Review

When Caleb, Savannah Moore’s boyfriend of nine months, dumps her in front of the whole school on the last day of junior year (aka year 11), on the grounds that she’s boring, she decides that doing a few different things will show him how wrong he was. She’s not boring! She just likes a routine. And certain brands of yoghurt. And she doesn’t see the point of wasting time on things she might not like. But she would like Caleb back. She had her whole senior year planned out, and he was going to be a big part of the Math Bowl and the Astronomy Club.

Luckily (or unluckily?) she’s just about to go on her mum’s company cruise around Alaska with her family and her mum’s best friend & colleague — and her family. Which includes her son, annoyingly gorgeous, perpetually upbeat football star Tanner, a boy who’s made it his mission to annoy her since childhood, and her rival for academic honours, sporting achievements and parental praise. But Tanner is strangely sympathetic to her situation, appointing himself her ‘fun coach’, and before she knows it, Savannah (or S’more as Tanner calls her) is trying new foods, ballroom dancing, ziplining and white water rafting.

Savannah doesn’t want to admit it… but she’s starting to enjoy herself and have fun with Tanner, who isn’t the dumb football goof-off he wants everyone to think he is. Could it be that, far from being opposites, their strengths complement each other? And she begins to wonder: is it really Caleb she wants?

*

I enjoyed this in a mild sort of way. I thought it started with a bang, Savannah’s brutally public dumping providing a kickstart to the whole thing, and then a cute ice cream shop scene. About a quarter of the way through I started feeling like it was a little bit too ‘nice’ and dull. But it picked up a bit, with the beginnings of some romantic frisson. I liked the way the leads developed respect for one another’s preferences and perspectives, and how they both developed insights into themselves as well.

> Click here for a little bit of spoiler commentary

I did feel that the third act break up (TABU) was just not well done at all. The author did try mightily to establish a firm psychological background for it, but I was just not buying it. She breaks it off because there was a bear and it was scary? Even though he’s the one who protected her from the bear? Mmmm… I don’t think so. I know the TABU is a genre convention, but it’s so hard to do in a realistic setting without it seeming like manufactured drama, and Dean has not managed it here.

So, overall: a sweet coming of age romance, but it didn’t knock my socks off.

Age: 12+

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Humiliating public break up; mild anxiety about trying new things; strong anxiety about bears; Savannah’s biological dad was unreliable and largely now absent from her life (but she loves her step-dad and regards him as her father in all the important ways); Savannah spends time checking up on her ex-boyfriend online, humorously referred to as “stalking”; a couple of very mild puns by Savannah’s best friend about Tanner’s athletic rear and him playing as a “tight end” (football); Savannah has an allergic reaction to some lobster and requires antihistamines; main characters have some adventures, including encountering a potentially dangerous bear (nothing happens) and falling out of the raft when white water rafting (everything’s fine); very slow burn build up of ‘accidental’ hand grazes and knee touching; a couple of kissing scenes (PG). Representation: Savannah is a STEM girl through and through; her best friend (very minor character) is Black & Savannah’s mum’s boss appears to be Latino – everyone else is white; romance is mlw.

*

Dean, B. (2024). Hearts overboard. RHUS Children’s Books.

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