American Dreamer

American Dreamer (2019) Adriana Herrera

Nesto Vasquez is chasing his dream. He’s moving his food truck from NYC up to Ithaca (where is mother and sister live) to see if he can make a go of it there. All he wants is to focus on making a success of his business; he didn’t expect the distraction of a cute librarian.

Jude Fuller has worked hard to improve the youth reading program at his library, but now he is pushing hard to get his dream of a book truck turned into a reality.

Unfortunately, part-time grant writer and full-time misery Misty is doing her best to sabotage Jude–and anyone else she doesn’t like.

Jude is adorable, but his friend Carmen is even more adorable.

“Oh my god, Jude Eugenio Maria Fuller! What did you say to him before you walked off? He was blushing and fanning himself!”

I laughed as Carmen and I hurried to the library with our lunch in hand. “Stop giving me random names in Spanish, Carmen! It’s weird!”

Carmen and Nesto’s mom might possibly have been my favorite characters in this book, with Jesse up there, just because he’s doing his best caught in an extremely difficult place.

But I did love that Nesto had such a strong support network, and friends that would do anything for him. Support systems are important, and they are also often ignored. We need our support systems to make it through our lives without losing our minds.

Want to note something:

Nesto was loud. He didn’t walk into the room I was in to tell me something. He would just holler from wherever he was, calling out what he wanted to say. He could have an entire conversation like that.

In MY world that is completely and totally normal. Why bothers to walk back in forth when you can just speak louder?

I heard a review where they had issues with the character of Misty. I actually (sadly) felt like Misty was the type of person I’ve dealt with on multiple occasions, so she didn’t feel flat or one-note to me. I did, however, feel like the end of the book was rushed. Just was truly and justifiably hurt, but we didn’t actually see Nesto screwing up before that incident. It felt out of character for him to have acted as he did, which made it feel more like a one-time issue rather than a repeated problem. There was the issue at the fair, but that felt like something else entirely, and it made the whole “misunderstanding” feel a bit off.

That said, I did enjoy the story.

Publisher: Carina Press
Rating: 7/10

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