Amac Productions

SPOILER ALERT!

Don’t let that title fool you! She totally does care. 😉

As a member of the LGBTQ community myself, one thing I have constantly been told, or will tell someone else is give me all the classic tropes but make them GAY! Please and thank you!

I want all the typical rom com stuff but make it two girls, two guys, or non-binary. Find me a new combo and I will be all for it. And this novel delivered it.

Did I spend the entire thing wishing these two idiots would just have an open honest conversation with one another? Absolutely.

Did I love it any less? Nope!

As many people within the LGBTQ community know ‘Bury Your Gays’ is a soul crushing thing that has happened to too many gays on TV and in media in general. So, reading or watching a rom com where someone like us gets the happy ending and not the unhappy end of a stupid bullet, is a wonderfully amazing experience.

Time and time again I choose to read or watch rom coms because it is a mindless endeavor. No matter what happens you know they end up together, everything works out, and the two characters are riding off into the sunset together. I will never be able to properly explain how wonderful it is, to see someone like myself get the happy ending.

They get to be happy.

They get to be weird.

And they are praised for it.

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care follows a typical trope where two characters are hopelessly in love with one another but think the other isn’t. They are stuck pining away for each other, fully confident in the knowledge the other feels this is little more than a fling.

Delilah is moody, with rough, and cynical edges due to her unfortunately upbringing. With her mother passing when she was younger, her father remarrying, than losing him to, only to be left feeling like an outsider in the family she feels, feels like they’re stuck with her.

While I feel the issue with the stepmother is never quite resolved where we understand her side of the story. We get enough from both Delilah and her stepsister Astrid to paint the picture that she was not an easy mother whether the child was the focus or ignored. I wish we could have seen a touch of the stepmother’s perspective because she’s never written as entirely wicked.

More often than not she seems like she didn’t know what to do with two daughters after having lost two husbands. She walled herself off and became cold instead of pulling them closer. We never see her reasoning, leaving that relationship feeling unresolved for both girls.

As for Delilah and Astrid I loved that the miscommunication was not limited to the romantic entanglements.

Their entire childhood relationship was based around their lack of communication and forming assumptions about how the other feels when they never really knew each other to begin with. They were two kids who made a mistake in a sibling relationship because they had no one steering the ship for them as their only parent left alive, didn’t try to help them connect with each other.

This lack of true communication continued into their adult lives.

Astrid desired a deeper connection and kept trying to reconnect with her sister, seemingly the only family she truly had left.

But she kept trying to reconnect without actually talking! Without actually telling Delilah how she felt or that she wanted to be actual sisters. The kind who shows up without needing money or to be guilted into being there.

As I said this book is riddled with miscommunication everywhere.

No miscommunication bigger than the one between the main two women in the novel.

Delilah and Claire are a hot mess.

A hot mess I fully support, by the way.

These two are sexy, dorky, cute, cuddly, serious, and a whole mess of problems that work perfectly together.

And I – of course – found myself rolling my eyes because their worries could be solved with a few simple conversations.

But you know, where’s the fun in actually talking to anyone? Where’s the fun in saying the hard truths?

Claire is a sweet woman who from Delilah’s perspective as a child is cold and unfeeling like both her stepsister and their other best friend Iris. She has a daughter with an ex she had in high school, derailing her plans to go away to college with her best friends. Instead, she opted to stay home and take over the family bookstore. She took to raising her daughter and trying to be mature when it came to her relationship with her ex.

A struggle I’m sure many can relate to.

Then in busts Delilah who has changed her appearance by being herself out loud and proud, Claire doesn’t even recognize her at first when they meet again.

The two of them are good for each other, providing what each need in a sense.

Delilah gives Claire the freedom to be ridiculous, be a kid, and have some stupid fun she missed out on by having a kid so young.

Claire gives Delilah a sense of stability. Something she hasn’t had since her father died.

I also loved the relationship Delilah builds with Claire’s daughter. The two of them fully understand not understanding these crazy rules and wearing these stupid dresses. Why are there so many forks? Why can’t I wear my combat boots and have tattoos? I liked the little drama going on between the two young girls (Claire’s daughter and best friend) as they navigate growing up because damn that is hard.

I love that the three friends – Astrid, Iris, and Claire – grew up together and matured into people who understand not everyone has to speak the same way or look the same to fit together.

Iris and Claire at first seemed like typical mean girls hellbent on making Delilah’s youth hard.

But in truth they were young girls who didn’t know how to help someone with so much trauma and death in their lives at such a young age.

And it was perfect to acknowledge they didn’t even know how to deal with difficult situations as adults either. They were so worried for their friend who might be making a huge mistake but had no clue how to broach the topic.

How do you tell your best friend you think their soon-to-be husband is an ass?

And Claire who had to deal with her ex and keep from falling back into bad habits.

I also loved Claire having to deal with her ex. He was a kid who never learned to grow up and I appreciated that Claire felt like she had short end of the stick. Far too often it is shrugged off that the guy flakes on his kid because he is too young. So is the girl. But she grows up because she has too, and I enjoyed how that seemed to put a chip on Claire’s shoulder.

The nervousness she exuded where she could never fully trust him was nice. But I also loved that he understood he made mistakes that got him to this place.

She didn’t stop trusting him overnight and it wouldn’t be earned again easily. But I enjoyed he wanted to put in the work and make it right.

All the dynamics were perfect and played out well, excluding the tidbit about the stepmother.

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care is a wonderfully, sexy, sweet, and endearing novel I highly recommend!

4 out of 5 stars.

Would recommend to a friend!

Read on and spread the love!