Hot Dog Girl by Jennifer Dugan

Hot Dog Girl by Jennifer Dugan
on April 30th 2019
Genres: Contemporary, LGBTQIA, Young Adult, YA
Goodreads

Elouise (Lou) Parker is determined to have the absolute best, most impossibly epic summer of her life. There are just a few things standing in her way:

* She's landed a job at Magic Castle Playland . . . as a giant dancing hot dog.
* Her crush, the dreamy Diving Pirate Nick, already has a girlfriend, who is literally the Princess of the park. But Lou's never liked anyone, guy or otherwise, this much before, and now she wants a chance at her own happily ever after.
* Her best friend, Seeley, the carousel operator, who's always been up for anything, suddenly isn't when it comes to Lou's quest to set her up with the perfect girl or Lou's scheme to get close to Nick.
* And it turns out that this will be their last summer at Magic Castle Playland--ever--unless she can find a way to stop it from closing.

Jennifer Dugan's sparkling debut coming-of-age queer romance stars a princess, a pirate, a hot dog, and a carousel operator who find love--and themselves--in unexpected people and unforgettable places.

I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher. This does not influence my thoughts on the book or this review.

I love contemporary light novels and Hot Dog Girl sounded like the perfect summer novel. While I loved the premise and flew through the book, I wasn’t a huge fan of the main character.

Lou is starting her second year as the hot dog girl at her small town’s local amusement park. This is the summer where she is determined to finally get together with her crush, Nick, and the hot dog girl thing isn’t helping nor is the fact that Nick already has a girlfriend. Of course, there is also the problem of the town’s local amusement park closing after the summer. Lou teams up with her best friend Seely to come up with schemes on how to fix her love life and save the amusement park.

I thought the premise of Hot Dog Girl was pretty entertaining and the novel flew by, plot-wise, but I did not really like the main character. I liked the concept and tropes of this novel (fake dating and the “didn’t realize what was in front of them all along” romance) but the main character, Lou, was too selfish and manipulative for me to want to see her get her happily ever after. Lou was definitely manipulative and dishonest to her friends and the people around her and I felt that there was no consequences to her manipulative and deceitful actions. While she did feel guilty and awful, there was no real sense of lesson learning beyond that. The best-friends-to-something-more ship was really cute but I definitely would’ve actually liked it if I did not actively dislike the main character. The love interest deserved way better, in my opinion.

Overall, Hot Dog Girl had an awesome premise but I wasn’t really sold on the execution and the main character.