Olivia-Savannah's Reviews > American Dreamer

I love a good N/A romance read, but weirdly enough I don’t get many review requests for that genre! However, when this one showed up in my inbox, I jumped to read it. And I am so glad I did because I know this is going to be a series I will follow.

In this romance we need to talk about the representation. Culture is at the heart of the food truck that Nesto is running, and also has a lot to do with his storyline. I loved the Afro-latinx representation. And there were some other great discussions and inclusions of themes such as identity, belonging to two cultures, religious-based homophobia. But one key thing that I noted and appreciated was the use of brown instead of black. Of course, Nesto is a POC, but I like that there was the distinction between brown and black! A small thing, but that detail of representation spoke volume. There was also some light touching on racism but not so that it was the focus of the story. It was related to some of the struggles they had to face but it kept the book a romance and one with a happy storyline. I feel like we need more books with black/brown characters just living life and suffering under racism not being the main theme so I was happy with how it was included.


As this is a romance book, we have to talk about the romance in this one! Not only does this one focus on the two characters getting together, but it goes beyond that too, which makes it a bit more unique! We get to see some of the struggles of starting out a relationship and maintaining a relationship when you also have a lot of heavy focus going into your profession and work life. I thought the problems they faced as a couple were very realistic. And sometimes some elements had me happy smiling like crazy when reading! But there were some hitches they had to work through and get over.

Nesto’s small business he runs and wants to have take off is a food truck. So be ready for the glorious descriptions of Caribbean food which are going to make your mouth water while reading. Advised: have food on hand the whole time. I loved seeing the Jamaican food that was included as that is part of my own culture. But I learned about a lot of foods which come from the other islands and made my hunger worse by looking up photos as well. I might have eaten my kindle if I hadn’t thought better…

There is an antagonist in this book, but she isn’t a huge issue. I felt like she could’ve been worse, but she does a good job of stirring up her fair amount of trouble. I also liked when it talked about how you have to be when starting up a small business for yourself. As it’s something more and more people are starting to do these days it’s great to see it represented in a book!


The one thing I wasn’t a huge fan of were the explicit scenes! When I read an NA romance like this, I actually thought there would be more of those kind of scenes. I’m glad they were quite light in number in this book. But they didn’t really do it for me >.> They weren’t off putting or anything like that, but just… weren’t for me! shrug

As for the writing style, it was very well written. The book alternates between Nesto and Jude’s points of view. They both stood separate enough for me to never get confused. I actually could relate to Jude a lot, with how he was fascinated by the Latinx culture and wanted to learn all about the language and lifestyle. I related to how he is quite closed off and not too trusting with people straight off the bat. It was nice to see parts of myself in another character. Nesto was so loving and easy to fall for as well.


I can definitely see how the sequels will probably follow romances for other members of the friendship group and I will be reading the next book which comes out this year too!

This review can originally be found on Olivia's Catastrophe: https://oliviascatastrophe.com/2019/0...