Interesting topic of interracial relationships in the 1960s and how difficult that is so navigate. Overall I enjoyed the setting and how the two characters were navigating these things while trying to keep a strong relationship. I did not love the characters individually. Perhaps because the book was shorter but I would have liked more character development and fleshing them out.

Like a few reviews i have seen, the characters relationship felt awkward and forced.
Pacing was wierd, and characters boring.

I was not able to get interested in this book and I did not finish it. The characters and the plot were not able to catch or keep my attention.

This is a short book about the struggles of an interracial couple in 1960s Chicago. The author portrayed their relationship and struggles in a historically accurate manner.

I have lost the copy of this book so I am really sorry I won't be able to give feedback on this book. I wanted to read this book but the copy got deleted from my phone. Really sorry.

The summer heat in July 1963 is unbearable. The apartment looks drab. The family is in Chicago and moving to a more white neighborhood. They will be starting new schools.

Maybe because they are young and innocent, cute black Valerie Davis and nerdy white Jeffrey Stark are late to realize that falling in love on Chicago’s South Side in 1963 is a highly risky business for an interracial couple. At first, they help each other out of tough racial fixes—he saves her from attack at an all-white amusement park and she saves him from injury in a racial brawl at their high school. But as their romance becomes more serious, so do the racial dangers. White police target Valerie as a prostitute and black gang members see Jeffrey as trying to sexually exploit a black girl. Seemingly inevitably, the blossoming romance collides head on with the realities of Northern-style racism one hot summer afternoon at one of Chicago’s most beautiful Lake Michigan beaches, when a racial protest turns ugly, confronting the couple with terrible choices.
Gouster Girl vividly depicts the raw racism so prevalent during the early 1960s, which ushered in decades of gang violence that turned sections of Chicago into the urban killing fields they are today. Gouster Girl opens in the summer of 1963 with the white Stark family tearfully moving its belongings onto a moving truck in front of the tidy South Shore neighborhood apartment building they love, just blocks from where Michelle Obama would grow up. As they load up the truck, 16-year-old Jeff and his parents argue yet again about the racial fears and fantasies that are leading them to abandon South Shore, with its delis and shuls and beautiful beaches. Through the eyes of Jeff, Gouster Girl then takes us back to the unlikely racial violence that led to his romance with Valerie and how she variously teases and embarrasses him to confront his most deeply held racial prejudices. Valerie introduces Jeff to the highs and lows of her life– to black music and dancing, as well as police corruption, job discrimination, misguided

This book was a short one that reads almost like a memoir, but not quite. It would have been nice to get more insight on Valarie, her motivations for "dating" David and more of her thoughts and feelings on what was happening. It falls just a little bit flat until about the last twenty to thirty pages of the book and that's where I wanted to know more.

<b>JUST NOT FOR ME 🤷‍♀️</b>

The only thing I enjoyed about this book was the theme - an interracial couple in 1960's Chicago. If only the execution had been better. I didn't like the characters - they were flat and boring. I didn't like the pace - even though the book was short, the pace was too slow. I didn't like the support characters - there were too many for such a short book. I didn't like Jeff and Valerie's relationship - it felt forced.

So yeah, not the book for me...

This definitely had some interesting concepts. The historical accuracy is very well braided with the fashion of the time and the social problem is well-presented. I enjoyed this quite alright.

'Gouster Girl' set in the 1960s in Chicago, follows a Jewish boy who is in love with a negro girl and the racial prejudice they face. It was extremely interesting for me to read about how tough life was for the Negro people in that time period. Of course I knew that it was a terrible time, but I really enjoyed learning more. I felt their pain! At times, I thought the story was a little slow and it lacked a major plot. I also wasn't a huge fan of reading the book from Jeff's point of view, but that is most likely because I am a girl and didn't connect with him! I did thoroughly enjoy this read though and found it very interesting.