Review: Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake

Delilah Green is a "struggling" lesbian New Yorkian photographer who viciously avoids any and everything that could possibly take her back to her hometown: Bright Falls. She also does her very best to avoid love or long attachments. Everything has to be casual or it can't be anything at all. That is until her estranged step-sister and former bully, Astrid coerces her to photograph her wedding for a hefty price. Delilah would rather be anywhere else but unfortunately, as said earlier, she's struggling. Having thousands of followers on Instagram doesn't pay the bills. She needs the money so at the last minute she reluctantly takes the trip to the town.

Claire Sutherland is a bisexual single mum who's doing everything she can to run her bookstore while providing the world for her 11-year-old daughter. She's had to fight a lot of battles with her good-for-nothing ex and essentially raise their daughter alone. In addition, she hasn't had much luck in the romance department as well. Claire is also one of Astrid's (Delilah's step-sister) best friends and also one of the people who Delilah grew up hating because of the bullying. The day Delilah gets to the town she runs into Claire but instead of fighting, one of them forgets the other and tries to flirt. This starts a chain of back-and-forth flirting, attraction, escapades and lots more. It is the beginning of a sweet love story.

Light is the word that comes to mind when I think of this book. This isn't because it’s all fun and games. The book has a couple of heavy themes but compared to a lot of queer stories I’ve engaged with, this is just soft, easy and gentle. No other words could possibly describe it. Firstly, I adore Delilah. She was such a firecracker who didn't take bullshit from anyone. Every time she popped up in the book I kept asking myself, “Do I want to be with her or do I wanna be her?!

Claire on the other hand was in most ways, the opposite of Delilah. Where Delilah was hard, she was soft. Where she was outspoken, Claire was quiet. Where Delilah was irresponsible, Claire was responsible. She had to be, as a mum. You would think Claire wouldn’t hurt a fly but when it came to her daughter she was ready to do any and everything. I really admired that. Her kindness also let her see parts of people that were usually hidden. It gave her a perspective few others had. It was one of the things that connected her and Delilah.

While being entirely about queer people, it didn’t feel like I was reading a queer book which is something I really appreciated. If this was a heteronormative book Delilah would be the brooding boy who just can’t stay away from the sweet nerdy girl. The sweet nerdy girl would obviously be Claire. It read like so many other romcoms I’ve read in the past with the single exception that it was queer. I caught myself smiling at certain points when I kept realising that Delilah was a woman. It’s not to say that the queer elements had no effects on the book whatsoever. It did. As it is with all books with queer themes, there was a deepness that having two queer protagonists added to the book that wouldn’t ordinarily have been there.

Blake gave us a lesbian, Delilah, who went from a small town in Oregon to New York City, where she discovered a world teeming with queer individuals and accepting societies. She did not simply flee from a stepfamily she feels never truly loved her. Blake also gives us a bisexual woman that once fell fully in love with a man and now has to navigate co-parenting with him. There are so many stories out there about co-parenting with an ex while dating but the extra depth here is that Claire was doing that while falling completely for a woman and no one saw her as a fake lesbian or anything like that.

I felt that this was a very wholesome book that I really enjoyed reading and would genuinely recommend to anyone who loves romcoms but I also didn’t think it was everything. I feel if it didn't have queer characters I wouldn't have found it amazing. It was a good book but there was nothing particularly striking about it and in all honesty, there doesn’t really have to be. It’s just a simple somewhat stereotypical romantic comedy.

I rate this book a 7/10.