Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

This is another YA novel by the author that wrote Princess Ben (I SO liked that book!). This is a very different kind of book, though. For one thing it's not a fantasy--there's no magic and far, far less whimsy than there is in Princess Ben. But it has that quality that I like so much in books: the main character struggles and grows. I don't generally like the "teenage soap opera" kind of books that this could be seen as, but this one had some pretty solid life experiences in it and our main character, D.J. Schwenk, is completely likeable. I ended up liking this book more than I expected to--and enough to read the next 2 books in this series.

D.J. Schwenk is the only girl in a family of super-athletes. There isn't much talk in their family, but there is a LOT of hard work--they run a dairy farm--and there is commitment and drive. They are a family whose members are loyal to each other even though they don't communicate well and there are some conflicts. As the story opens, D.J. and her little brother are running the dairy farm on their own because of their dad's hip surgery. The plot thickens when a local football coach and family friend sends his star quarterback over to the Schwenk ranch to learn how to work and D.J.'s in charge of making sure that happens.

There was more going on in this book than a teenage romance and I guess that's why I liked it. D.J. learns how it good feels to talk to someone who really listens. She improves her relationship with her dad. She begins to understand her silent little brother a little better. She learns some stuff about herself. Would I recommend this to my daughters? Well, it's not really their thing--the whole teenage sports and romance thing. But I really liked D.J. I liked how hard she works at everything, I liked how she tries to be connected to her family  members. I liked her voice. I appreciated that, unlike many books written about teenagers, there was minimal (if any) bad language and not a lot of bad behavior. There were some brief references to underage drinking and there was also a homosexual relationship in the book--all talked about as though it were a regular part of any teen's life. If that's not your idea of reality, you might not like to read about it as part of D.J.'s reality. 

Overall, it was a smart book with a likeable cast of characters.