Rhubarb Lemonade was originally published in Swedish in 2019 but has recently been translated to English by A. A. Prime and is due for UK publication on the 8th of June 2023. This book follows Vonya who is spending the summer with her Grandfather on the small Swedish island where he lives. She plans on fixing an old boat and making it seaworthy with some help from her Grandfather, and then she meets Ruth, who’s her age and keeps appearing where she’s keeping the boat, but they don’t seem to have anything more in common. This is a contemporary book and I would probably say it’s more YA than Middle Grade due to some of the language used at certain points in the book.
Rhubarb Lemonade is written from Vonya’s perspective, so you hear all of her thoughts on things but it also helps as there are sometimes it moves around the timeline so it isn’t a massive jump or shock as it does in some other books.
This book is quite short and doesn’t have a massive cast of characters, Vonya features through the whole story as does her grandfather, the other two characters that regularly appear and have a key impact on the story are Ruth and Vonya’s mum. I quite liked the different characters in the book and it was easy to keep track of because there weren’t loads but when I do think about it, I feel like some of them could have possibly had a little bit more depth and they didn’t feel completely real to me, they could have possibly been built up a bit more. I also couldn’t relate to any of the characters well, but I could understand them.
I liked the setting of this book and most of the plot but I’m not the biggest fan of it overall, it was enjoyable but I didn’t find it to be anything powerful or super special for me. I think if it was longer, I might have found it a little bit more memorable but it was the right length for the plot at the same time.
I would definitely recommend this book even though it wasn’t completely for me and I think it definitely did have some similarities to The Deepest Breath by Meg Grehan but there are no books that I would immediately compare it to. I would also probably recommend Rhubarb Lemonade for a younger YA audience, around 12-13 but I would also beware that there is some swearing throughout the book that may not be appropriate for some readers of that age. Overall 3.5 stars, a decent book with some good books but not ultimately the perfect book for me, which is fine.
Thank you to Netgalley and Hot Key Books for an e-arc in return for an honest review.
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