Great Debut Novel

This is the debut book by Brian Wasson. Brian did an awesome job, his characters are likable, plot is great with young adults romantic comedy. Kal is a sophomore in high school and is known as the candy man with parents that are famous therapists. Kal has crushed on his long-time friend Sterling for sometime now. Kal runs a great underground candy business to make extra money. Things are not to going to well with Sterling in the romance department so she goes to Kal for much needed help. Kal lends a listening ear and his therapy skills as he is not to fond of Sterling’s jerk of a boyfriend. Kal has issues that he is dealing with as he trying to mend his parents broken relationship.

Can Kal get the girl and repair his parents relationship?

I received an ARC via NetGalley and I am leaving my review voluntarily.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

Kalvin is selling candy in order to save up enough money for a family trip. Kalvin starts to notice things are different at home between his parents and feels this trip will help bring them back together. Sterling is in a troubling relationship when she stumbles upon Kalvin supply in the storage closet. Kalvin is crushing on Sterling and offering her relationship advice was his in. This was a cute YA read.
Overall I rated this one 3.5 out of 5

I remember adding this to my TBR and not knowing anything about it lol The only thing I knew was the cover was cute as hell. I was ready to give this 5 stars from the cover alone lol Yes I know this is a problem whatever. Anyways, the good thing is the inside is just as cute as the outside.
So Kalvin starts selling some candy from a closet that used to be long to student council…. Where they stored their candy for the same thing, just a separate operation. What could go wrong? Turns out everything. Butt it turns out Kalvin is doing this for a very specific reason that he’s determined is going to fix everything. But he wasn’t counting on life to unravel all his hard work.

Ok so in my initial thoughts on Goodreads I said “some of these characters had me fighting air” and I definitely wasn’t lying. That one person made me think I would be going to jail if this was like my little cousin or something cuz I would have been up at this school so fast. They were terrible and I really didn’t like what they did. It just didn’t fit what he did. She was extreme and uncalled for. And then when they said “you’re not even mad” or something like that I wanted to be like “DUH, HES PROBABLY BROKEN!” Idc I would have hired a cousin for the day.

On the other side of that, I wish the characters were more fleshed out. Yes I was mad af at what that person did, but I really couldn’t tell you anything besides the grudge they were holding. And all the other characters were the same. It was like we only knew surface level stuff and that was unfortunate.
Then there was the romance? I think I was disappointed because first off, it doesn’t happen till the book is over and two because it was pitched to me as one. It was more realistic fiction. They flirted and they were cute, but I wasn’t convinced they actually liked each other. ESPECIALLY after that stunt he pulled. At that point I turned into his mama and slapped him upside the head lol

As for the mental health aspect, I LOVED it. And I loved that Kalvin was so good with his classmates. No none of it was ethical, but I meannnn lol They’re teens and it was high school. But if he was this good without schooling and only watching his parents, he’s going to be great at it when he finally gets the training he needs if that’s what he wants to do. I was actually really proud of what he built, so when it all fell I felt so bad for him. It was BAD.

This book had me yelling and mad but also cheesing and happy. I hope this book brings all readers the same happiness it brought me.

The charming cover drew me to pick up Seven Minutes in Candyland, and I am so glad I did. This feel-good story brings back all the best memories of high school while simultaneously reminding us that it wasn’t a perfect place. It’s a celebration of youth, love, the power of friendship, and the joy that can be found in a small piece of chocolate.

Sophomore Kal (Kalvin) Shmelton needs big money, and he needs it fast. His parents have turned a joint psychologist practice into a wildly popular couples therapy podcast and YouTube channel that’s pulling in thousands of dollars a week in sponsored content. But their work on Right the ‘Ship has all but cost them their marriage – and KaI is convinced he can save everything if he just gets their family to Hawaii. It’s the last place he can remember everyone being truly happy, and he is certain if they return, memories will come flooding back of how things were, and everyone will reconnect once more. He doesn’t have a job, but he does have a side hustle in dealing candy of the Mars and Hershey variety between classes. With its allergen restrictions and inflated vending machine prices, the school isn’t giving the students the sugar rush they need to make it through the day, but Kal can and does.

