Review: Dairy Queen (#1) by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Publisher: Graphia
Publication date: 4th June 2007.
My rating: 4 stars

When you don’t talk, there’s a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said.

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.

When you don’t talk, there’s a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said.

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.

Dairy Queen was a book which I picked up at the right time; I was in the mood for something a little light -hearted and funny and that is exactly what I got from this book. I knew straight away I was going to enjoy this book as I found myself powering through the book, I had tons of other review books to get through, but this was the only book which seemed to be occupying my mind.

Dairy Queen definitely had an original take on things; D.J is responsible for her family’s farm, with her dad hurting his hip not being able to do much anymore, her older brothers Bill and Win away at college, a lot of the responsibility falls on D.J. It’s tough, D.J’s still in high school, she has to fit in studying around all the farming duties too. On top of that Jimmy coach of rival team Hawley decides that Brian their quarter back will benefit by helping D.J around their farm. D.J’s not too pleased, firstly he’s from the rival football team, and what would her family think? Her brothers hated Hawley, but even D.J couldn’t stand Brian after her brother Wins last match. So being forced to spend time with him isn’t the best time D.J imagined.

I went into Dairy Queen not knowing what to expect, it was a highly rated book amongst my Goodread’s friends, so I took that as a good sign. Firstly I didn’t even know it had a sports theme in it, I’m a huge sports fan and I’m always looking for more sports related books in ya, so I was kind of overjoyed when I found this out.

Being a good athlete and good at sports sort of runs through the Schwenk family and it was clear to see D.J had so much potential too. But being in charge of the farm she didn’t have the time anymore. It was fun watching D.J comes to grips of dealing with Brian, training him and teaching him about the farm. It was all sort of an eye opening experience, it made D.J take a step back and look over her current situation and realise she wasn’t at all happy with it.

I really liked D.J, she wasn’t your typical m.c; she had different priorities to other students and so missed out on a lot of opportunities because of the farm, she wasn’t the person who wanted the limelight either with everything thrown her way, she just got on with it, she really was an easy person to connect too. The secondary characters in this book were also an absolute delight, they were such a varied bunch and all had their internal dilemma’s they had to deal with. Despite this Dairy Queen didn’t come across as a heavy read in any way, Murdock did an excellent job of dealing with tough issues but also having the essence of a comical easy going feel throughout. Dairy Queen was definitely a feel good book. It’s a nice little book you can squeeze in between some intense reads in that it will leave you with warm fuzzies and a smile on your face. I will definitely be diving into the next book The Off Season soon!

Thank you to Leanne and Keertana my psychic buddies for reading this with me. You can read their wonderful reviews here and here.