Synopsis:
Dear Calista is book six in the Love Notes series of standalone YA romance books by Danielle Keil.
Everyone at Ryder High knows what it means to have a teal envelope taped to their locker on the first day of the month.
The first day of August is Calista Forrester’s seventeenth birthday. Her teal envelope showed up among the gifts at a surprise party.
A party she didn’t want. Just like how she doesn’t want a Secret Admirer.
Panged with guilt, and stuck with a dead phone battery, she accepts the challenge by default.
Her clues come in the form of tickets to different places, each with a task to complete while she’s there. It’s an introvert’s worst nightmare, but at least she’s allowed to bring a friend along.
When school starts, Calista is shoved into the spotlight as the chosen girl. That’s when she decides enough is enough.
Will Calista’s decision impact more than just her?
And will her secret admirer let her give up that easily?
Review:
I’m still really enjoying this series. I love how quick they are to read but still very entertaining and feel like they’re the length they should be. Does that make sense? Even though they’re less than 200 pages, it feels like you have all the information you need to understand what’s going on and to root for the couple playing the game.
In Dear Calista we have our first girl that very vocally doesn’t want to play the game. Which fits her personality. She keeps everyone at arm’s length and is extremely independent. Although stubbornness got a little tiring at times, it was refreshing to have a main character not really have any interest in the secret admirer game. Because that’s realistic, there’s no way every single girl at the school would want to be picked.
I was adamant that I knew who the secret admirer was from the get go. Other than the first book, which I don’t think was guessable, I’ve got them all correct so far. The curveball did throw me for a little while as it just didn’t make sense. There were hints that it could possibly be that character but they were only in one scene so I wasn’t convinced. I’m not going to spoil who it actually was, but these books aren’t meant to be super hard mysteries so you will also likely guess straight away.
The themes of Dear Calista are a lot darker and mature than previous books. There are heavily implied suggestions towards what Calista’s mom’s night time job is and there are also themes of alcoholism and adultery. I wouldn’t say Dear Calista was as feel good as the other instalments but these themes actually made the book more hard hitting for me. It gave Calista a genuine reason for being the way she is and it means you want nothing but the best for her.
I also enjoyed how many of the previous characters we got to spend time with again. Jade definitely wasn’t one of my favourite main characters but I loved getting more Melinda and Melissa. Especially as Melissa was the first person Calista opened up to (kind of). She was the catalyst of Calista learning to trust people and that was so important to the story.
I really want to continue and finish this series like now, but my Kindle Unlimited subscription has just run out and I need to actually read the books I’ve bought. My to be read pile is getting insanely large so reading books on a whim with the subscription is not something I need in my life right now. I am excited to get to Max’s book though. It’s the only one that has the roles reversed.
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