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Book Reviewed by:A well-written story written in a pitch-perfect teenage voice. D. J. Schwenk is an unforgettable character: A football-loving 15-year-old who takes over running her family's small Wisconsin dairy farm when her dad is injured. Like the rest of her family, she is not much of a talker - but when she meets Brian, a snooty quarterback assigned to her for football training, she finally learns to speak her mind.
When you don’t talk, there’s a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said.
Harsh words indeed, from Brian Nelson of all people. But, D. J. can’t help admitting, maybe he’s right.
Stuff like why her best friend, Amber, isn’t so friendly anymore. Or why her little brother, Curtis, never opens his mouth. Why her mom has two jobs and a big secret. Why her college-football-star brothers won’t even call home. Why her dad would go ballistic if she tried out for the high school football team herself. And why Brian is so, so out of her league.
Welcome to the summer that fifteen-year-old D. J. Schwenk of Red Bend, Wisconsin, learns to talk, and ends up having an awful lot of stuff to say.
D.J. is a heroine to root for - funny, intelligent, independent and self-deprecating. We thoroughly recommend Dairy Queen, the first of a planned trilogy, to teenage girls - and if the occasional boy could bring himself to read it, firstly he might enjoy it, and secondly he would glean more about the female psyche than he'll learn from any number of locker room discussions!..continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Though she never played high school
football or milked cows, Catherine
Gilbert Murdock is a big fan of family
farms and Wisconsin. She herself grew up
on a tiny farm (two goats and honeybees)
in Connecticut, and attended Bryn Mawr
College and the University of
Pennsylvania. She now lives in suburban
Philadelphia with her husband, two
children, and Sparky the cat. Dairy
Queen is her first novel.
Interview & biography at BookBrowse.
Did you know?
Catherine's sister is
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat,
Pray, Love.
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