No Experience Required | Review

Synopsis

It’s 1989. Life’s easy for DEBORAH LESLEY: she’s up-market, drives her own flash car to school, and looks pretty good too. She’s never had a job, either; but now her parents have split up, and she needs the money.

JOE GARBARINI is cool. He likes motorbikes, girls, and fun. He doesn’t have time for much — he’s running Heartbreak Café when he’s not at school.

The Heartbreak Café is a noisy hangout on the north Californian coast. Joe’s worked there for years, and knows what it takes. He’s sure Debbie won’t last a month — but Debbie’s determined to put up with his wisecracks and prove him wrong.

Debbie, Joe, and the rest of the gang are all at the Heartbreak Café. Meet them in this sparkling series from bestselling author Janet Quin-Harkin.

Review

I loved this riches-to-rags story about a girl just trying to find her new place in the world.

It’s a quick read that puts the reader through a full range of emotions. Our main character is going through a very emotional point in her life and is being forced to change a lot of things. She is very vulnerable and we feel a lot of this vulnerability in a wide range of emotions and thoughts. I loved the honesty Quin-Harkin showed us in this book through the raw emotions of this character.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from this book, even after a couple of chapters, but I soon found the story was about Debbie. What I mean by that is there wasn’t more much to the plot other than following our main character, Debbie, around as she adapted to life without money and with newly divorced parents. Some books follow as a character as they work towards a certain goal, but this book was more about Debbie. While it took me a second to come to this realization, once I did, I ended up really enjoying this book!

As well, all the side characters that are introduced in this book were fun to get to know. They are all very different and have different things to contribute to Debbie and her new life. Quin-Harkin did a good job of weaving these characters in throughout the book and setting things up for the books to come. I can’t wait to see more of them.

Speaking of books to come, I’m so glad this is going to be a series! This book definitely felt introductory in a lot of ways so I can’t wait to really get into the meat of things in the books to come. I think it will be fun to continue to see how Debbie grows and flourishes in her new/old community and with this new group of friends she’s acquired. As well, there are plenty of side plots and conflicts that were introduced in this book so I’m excited to see how they are fleshed out in the books to come.

This series shows a lot of promise so I can’t wait to get my hands on the following books! I’m especially eager to see what/if things develop between Debbie and our resident motorcyclist Joe.

Big thanks to Janet and her team for giving me a gifted copy of this book!

Rating

To check out my other reviews, click here. Or to check out more books by Janet Quin-Harkin, go to her Goodreads profile or visit her website.