When the gorgeous Sterling Glistern – Kal’s forever-but-never-acted-upon crush – sneaks into the storage closet while he’s taking inventory of his candy stash, he is at first dumbfounded and tongue-tied. She’s crying, and he has no idea how to fix that. It turns out that what he does do – listen and offer the kind of practical advice he’s heard his parents dish out for years – is all that’s needed. In fact, Sterling appreciates it so much that she quietly tells all her friends how much help Kal was. Now, he’s the go-to man for everyone with a problem. He refuses (at first) to counsel anyone – until folks start offering to pay. Before he can quite wrap his head around it, Kal is selling seven-minute therapy sessions for ten bucks a pop in his sugar-laden hidey-hole. Need relationship advice? Kal, who has never really had one, is your man. Struggling with teen anxiety and depression? He’ll teach you the mindfulness techniques needed to make it through your day. Kal doesn’t love the job, but he does love the cash he’s raking in.

The gig isn’t without its problems, though. Mr. Perkins, who allows Kal to keep his candy stash in the AV closet, is eating through Kal’s inventory as he works through his own problems. Maddie, the student council VP, has it in for Kal for something he totally didn’t do. She’s threatening to find grounds to have him suspended, something that will not look good on college applications. And his best friend Rod has managed to tick off one of the varsity soccer players, and now the two of them have to watch their backs constantly, waiting for the man to take revenge. Nothing about Kal’s life is easy, but nothing about growing up ever is.

I think some people will question the ethics of Kal’s doing therapy sessions, but I had no problem with it. Everyone knows he doen’t have a license, and he recommends professional counselors to those who have serious problems. It could be an age thing, but when I was in school, the student newspaper had columns that gave advice from students to students. I also remember reading numerous teen romances based on the school paper advice column reporters, the most famous (infamous) being Dear Lovey Hart, I Am Desperate by Ellen Conford, which was turned into an Afterschool Special on TV. (Before my time, but I did watch the re-run.) So yeah, this wasn’t an issue for me.

If I had a teen in my life, this is the book I would gift them for the holidays. It captures the difficulties of school – the stress of class work, the added stress of extracurriculars and choosing which ones will help you get into college that you can actually participate in – and what it’s like to juggle that with life – being a family member, being a friend, and developing relationships. It also captures life’s imperfections. Rod, one of Kal’s besties, is a trouble magnet. Dino, his favorite galpal, is an excellent gamer who refuses to listen to Kal regarding her love life. Watching her choose between two young women – her former love who broke her heart and a new possibility – makes Kal anxious to help, but she is one of the few students not listening to him. I loved how the story juxtaposed the way that he could help strangers, but for those closest to him, he simply had to watch and be supportive during their struggles. This is often true in real life.

I also loved how teen life is depicted. From communication – talking in the gaming world, by text, in person – to how they hang out and date is beautifully captured. The book does a fabulous job of showing us that reality can be hard – parents aren’t perfect, we will have people who don’t like us, and teachers are as human as we are – but we can still have hope for the future. One failure doesn’t mean all of life sucks.

Kal and his friends, what can I say? I loved them. They’re quirky, sweet, clever, funny, and resilient – everything every parent wants their kid to be. I especially appreciated that they could talk about issues such as racism, sexuality, and feminism without any of it feeling like forced representation or a lecture on how things should be. These are things relevant to their lives, and they grapple with what that means to them in the real world but in a natural and positive manner. I also loved that all three are learning that both success and failure are part of life. You can fix some things, not fix others, and survive both experiences.

The romances here all seem realistic, too. Some of the kids Kal counseles are together just to be together, and he helps them see it’s okay to be alone. His own relationship with Sterling captures all the teen feels – insecurity, desire, love, and working out who you want to be as you figure out who you want to be with. I liked that they start as acquaintances and work their way to friendship (and possibly beyond). It fits their personalities. I also liked that Rod and his crush take a different course, and Dino takes a unique path too. It’s nice that it isn’t just one love story multiplied but it captures the variety that is high school romance.

Another positive is getting the tale from Kal’s perspective. I spend a lot of time reading female voices, and this male voice – in both the author and character – was thoroughly refreshing.

My only complaint is the rushed ending, which takes the story from sweet to saccharine and has aspects that are more than a little silly.

That said, I loved Seven Minutes in Candyland, and if you enjoy teen stories at all I strongly recommend it to you.

A cheesy high school love story. Cute but not for me. I really wanted to like it but it was just mediocre storyline with mediocre characters so I found myself quite bored.

