Honey, Baby, Sweetheart by Deb Caletti

The Quiet Girl. That’s the label to which Ruby McQueen’s been reduced. She’s content enough to live with it until she meets Travis Becker. Dangerous, dreamy, rich boy Travis who goes to a private school and thus knows nothing about Ruby. It’s shocking how easily and suddenly reserved, good-girl Ruby can become the reckless, risk-taker Travis thrives on. He pushes her beyond her limits time and time again, but frankly she could use the distraction. With Ruby’s free-spirited, musician father finally walking out on them for good, Ruby’s mother, out of denial, has hit a wall. But when Travis goes too far, Ruby’s omniscient younger brother Chip sees it coming, and Ruby’s mother intervenes.

To keep Ruby, and herself, preoccupied, she takes Ruby to the senior citizen weekly book club she runs. The eccentric Casserole Queens and Harold are happy to have young company and unknowingly pass on small nuggets of wisdom to Ruby. When a plot to reunite two long lost lovers is hatched, the road trip turns out to be just what Ruby, Chip, and their mother need.

I’ve been in the mood for contemporary YA and never-fail Angie over at Angieville recommended this to me, so of course I read it. Went out and bought it the next day with my birthday gift card, I could not resist the new sparse and refreshingly green, red and white (lots of it!) cover. Angie and I know each other outside of bloggerdom but I don’t think she could’ve known just how much Honey, Baby, Sweetheart would resonate with me. Snatching every moment I could whether my toddler was awake or not, I ate it up in two days.  Ruby had me from the second page. With one of Deb Caletti‘s many vivid images – Travis Becker’s motorcycle on flawless, golf course grass and Ruby’s description of herself as shy, I was hooked. From there, it’s clear that Ruby’s telling her story and she meanders a bit before she gets to the point.  But her voice is so defined that I didn’t mind. I was along for her ride and all the poetic observations, metaphors, and allusions that went along with it.  Seriously.  If you like lyrical writing and pithy, clever one-liners, this book is definitely for you. There’s about one per page, and though a few pulled me out of the story, I more often found myself rereading those passages and being tempted to mark them. One of my favorites:

We are all a volume on a shelf of a library, a story unto ourselves, never possibly described with one word or even very accurately with thousands. A person is never as quiet or unrestrained as they seem, or as bad or good, as vulnerable or as strong, as sweet or as fiesty; we are thickly layered, page upon lying page, behind simple covers. And love – it is not the book itself, but the binding. It can rip us apart or hold us together.

Beyond the beautiful writing and imagery, the characterization is top notch. Although Ruby is trying to be someone she isn’t, her personality couldn’t be clearer. It seems like I read fewer and fewer books where the protagonist doesn’t simply develop, but transforms into a better, wiser version of herself. To have the major life lesson make this kind of change and have it be believable is a real feat. I found Ruby’s younger brother Chip very interesting for a lego-playing, family dog lover. There’s more to him than meets the eye.  Ruby’s mother is not the stereotypical one-dimensional, bad parent. True to life, she goes through her own ebbs and flows of good and bad parenting. It was after meeting the Casserole Queens however that I realized just how well-written Caletti’s characters are. Miz June, Anna Bee, Peach, Harold, Mrs. Wong, Lillian – I had their distinct personalities down, often from their introduction.  And where keeping all these similar characters straight would ordinarily be difficult, there was no confusion. While this isn’t a traditional love story, it’s about love in all its guises, especially self-love and identity, and it’s absorbingly compelling to watch Ruby learn and experience it herself. In a world where time travel exists, this is the book I would give to my seventeen-year-old self, when I was The Quiet Girl, who risked much out-of-character for the bad boy whom she thought she loved.

Second Opinions
Laughing Stars review
My Tea Time is Book Time review
Once Upon a Book Blog review
The Ravenous Reader review

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