RELEASE DAY REVIEW: Just Visiting by Dahlia Adler

by - 3:42 PM

Title: Just Visiting by Dahlia Adler
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Spencer Hill Contemporary
Published: November 17th, 2015
Buy: Amazon | B&N |
Rating:
                          

Goodreads Synopsis:
Reagan Forrester wants out—out of her trailer park, out of reach of her freeloading mother, and out of the shadow of the relationship that made her the pariah of Charytan, Kansas.

Victoria Reyes wants in—in to a fashion design program, in to the arms of a cute guy who doesn't go to Charytan High, and in to a city where she won't stand out for being Mexican.

One thing the polar-opposite best friends do agree on is that wherever they go, they’re staying together. But when they set off on a series of college visits at the start of their senior year, they quickly see that the future doesn’t look quite like they expected. After two years of near-solitude following the betrayal of the ex-boyfriend who broke her heart, Reagan falls hard and fast for a Battlestar Galactica-loving, brilliant smile-sporting pre-med prospective... only to learn she's set herself up for heartbreak all over again. Meanwhile, Victoria runs full-speed toward all the things she thinks she wants… only to realize everything she’s looking for might be in the very place they've sworn to leave.

As both Reagan and Victoria struggle to learn who they are and what they want in the present, they discover just how much they don't know about each other's pasts. And when each learns what the other’s been hiding, they'll have to decide whether their friendship has a future.




Dahlia Adler's Just Visiting filled me with nostalgic feelings about those last months of high school and reminded me how I much likely felt the same as Reagan and Victoria. The anxious, nervous emotions inside you dancing around, waiting for that envelope/mail to arrive - the visits to the college and seeing how life will be for the next years to come, Dahlia Adler depicted it perfectly and I seriously related to them profoundly.

The main characters and the two girls that hold a friendship between them so close - Reagan and Victoria - spoke to me in tons. Since the first time they speak/think, I just knew I was going to love them. Their voices are so strong and their goals, feelings - they all went from the pages to my heart. 

A list of why Dahlia Adler is amazing at writing

  • Dahlia doesn't belittle anything and she puts the truth in words and it is real. The world is a cruel place where good people get the bad side of the coin. And sometimes you have to deal with it in the best possible way. We have Reagan, a girl who lives in a trailer park and wants to escape. I have a soft spot in my heart for Victoria but Reagan wants to be heard and she was heard. I heard her. She just wants to go to college and live with her best friend. As I said, Adler doesn't belittle anything - she portrays poverty in a way  that she doesn't leave out and beautifies the hard parts. 
  • She doesn't black out the sex scenes and she shows us (in a non-explicit way). People shouldn't be afraid of reading about sex. It happens. It's important that the young audiences know about this. 
  • Reagan and Victoria's friendship made my day/night/month. It makes you think (if you don't have one) that YOU WANT ONE. A person who gets up in the morning to go help you out if you need it. A person who tells you your truths. A person who will love you even in the hardest times. 
  • Victoria Reyes. This character has probably become one of my favorite female characters. She is a Latina and I don't read a lot of books with Latinas as their main characters. Her character filled me with joy because she practically voices out everything wrong in the country when it comes to the treatment Latinxs get from the people around them. 
"I mean, maybe it's fun if you have a boyfriend or whatever, but considering every guy in this town is either scared of my skin color or thinks I'm hot because I'm "exotic," I'd rather spend every weekend playing Scrabble with my mother or giving myself and Reagan manicures."
  • And not only does Victoria voice it out, but also Reagan - when Dev is in her trailer and her family just arrived: 
"I know several things he doesn't, like my parents will instantly be suspicious of his brown skin, and it will be glaringly obvious in their expressions and in every word they say."
Finally I want to say that I was very excited for this book to come out. And after reading I've come to the conclusion that everyone needs a Victoria or a Reagan in their lives. That friendship that you just know it's going to last until the end of times. Thank you Dahlia! This book is going to my list and it's never going to disappear.

I'm an Associate Editor of mathematics by day, a Copy Editor by night, and I do a whole lot of writing at every spare moment in between. I've also been a Production Intern and Editorial Assistant at Simon & Schuster, a Publicity Intern at HarperCollins, and a Fashion Intern at Maxim. (I'm kind of into that whole publishing thing.)
I'm the author of the Daylight Falls duology (consisting of Behind the Scenes and Under the Lights), the upcoming Just Visiting, and the NA novel Last Will and Testament.  For information on those books and where you can buy them, check out My Books!

I live in New York City with my husband and our overstuffed bookshelves, and you can find me on Twitter at @MissDahlELama and blogging at B&N TeensThe Daily Dahlia, and YA Misfits. Come say hi!



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