Two of the only Black teens in school bond over candy as Kalvin is the king of the side hustle with an underground candy business that shifts into private therapy advice. Things blow up when his therapist parent's relationship is revealed to be on the rocks and suddenly no one trusts Kalvin's advice. A standout debut full of heart and humor and perfect for fans of authors like Ben Philippe or the Netflix show Sex Education. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

Thank you to #NetGalley, Brian Wasson and the publisher of the book for the eARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

Kalvin has the best secret hustle. He sells candy in secret to his classmates. Soon, his crush stumbles into his secret candy location and opens a new money making opportunity, relationship therapist. Will Kalvin be able to provide good advice, keep his candy selling a secret and win over his crush?

A fun and sweet YA read. I loved Kalvin's character. You will love the book and Kalvin too!

I was so hopeful for this book. It starts out well enough but then everything starts to feel a bit cliche. Sorta uncool guy trying to get the popular girl who has the bully boyfriend. It was giving 80s movies and just didn’t stand out. The MC seems nice enough but doesn’t come across as a real teen. His desire for the girl Sterling also falls flat because they barely have any chemistry. Even though it was a cute idea for a story the pacing was off and there seemed to me no consequences for any poor behavior in the story. As much as I wanted to enjoy this book, most of it was unrealistic and I lost interest.

This book. Man. I liked what it had to say about mental health and family dynamics, but the tone was all over the place, and the ending really annoyed me. Mild spoiler: the main character pulls a ‘nice guy’ act and is initially called out for it, but then… somehow it’s retroactively fine? Guuhhh?

I liked the narrator’s dynamic with his best friends, but he pulls some stuff even in those relationships that really frustrated me. Don’t get me wrong, I like a flawed narrator, but several people behave egregiously in this book and it’s just… not a big deal in the end, I guess? The way everything gets so neatly resolved made the emotional stakes feel really low. Sometimes the characters acted much younger than their age. There are some genuinely funny moments in here, but I struggle with a book that has the MC making all kinds of bad like decisions and then living out a redemption arc that doesn’t require them to actually change their behavior or demonstrate growth. If it weren’t for the aggressively wish-fulfillmenty end, I would have liked this book a lot more. It’s like the author wanted to tie every possible loose end into a neat bow, even when the resolution was at odds with the characters’ earlier behavior.

*3.5

This is a very typical coming of age ya story if that's what you're looking for. Both of them are on the cover but I wouldn't consider this book a romance. It's definitely about Kelvin and him trying to save his parents marriage. I just wanted to give him a hug, he was struggling so hard. He deserves the world.

I received an arc through netgalley.

It has a solid concept, but it was bogged down by being very slow moving. 50% in, and not much of consequence had happened.

Can I love Kalvin any more?!!! I adore this character, the fact that he wanted to sell his candy, be the candy man, lol and then, on top of that trying to save his parents marriage, it’s so admirable, even though he’s a child, and he should not have to be experiencing those things and having to see those things, when it comes to his parents, it’s amazing the way that he had a goal, and his goal was to save his family.

But then, he ended up being a little bit more than just the kid that was the candy man. he ended up being the kid, that will be there to help and support his own classmates with whatever it is that they’re going through, I thought that was super cute, not to reveal too much about the book, but this book was very funny, very sweet, very heartfelt, and Book that is worth the read. There are some topics that can be very triggering in this book, and the way that he handles things even his own issues, is amazing, this author did their thing. And like I said before it is worth the read.

I really liked the concept of this, and was hoping it would give Sex Education vibes, as in a teen therapist offering his services at school and the drama that ensues. This didn't end up being exactly like I was hoping, but I did still enjoy it. I particularly liked the main character. I do however think the story could have been fleshed out a little more.

Son of therapists, famous couple who hosts a podcast about relationships, all Kalvin wants is for his parents to go back to really be the perfect couple they pretend to be to their followers. For that, he's been selling candies at school so he'll get enough money to buy them a special trip to Hawaii. But his deadline is coming, their marriage is falling apart, and Kalvin is still short of his goal. That's when he starts helping students for a fee, using all the advice he's heard his whole life as a therapist's son.

There are great things about this story. Not only representation, not only good jokes, I like where Kalvin's arc takes him. I was sure I knew where we'd get, but it actually surprised. Not that it's an unbelievable climax, but the author chose a more difficult route but one that prompts the reader to think.

