Dairy Queen (2006)

A much better book than it looked like, and deserves a better title, too! Written as the English assignment that will let her graduate, DJ writes about how she's been missing school to hold her family's farm together, how her brother never opens his mouth, how her father would freak out if she joined the boys' football team (which she does), how she has a crush on a rich boy doing community service on her farm, and a lot of other things she hasn't been able to tell anyone. A lot of funny moments, and the author definitely knows what it's like to grow up in a small farming town! ( )

The main character is great. She's interesting, funny, brutally honest and real. Her family situation is tough, the story was well-paced and it dealt with some major issues, coming out, family disfunction, all in a straight-forward, non-sappy, non-judgemental manner. Really enchanted and completely underrated.

Side note - this book suffered the dreaded hard cover to QP cover change. The hard cover is awesome, a cow with a freaking tiara. The QP looks like a Mag Cabot. Not that that is a bad thing just annoying, why mess with a good thing? ( )

People don’t expect me to be a football fan, but I am. So I enjoyed the football aspect. And D.J.’s voice is so great that, despite my personal reservations about girls playing football, I was totally charmed by this book. [Feb. 2010] ( )

June 24-25, 2012

Love this book, especially the audio! So very very cute! I found D.J. to be incredible relate-to-able, even though she's a farm girl who plays football and I'm a city girl who was in math club. :P No serious, I was... NERD! Anyway, great great book and a great beginning to the trilogy!

August 31, 2009

I started listening to this book last night while making dinner, intending to put it down afterward... but I just couldn't stop listening! I was up REALLY LATE... Eek! But it was a REALLY good book! And I loved the narrator's (probably fake) Wisconsin accent! Awesome! On the surface, this book may seem to be mostly about cows and football, but really, it's a great story about family, friendship, and communication. I thoroughly enjoyed it! ( )

DJ Schwenk is a teenage girl growing up on a dairy farm in rural Wisconsin. Her family suffers from a lack of communication and the departure of her two older brothers, along with her father's hip surgery, have put even more strain on DJ. Her workload at school is overwhelming when she adds in all the work she has to do to keep the family farm running. [b:Dairy Queen|16178|Dairy Queen (Dairy Queen, #1)|Catherine Gilbert Murdock|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166719842s/16178.jpg|564970] chronicles a few weeks of her summer vacation...if you can call it a vacation.

If you have to listen to professors talk about stuff like substantive due process and prescriptive easements for 3-4 hours a night, this is the type of audiobook to listen to on the way there and back. Honestly, my heart was so warmed up by the time I got there every night that I could handle it with no complaints. And the narrator had a pretty good (not perfect)Wisconsin accent. It made me miss my friends from the midwest a ton. (Especially you, Maureen-who-only-occasionally-signs-on-goodreads-and-who-I-promise-to-call-back-soon!) It also made me miss my NCCC days, where we worked hard, worked out a lot, and sweat a ton. I miss going out to do something where I could see visible results and feel good after the fact. I miss working outside and I was (dare I say it) jealous of the farm work DJ had to do.

Anyway, this book is adorable. DJ is adorable. And I definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes a realistic YA book.

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