Review: Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo

*Review contains spoilers.

Love and Other Perishable Items

by Laura Buzo

December 11, 2012

243 pages

Goodreads  Indigo

Goodreads Summary:

A wonderful, coming-of-age love story from a fresh new voice in YA fiction.

'Miss Amelia Hayes, welcome to The Land of Dreams. I am the staff trainer. I will call you grasshopper and you will call me sensei and I will give you the good oil. Right? And just so you know, I'm open to all kinds of bribery.'

From the moment 15-year-old Amelia begins work on the checkout at Coles she is sunk, gone, lost...head-over-heels in love with Chris. Chris is the funny, charming, man-about-Woolies, but he's 21, and the 6-year difference in their ages may as well be 100. Chris and Amelia talk about everything from Second Wave Feminism to Great Expectations and Alien but will he ever look at her in the way she wants him to? And if he does, will it be everything she hopes?

Review

This is an older book but I saw it on sale and the synopsis sounded compelling so I got it. I wanted to see how two people at very different stages of their life would come together and tell their story. Sadly Love and Other Perishable Items fell short to impress me. This review will be filled with spoilers because I think it will help me better explain why I feel this way.

The key to this book is knowing Amelia is fifteen and Chris is twenty one. They're coworkers at the local supermarket and get along really well. It's obvious they share feelings beyond friendship but what also couldn't be more obvious is their age gap. It's a huge obstacle. So neither takes any actual action because Amelia is very much a girl while Chris is a super hormonal adolescent. She's busy crushing on him and he's too busy trying to find the perfect woman.

In the beginning, I cheered for Amelia to go for Chris but by the end, I'm so glad it didn't work out. He didn't treat her with respect. I almost lost it when he continuously teased her about making out with Jeremy. What a self-serving douchebag, cracking jokes at other people's expense to make yourself feel better. Maybe that wasn't what he was doing but that was certainly what I interpreted from the situation. I wanted Amelia to be smarter and see that Chris isn't all that she's made him out to be. She really should've put him in his place instead of bearing the things he said. Amelia's got a lot to learn!

Chris can be such an asshole. Excuse my language. In my opinion, he has a depressing personality. He's all energetic and chirpy on the outside when inside, he's actually quite dead. He's depressed over having no plans for his future and delirious over being dumped by the woman he loves. Basically he handles everything in his life badly. I was fuming with the way he rejected Amelia and then ignored her at work. He doesn't deserve her or her forgiveness. The only redeemable part of him was when he listened and gave recognition to Amelia's thoughts.

I love the dual POV! It's quite unique because we hear Chris's voice through his diary entries. It's an extremely entertaining one-way conversation. I also really love the voice this book gives to feminism. Amelia's rants were really powerful and they stuck with me even now. I'm glad she confronted her mother in the end. Her mother's reply was vague but very true.

The ending made sense but I hated it. I'm conflicted because I feel like Chris is running away to Japan even though in a way, he's actually giving himself a new start. My heart was broken for poor Amelia. At least Chris let her know she's different to him. She's special. I would love an epilogue set two or three years later. Or better yet, a sequel set five years after where they reunite and are conveniently both still single. Their age wouldn't be an issue at all then!