Stay Sweet
By: Siobhan Vivan
Published Year: 2018
Published: Simone & Schuster
Pages: 368
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): Summer in Sand Lake isn’t complete without a trip to Meade Creamery—the local ice cream stand founded in 1944 by Molly Meade who started making ice cream to cheer up her lovesick girlfriends while all the boys were away at war. Since then, the stand has been owned and managed exclusively by local girls, who inevitably become the best of friends. Seventeen-year-old Amelia and her best friend Cate have worked at the stand every summer for the past three years, and Amelia is “Head Girl” at the stand this summer. When Molly passes away before Amelia even has her first day in charge, Amelia isn’t sure that the stand can go on. That is, until Molly’s grandnephew Grady arrives and asks Amelia to stay on to help continue the business…but Grady’s got some changes in mind…
First Impressions
How cute is this cover? It just screams fun summer read. I barely read the description as this was one that sucked me in on cover alone. Plus, I've read other books by Sibhoan Vivian and enjoyed them, so I knew it would be good.
What I thought
This book was pretty much exactly what I thought it would be and was a perfect, light, summer read.
Amelia is starting her final summer as a Meade Creamery girl. Meade Creamery is a local ice cream stand that has been around for over 60 years and only hires female employees. Molly Meade still makes the ice cream herself from her farm house, leaving the girls to pretty much run the stand by themselves. This summer, Amelia is appointed Head Girl, even though she feels that her best friend Cat should have been the one to receive the honors. When Amelia finds Molly dead at the beginning of summer, her idea of what the summer was going to look like changes.
I really liked the idea of an ice cream stand run entirely by high school girls with only 4 flavors of home made ice cream. They explain that there is a bond and a set of friendship rules that the girls share and it's lovely. It's so nice to have a group of girls who say "no drama" and then pretty much stick to it. When Grady, Molly's nephew, first comes to town to take over the stand, it's pretty funny watching to see a male integrate himself into this ice cream sorority. He definitely has no clue what he's doing or what he's gotten himself into.
I appreciated some of the minor mysteries that unfolded in the story. Would the stand re-open? Would they find Molly's recipes? If they did find them, would they be able to re-create them? All these questions made the story move quickly and stopped it from getting stale. Like I mentioned, the group of girls is an integral part of the story. I do wish that there had been a little more friendship amongst all the girls, but instead it focused on Cat and Amelia. I know that Cat is Amelia's best friend, but man, I did not like her. She is a bit self-centered and very pushy. Amelia questions why Cat didn't get Head Girl, because she is so much more outgoing and bubbly than Amelia, but it's pretty obvious early on why Molly picked Amelia over Cat.
Of course, no summer contemporary YA would be complete without a romance. I wanted to love Grady and Amelia, but I didn't quite get there. I had similar issues with Grady that I did with Cat. He was just a bit too self-assured and pushy for my tastes. I know that Amelia claimed that she was never doing anything that she didn't want to (regarding stuff with the ice cream stand, nothing relationship wise), but it still felt pushy to me. In the end, I felt like they started to get to more equal grounds, but it isn't one of my favorite couples.
Speaking of the ending, I felt like the book ended abruptly. I wanted just a little more! An epilogue would've been perfect, but maybe Vivian will right a sequel? I would love to catch up with everyone the following summer!
This book was exactly what the title said it would be, sweet. It goes down just as smoothly as I'm sure the Meade Creamery ice cream does. I loved the unique story line, as well as the diary entries from Molly Meade's old diary. If you are looking for a cute summer YA, I recommend picking this one up. I think it stands out a bit from some of the other one's I've read, as the setting of the story is 90% at the creamery.