The Summer of Jordi Perez

This was a great little read. It only took me a couple of hours to read, and I identified with the main character SO HARD. Abby is also a plus size blogger, and while she blogs about fashion instead of books, and her hair is pink instead of purple, a lot of her insecurities about the way people see her (both online and off) are things I share. I even share her trepidation about learning to drive!

It's a clean romance; no one ever does more than make out. The book focuses far more on friendships than it does on sexual matters. The friendship between Abby and her female friends, between Abby and Jax, and between Abby and her girlfriend. I like that Abby had supportive female friends who didn't pull the “So are you attracted to me? You're not?! But why not?!” that so many people try to pull on their queer friends. I also loved how the author flipped the trope of “gay best friend” on its head, and gave us Jax, the straight boy/close friend.

The book is apparently pretty indicative of Amy Spalding's work, so I might have to look into more of her books. This was an absolute delight to read!

And I have to say how much I love this cover! From the stripey rainbow title font to the rainbow back cover, it's just gorgeous and summery and positive.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

(Disclosure: the author is a friend.) I feel like I overuse the word “delightful” in my reviews, but this book is just plain delightful - bright and summery and a joy to read. The conflicts were realistic and it was refreshing to see them handled in a mature way (I don't quite know what I'm trying to say here, but I get frustrated with plots where the whole thing could be resolved if people just talked to each other - none of that frustration here). I even liked lax-bro Jax and his goofy friendship with Abby. Don't read this if you're hungry, because I've been craving a good burger ever since I finished it, but if you like fun YA romance with a side of fries, this is the book for you!

Firstly, don't read this book when you are hungry. You'll just crave food or snacks or coffee or numerous other things while reading almost every second page. Now, you can't say I didn't warn you 😀😀😀

I loved Abby's character. She is very funny, has a great sense of style, loves fashion, promotes body positivity and wants everyone to be confident in their body and clothing choices. I love when she mentions that being fat is not an insult even though other people tend to make it that way. I thought the fat rep was great, atleast something that I could closely relate to, especially the part about parent's opinions about our bodies and their belief that becoming thin will make us pretty and happy. As someone who is very subtly shamed about my weight frequently in the guise of “being healthy”, I was happy to see that neither Abby nor her friends consider her weight to be a problem.

The development of Abby and Jordi's relationship is also very sweet. It starts off with friendship, hesitant smiles, little flirtations and the setup was so much fun to read about. I loved how Jordi never missed taking pictures of Abby because she found her so beautiful and considered it her best work. Their interactions, their well thought out dates and intense makeout sessions were too cute.

Along with the love story, my favorite part of the book were the friendships. Abby's girl gang is awesome and I really loved their dynamic. It's also realistically portrayed – Abby being closest to Maliah even though they are best friends with Zoe and Brooke, Abby not being very happy that Maliah is spending more time with her boyfriend leaving less for their girls only bonding. Abby's almost accidental friendship with Jax is hilarious and I loved hanging out at all the burger joints with them. He may be a dudebro, but he grows on Abby over time and is also extremely supportive of her. There is one particular scene where he explains why he wanted to be her friend and it was very very sweet.

I love this book for a lots of things – bringing East LA to life for me (I've never been to the west coast), amazing friendships including f/f and f/m, a cute summer sapphic romance, well fleshed out POC characters and lots of beautiful clothes and food. But my favorite aspect of the book is definitely body positivity and also Abby's belief that being confident in her body doesn't mean that she needs to put herself (atleast her pictures) out there on social media.

Great concert, okay execution.

Overall, I enjoyed it. I liked the characters and there was good development. My main complaint is that the ending felt too convenient and whiplashy. Additionally, it felt like the author did too much of “bring the reader in at the last moment and end the scene as soon as possible” too much. Not necessarily the first part, but quite a few times it felt like there were missing sections in the audiobook because it skipped over a lot.

https://dbsguidetothegalaxy.wordpress.com/2019/07/16/the-summer-of-jordi-perez-by-amy-spalding/

The Summer of Jordi Perez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles)
AMY SPALDING
Year Published: 2018
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Genre: Young Adult ~ Contemporary ~ LGBT+ characters ~ Romance
Stars: 4

Disclaimer: I received this e-arc through Edelweiss and the publisher in exchange for a free and honest review. The image header and the quote edits used are my own and the link at the top of the post links back to the book's Goodreads page. All quotes given in the review are from the e-arc and therefore might not be accurate. The summary is my own (well, I summarised the Goodreads description). All opinions expressed are my own.

Lil' summary: Abby Ives has always been the one content to just be happy with her blog about plus-size fashion and style and she seems to be thinking she'll do more of the same when she starts an internship at her favourite boutique. That seems more difficult when she starts to fall in love with Jordi Perez, the other boutique intern.

So why the best burger in Los Angeles? Well, they live in Los Angeles and burgers are amazing. Okay, the burgers are because she makes an unintentional friend, Jax, who has to go out and try burgers for his dad's app.

And then things start to change, and Abby has to decide if she still wants to be in the shadows, or step out a bit.

Review: I absolutely loved this book. It's more about fashion, it's more about a good summer. It's about love, and acceptance, and understanding why you do what you're good at. It's about finding yourself and finding more friends and even love (listen, I get happy at some cliché things, and this is definitely one of them).

Abby is such a good character. She's realistic and funny. She makes you root for her, you want her to be happy and to get what she wants. What's more is that she makes you feel like you're there – which is something I always enjoy in books and something I think is important to have – the ability to relate to a character.

Her love interest, Jordi, was a good character. I liked to see her passion of photography and was happy to see her as Abby's love interest.

Another point of the book that I really liked was the romance. It was super sweet and so cute and just something that I really liked seeing. That and it had the feeling of a total rom-com – like something you could see on the big screen.

A side character I just wanted to squeeze becuase he too great was Jax – he was absolutely delightful to read. He was kind, and a good friend to my girl, Abby. And I mean, he had the best job – where can I get a job like this? Like eating burgers in the name of helping your dad? Could we carry on to trying the other foods – like the ice-cream? Or the nachos or sushi? Yes, please, I will sign up for all of those.

All in all, a very cute read, definitely perfect for the summer and great if you need a pick-me-up book with good ownvoices representation.