Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
I had heard nothing but good reviews for this book, so I went in expecting a lot and I wasn’t disappointed. Besides I am a little bit of a farm girl myself, so I totally related to D.J. I could barely read about bailing and unloading hay without my skin itching!! The only time I was truly happy to get up before four in the morning was to feed my cute little feeder calf, and the fact that I could go back to sleep afterward helped too.
Dairy Queen is the story of D.J. Schwenk. And let me tell you this girl is overworked, in more ways than one. Not only does she do almost all, if not all of the work on her family’s dairy farm she also has to struggle daily with her uncommunicative family. And this family needs to talk, because needless to say, they have some problems.
Brain Nelson happens to show up one day, and D.J.’s life starts spinning. Brain is the quarterback of Hawley the rival of D.J.’s school. At first Brain and D.J. don’t really get along (well duh), but they make it work. D.J. is going to be Brains trainer for the summer, not only does she know a lot about cows, but apparently she knows a lot about football. Her two older brothers are football players extraordinaire, so D.J. couldn’t help but pick up some things here and there. But Brain ends up helping D.J. in the end, which she totally didn’t see coming. He makes her realize how truly frustrated she is with her life, and how much she loves football.
There is so much more to this story, than I can summerize, but I don’t want to spoil the milk for anyone else! Sorry, I just had to! Anyway. D.J.’s character is totally believable, as a person, let alone a teenager. She struggles with friendship, sexuality, confidence and even first love. She just blew me out of the pasture, ha! I know I did it again! I can’t wait to read The Off Season.