However, the story is still bland. There wasn't one time I got the book to continue because I really wanted to know what was going to happen. Kalvin... isn't a bad guy, but he's not my favorite person. I'm not sure how he managed to get such nice friends being such a pain. The romance had so many complications, including that Sterling has a boyfriend, that I wasn't really cheering for them. And what the character wanted, as I said I didn't even care for Kalvin to care for what he wanted, but I've read enough books to know where that would go for me to expect any different. I should note the author treated this very well, but it doesn't change that it was hard to hope for Kalvin to get what he wanted.

I imagine younger readers, the actual target audience, won't have read as many books to have the same feeling of "been here, read that" that I had, and I do remember being much less bothered with characters like Kalvin when I was younger, so this is probably a 4-star to them.

To me however, it was just slightly above average because at least I felt I could trust this author, and he proved my feeling was right. There are important points that will regenerate reflection, and I feel they were well explored as well. It's not a bad book, and I would like to read more from Brian Wasson. The story just didn't marvel me.


Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

I was very much intrigued by the cover and description of Seven Minutes in Candyland. Kalvin is a teen boy trying to raise money to give his parents a romantic giveaway, with the hopes of fixing their marriage. But what Kalvin doesn't know is that a few moments of advice giving has the whole school believing he is a wizard, because instead of the candy Kalvin is selling, his peers want some therapy!

The characters were fun to read. I especially like Kalvin's friend group. Yeah, they're not perfect and have little fights, but what group of friends are without a little conflict? I didn't really care for the villain of the story. It felt like she was shoved into the story to create even bigger conflict for Kalvin outside of his parent's marriage.

What killed me in the end was the big showdown between Kalvin and his parents when he discovers their divorce papers and the downhill sprint to the end. I felt some of the miscommunication didn't need to be there towards the end and only served to move Kalvin in the story.

*Note: I received an Advanced Reader Copy of this title*

There was a lot to like in this American High School version of the series Sex Education. Here our intrepid child of relationship counselors focuses not on sex, but on, you guessed it, relationship advice. His classmates flock to him after he offers solid advice to his crush about her boyfriend from the closet where he runs a secret candy selling business meant to take out Student Council's business. Our young hero charges for advice and candy to secretly save up for something he needs to save his family. When I read the first chapter I wasn't sure about his motivations, but the author does a nice job with his character arc in making him likeable and his journey relatable. The more relationship advice he gives, the more clear it becomes he's got a lot to learn--in every relationship in his life. I recommend this book for anyone looking for a fun read with lots of candy sweetness.

This one took me a little bit to get into as it definitely had its slow parts. Even as an adult reading a YA novel, there were good takeaways and life lessons. There were some situations that I felt could have been expanded on but overall it covered great topics. The characters were mostly relatable and were well developed. The main character was trying to run a candy business and give out advice to make money for a purpose but what he doesn’t realize is what he might loose in the process.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC, this is a voluntary honest review.

I am always on the hunt for more Black boy main characters in YA but the writing in this one felt cheesy to me. It was one of those where you feel like a likely millennial or Gen X adult is writing teens from a 90's/early 2000's perspective in their mannerisms and language. I teach high school so maybe that made me more observant of it but I'm not sure if this is a YA or an actual kid or an adult who wanted this kind of YA as a kid. Besides that, I am a bit over the only Black kid in the school/room/neighborhood stories so I lost interest fast. I would put this in my school library just to have the option of Black boy rep in YA, but I don't think it'd really be a hit.

Goofy

I really wanted to love this book, but it just didn’t work for me. I ignored the awful cover art with hopes that the story would make up for it. The plot definitely had potential. The execution was so cheesy and cliché. This felt like any movie from the 80s with thirty-something actors portraying teenagers. There was a nerdy boy crushing on the girl that is “out of his league” and already coupled up with the popular rich kid. The nerd outwits the popular boy and gets the girl. A lot of times I felt like the dialogue didn’t seem authentic. It read like a 40 year old man posing as a high school sophomore. The severely overused dynamic of the handful of Black kids trying to navigate in a school full of wealthy white kids annoyed me. That theme is so tired. Overall, this felt too silly and stereotypical for my personal taste.

Thank you to NetGalley, HarperCollins, and Brian Wasson for this advanced copy to review. #SevenMinutesinCandyland #NetGalley