Review Detail

YOU WOULDN'T DARE is a heartfelt YA contemporary. Juniper (Junie) is ready for this summer to be a do-over after the mess she made of the summer before. She and her close-knit friends group are going to be spending the summer together as usual, but things are still a bit off from her fall-out with Graham after their secret relationship ended spectacularly. She is acting in the local community theatre, which needs more actors to put on Midsummer Madness, and if it goes well, she could get elected for theatre club president in her coming senior year, a title she would love to have. She just needs to get her friends on board.

Her summer is thrown for a bit of a loop when her mother tells her that they will be moving in with her doctor boyfriend and his daughter, Tallulah, who really seems to hate Juniper. Their lives are unwillingly intertwined, especially since her friends seem ready to embrace Tallulah, even if Junie is not. As the summer continues, Junie has a lot to learn about friendship, family, and falling in love.

What I loved: This was an absolutely gripping read that pulls the reader into Junie's summer. Her character arc really drives the story, as she has a lot that she needs to figure out. While it has been just her and her mother since her birth, she is learning how to let others in to her circle, giving up her childhood home, and figuring out how to survive in a new family structure. She is also dealing with the complicated feelings she has for Graham and the guilt she carries over what happened the summer before. She treasures her close friendships, and she worries what a changing friendship would do to that, but she cannot help the feelings she still has.

She is also dealing with her desire to be theatre president, her performance in the play, and her father. Her father and her mother were never fully together in her lifetime, and her father has been absent for most of it, coming when he wants. He has called and said he will come for her show and her birthday, and Junie is really excited about it - even though her mother suspects that he will let her down. Her complicated relationship with her father has also driven her skeptical view of relationships, something she does not yet fully understand herself, but affects her desire to be in a relationship with Graham but also how she reacts to her friends' romantic relationships.

Junie is a really compelling character, and her story is what really drives the book. This is a summer of epiphanies for her as her world changes and expands, in some ways a coming-of-age type plot. She is easy to cheer for, and the lessons she learns along the way are hard-won in many cases. Her heart is big, but it can be a bit prickly, and the way this evolves was really lovely. I also particularly loved Graham, who is just such a wonderful character - and it was so easy to cheer for them together. Her other friends are also fantastic characters, and we should all be so lucky to have friends like them. Their text chains added something fun to the story, infusing a bit of humor and charm to the story.

Even Tallulah, who starts as an enemy, grows on the reader and becomes a really intriguing person that the reader gets to know along with Junie. The themes on family were quite powerful. Though Junie's family is changing, she has yet to learn that some changes may be for the better. Found family ends up being a gift she realizes that she has, not only with her mother's relationship, but also her friends, whose bonds are really powerful.

Final verdict: YOU WOULDN'T DARE is a lovely YA contemporary that captures the magic of summer personal growth, friendship, and found family. Highly recommend picking up this unputdownable gem!