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End of school is a crucial time for life -making decisions.Eighteen year old best friends Dessi Cowan, Lilbet’s grandniece, and her best friend Emma Simpson have planned a celebratory trip to the Gold Coast. Emma is an artist, Dessi a poet; their mothers long term ‘best friends’.  In the past the girls have always been there for each other and this relationship is central to their lives. However, when Emma meets charming Adbul Malouf and Dessi is forced to stay in Melbourne to recover from a car accident, Emma asks her friend to look after Abdul while she is away.

On the Gold Coast Emma meets up with her father and participates in some of the Schoolies activities.  Her closest male friend Sasha, convinced he might be ‘gay’, takes her to a ‘gay’ club and then realises he is really ‘straight’.

In Melbourne Dessi is totally infatuated with Abdul who takes her home twice. Though his parents are openly appalled at his taking up with a non-Moslem girl, for Dessi his ‘stop-start’ behaviour only makes him more desirable.

When Emma’s mother is diagnosed with cancer, Emma cuts short her holiday only to be confronted by Dessi’s duplicity. As the story progresses both girls must spend a lot of time coming to terms with these events.

Reviews

The title of Goldie Alexander’s new YA release could lead readers to expect a straight romance. Yet while Dessi’s first real experience of love is central to the theme of this novel, deeper issues of loyalty, trust and betrayal are integral to the plot. Cultural differences are also a key element.

Dessi and Emma are best friends like their mothers before them and can’t imagine anything or anyone ever coming between them. They’ve just graduated from high school and are looking forward to Schoolies celebrations on the Gold Coast with a group of mates while waiting to find out if they’ve been accepted into their chosen university courses. When Dessi is injured in a traffic accident and must stay home to recuperate, Emma asks her new boyfriend and her best friend to look after each other while she’s away. What Emma couldn’t have foreseen was the instant attraction between Dessi and the older, darkly exotic Middle Eastern Abdul. Dessi’s romance threatens to destroy a friendship that promised to last a lifetime. To complicate matters, Abdul’s family is far from welcoming of his Australian girlfriend.

Alexander is an accomplished writer with an impressive list of publications to her name. It’s clear she understands the expectations of her YA audience and in Dessi’s Romance delivers it in style. Alternate chapters are written from Dessi and Emma’s viewpoints and effortlessly tap into their thinking. Alexander’s readers will have no difficulty empathising with Dessi’s dilemma – should she follow her heart or put friendship first?