating people, there is no tension in this story. The love interest is bisexual since her teenage years and everybody knows it, including the reader, including all the characters. There's no winning over of Claire, there's absolutely no doubt that they will at least hook up.

I picked up this book because I thought it would be an interesting window into the dynamics of lesbian relationships and expose some of the uniqueness of those relationships. Instead this is a caricature. I dare say it's a straight person's idea of what lesbians are like. Not that it's insensitive and not that I'm sensitive, but there's nothing to learn here. A more interesting story would have been these women as teenagers discovering themselves in this small town (where everybody is rich and drinks rose and has brunch every week). That's a story the author clearly thought of, but decided to write about them as adults, wherein everything is already determined and they can, honestly, do whatever they want.

So two stars because the author knows how to write. No higher because she chose to write the way she did.

i was really enjoying this at first, but along the way the story just became so meh and underwhelming. the characterization in some instances felt odd and the humour was just... contrived and not funny imo.

the potential romance between delilah and claire had be so damn excited when they first met; seriously, the tension was there and i was squealing in anticipation. but i feel like that excitement got lost and by the end their romance felt very basic—which in an of itself isn't bad, but i want the romances i read in novels to be more exciting than that.

also the humor really didn't work for me. it's not because of this category of millennial-esque humour associated with contemporary romcoms; i enjoy that type of humour. but all the jokes and attempts at saying something quirky or having funny banter was either cliche or unoriginal; it was painful for me to get through at times.

the characterizations also felt so odd. claire talks about how she's worried that ruby (her daughter) will hate her and that she can't spend time with her, but when ruby wants to sleep in claire's room after a fight with her friend claire tells her no because delilah's in her room and she wants to be with her. that didn't make sense to me given what was established about claire as a character prior to this moment, and completely took me out of the story.

iris was a side character in the story who was given too much slack imo. delilah confronts people about the nasty things they said about her when she was a teen yet she never does this with iris and instead befriends her without much conflict, despite the fact that we get actual recounts of the way iris talked shit about her behind her back when they were all kids. i had a hard time suspending my disbelief when i noticed all that.

so yeah no strong feelings per se but in general i found this book to be pretty mediocre. but take my review with a grain of salt because honestly i can understand why so many people enjoyed this

3.25 // so i had really high hopes for this book, sadly it missed the mark for me; i love delilah so much! i love her personality more than anyone else's in this book tbh & her love for photography is so beautiful

besides that, the romance between her & claire felt like it wasn't even there, it felt underdeveloped in a way, i didn't feel as much chemistry between them as i hoped i would

it was like the entirety of the book revolved around delilah, iris, and claire tryin to get astrid to call off the wedding to her terrible douche fiancé—along with astrid & delilahs step sister drama, which don't get me wrong i enjoyed it as a subplot (the development between the two sisters was nice ) but it just took up so much of the story & it felt like the book was more about astrid & delilah more than anything. the subplots felt more like main plots opposed to the romance bein the main plot which bothered me

it felt like i didn't really get time to watch the romance between delilah & claire come to fruition, it was just a lot of sex that honestly didn't make me feel anything because it felt like there was no genuine connection between the two women.

all in all i wish it was executed better but hey at the end of the day it was a fun book and i still would love to read astrid parker never fails

I think this is now my favorite romance novel and favorite book I've read so far this year. The way that the characters are so clearly defined and feel real is something that I feel is missing from most romances. With that being said, the relationship that surprised me the most was not the main romantic pair of Delilah and Clair, which I will get to, but rather the relationship between Delilah and her step sister Astrid. I have at times been on either side of that sibling dynamic, the one not understanding and the one not being understood. I almost cried at then where instead of the expected romantic interest that shows up to the big event it was her, working to extend the olive branch.


Of course it is the relationship between Clair and Delilah that we are all here for and it was done wonderfully. Usually I am not a fan of the “sisters best friend” trope, but it works very well here. Their rough history with eachother is acknowledged throughout instead of being brushed aside. And the tender moments and other scenes are done very well, with emotion and tension between them a driving force.

Ruby was also a surprise to me, as it is extremely difficult to find well written children characters that act their age. There were even a few moments that I even sided with Josh, don't get me started on how Clair invited her friends to his and Ruby's camping trip!

The one thing that I didn't particularly care for was the ending with Josh and the house, as it didn't really make any sense to me.

Overall, I loved this book and the characters of Bright Falls! I have Astrids book on my shelf that I'm saving for the future, and am very excited for Iris' book!

okay. this was a serious rollercoaster for me. at first, i couldn't stand astrid or iris because of how they treated delilah. i love delilah & claire. but the last like 85% really solidified my love for all of them so much. at the beginning ruby also annoyed me because i didn't like the attitude but then i realized she was literally exactly how a lot of teens are when their parents aren't together so i understood. i delilah and ruby's relationship because it was just so wholesome to have the heavily tatted one to genuinely get along with and help her. it was super sweet. 

i really can't wait to read the next one.

I totally get the hype. I love this book and every character. Definitely in love with Delilah...but I love Iris too. I'm so excited this is a series so I can continue to be around these women. The miscommunication trope in romance is one of my least favorites, but when it's between sisters, UGHHHH. I loved that Delilah and Astrid just wanted to be there for each other, but without the help of an intermediary, they didn't know how to communicate. I hope the story revisits Ruby and her friend and why there was tension because that was just left open. I want to jump right into the next one, but I have other books on my tbr list that I promised I would get to first. T-T

I related to Delilah while reading this book. Feeling disconnected from family and just desperately wanting to belong somewhere? And caring when you really wish you didn't? This book was so relatable in that way. 
Then the relationship that builds between the two FMCs is so sweet and spicy. I absolutely enjoyed this book and cannot wait to read the rest of this series. 4.5⭐️

tell me why 16 year old me rated this 4.5 stars but wrote this

I loved the book but the writing style really wasn't for me and the way things seemed to just happen wasn't for me. But the overall plot was strong and the characters were amazing

If i read that now i would probably assume a 2-3 star book not nearly 5

2.5

this makes me so sad. thought i would love this book but it put me into a huge slump and took me way too long to read. i love the characters and all the funny stuff between the friends and delilah but the romance just did not hit me like it should. i found myself not caring abt anything after the 50% mark, nothing really happend and it was a bit boring :/