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Title: Darla Decker Hates to Wait

Author: Jessica McHugh

Narrator: Robin Jill

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-23-15

Publisher: Evolved Publishing LLC

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Teens, Ages 11-13

Publisher's Summary:

Evolved Publishing presents the first book in the Darla Decker Diaries series by Jessica McHugh, with Darla Decker Hates to Wait. This edgy young adult novel follows a girl's tentative journey toward adulthood.

Patience is not Darla Decker's strong suit. Surviving sixth grade is tough enough with an annoying older brother, a best friend acting distant, and schoolwork. After adding instructive kissing games and the torturous wait for a real date with her biggest crush, Darla is perpetually torn between behaving like an adult and throwing temper tantrums.

Games of flashlight tag and the crazy cat lady roaming Shiloh Farms in a "demon bus", serve as distractions during her parents' quarrels and her anxiety about show choir auditions. Yet the more Darla waits for her adulthood to begin, the more she learns that summoning patience won't be the hardest part of being 11.

A frank and funny look at the path to adulthood, Darla Decker Hates to Wait begins a journey of love, loss, and the nitty-gritty of growing up through Darla Decker's eyes.

Members Reviews:

Step aside, Judy Blume.

Young adult fiction, especially that written in a realistic setting and from a female perspective, can't escape the comparison to iconic author Judy Blume. Like most of my peers, I grew up reading those novels, and have been skeptical of drawing parallels to them in other works. In the case of McHugh's first installment of the Darla Decker Diaries, the comparison is warranted. This novel has the potential to be to a modern audience what Blume's works were to girls of the 70s and 80s, and its blunt honesty and relevant topics make it the preferable choice.

Darla herself is a quirky, eminently flawed, and utterly lovable heroine, so truthfully written that you find yourself feeling what she feels, cringing at her missteps and cheering at her victories. You laugh alternately with her and at her, and you feel for her as she makes mistakes and-- with variable success-- navigates the rocky path of tweenage life. She screws it up regularly, but the refreshing thing about Darla that is so encouraging (for an audience of any age) is that even the worst embarrassments and the most shameful disappointments pass. People forgive, and people forget, and like Darla, you can take what you learn from those situations and use them as opportunities to grow.

One specific situation Darla encounters that really resonated with me was her attempts to navigate her changing relationship with boys. I found myself cringing at the beginning as her male peers followed the norms of society and treated her as a sexual object. I cringed even further watching her begin to believe and play out the role they had assigned to her-- it reminded me far too much of my middle school self. The best part is that, as you progress, Darla begins to take ownership of herself and her choices- she begins to ask what SHE wants rather than what she should do to be something others want. Watching her grow this direction as the novel progressed made me want to stand up and cheer out loud, as well as applaud McHugh for depicting this change in a realistic, non-preachy way. Like any true pre-teen, Darla is probably not finished compromising herself to please boys, but she is beginning to realize that her life is her own, and that she should call the shots. I loved that about her.

This novel will appeal to a wide age range.