Honey, Baby, Sweetheart by Deb Caletti

Ruby has always been the good girl: quiet, smart, loving to her family. That is, until she meets thrill-seeking and handsome Travis Becker. He makes her do things she would never normally do, like break into someone's house and speed dangerously on his motorcycle. Ruby doesn't like who she's becoming, and in an attempt to distract Ruby from Travis, her mother takes her to a book club. The book club, that Ruby dubbed the Casserole Queens, has just discovered that one of their members is the protagonist in the tragic love story they are reading. The group embarks on a road trip to reunite the two lovers, and along the way Ruby might learn a thing or two about love.

This book was so cute. Not exactly the typical romance, because Ruby is trying to get over Travis, while other characters, such as her mother and the book club member, are learning to love again. The whole thing with Travis, though, didn't seem like a big part of the story. Deb Caletti employed the annoying "tell-but-don't-show" tactic regarding Ruby and Travis's relationship. They didn't have enough interaction for me to believe that Ruby loved him. There was a lot of Ruby telling how dangerous he was, and then suddenly she's in love with him, but the reader has only seen him a few times. I feel like the author wanted the reader to be removed from the relationship, so we wouldn't start feeling sympathetic for Travis, but still, he needed more characterization.

Despite this, I loved all the characters in the book club, and how they helped this little old lady reunite with her true love, which was so sweet. I liked how Ruby got to learn about love firsthand, and how Ruby and her mother were similar in their attitudes toward love and relationships, and then got see each other grow and learn about themselves. Even Ruby's dog was funny, making this book a worthy National Book Award Finalist.

8 out of 10.