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My Review:Title: American Dreamer
Author: Adriana Herrera
Series: Dreamers #1
Published by: Carina Press
Release Date: March 4, 2019
Format: Kobo Book
Pages: 352
Genres: Contemporary, LGBT, Romance
Potential Triggers: View Spoiler »
Source: NetGalley
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2023 Backlist Reader Challenge, Lenoreo's 2023 COYER Chapter 1, Lenoreo's 2023 Diversity Reading Challenge, Lenoreo's 2023 Netgalley and Edelweiss Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound ✩ Book Depository
My rating:
Blurb:No one ever said big dreams come easy
For Nesto Vasquez, moving his Afro-Caribbean food truck from New York City to the wilds of Upstate New York is a huge gamble. If it works? He’ll be a big fish in a little pond. If it doesn’t? He’ll have to give up the hustle and return to the day job he hates. He’s got six months to make it happen—the last thing he needs is a distraction.
Jude Fuller is proud of the life he’s built on the banks of Cayuga Lake. He has a job he loves and good friends. It’s safe. It’s quiet. And it’s damn lonely. Until he tries Ithaca’s most-talked-about new lunch spot and works up the courage to flirt with the handsome owner. Soon he can’t get enough—of Nesto’s food or of Nesto. For the first time in his life, Jude can finally taste the kind of happiness that’s always been just out of reach.
An opportunity too good to pass up could mean a way to stay together and an incredible future for them both…if Nesto can remember happiness isn’t always measured by business success. And if Jude can overcome his past and trust his man will never let him down.
3.5 stars — I will admit, this one did not start off with a bang for me. I was kind of disappointed in the writing (felt a bit simplistic), and I wasn’t getting captured by our characters. I pushed through because it was an older NetGalley, and I’m really glad I did, b/c about 1/3 of the way through things started settling in and felt more natural. For me this felt very much like the Harlequins I used to read a lot of…which is not a bad thing, I was just hoping for a bit more I guess.
Our heroes were pretty solid, though I won’t say I completely fell in love with either of them. They each had some great moments though that helped keep me invested, and helped balance each of their flaws.
I wasn’t expecting Nesto to be quite such a workaholic and so singleminded. He definitely let his emotions get the better of him and had some dickish moments, and while I was bummed when it would take him awhile to acknowledge he was in the wrong and needed to make it right, it also felt kind of realistic. I know I can take awhile to go from knowing I’m wrong to letting go of whatever set me off in the first place, and it was like that for Nesto. Luckily when he got there he was eminently sincere in trying to make it right. I loved his passion for the cultures of him and his “family” of friends, and how it came through in his passion for his business.
Jude was packing a lot of hurt from his past wrt his family that I hadn’t seen coming. I almost wished we, as the readers, had learned it from him earlier so it would make his walls make more sense. He could be so caring and supportive, but he was also very afraid and protective of his heart. Understandable, but I still really wanted him to get there…and he did. I loved that he had his own passion for his job, and helping make books more accessible to kids.
They definitely had ups and downs as a couple, but I did enjoy the connection between them and the way they supported one another.
There was a background “villain” in this book that I wasn’t a fan of. She felt…cartoonish. I’m sure there are legitimately people out there like this, and that POC encounter them, but it just…I don’t know. I guess I just would have appreciated more subtlety in that area. I understood her purpose, but it was kind of hard to take it as seriously as I might have wanted to.
So yeah. Definitely a rough start, but given it’s the author’s debut I can imagine those things will smooth out in subsequent books. I can definitely see checking out more in this series, those “brothers” of Nesto definitely had me intrigued.
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