A girl forced to move to London to live with her father who walked out on her and his new family while dealing with her mother's passing, falling in love with a girl who was escaping from Buckingham palace, and some royal scandal. Dayana is a sixteen year old girl who has always dreamed about visiting London with her mother, yet when she gets the chance to see London its only because her mother has passed away and now she has to leave her home in Rio de Janeiro to move in with her estranged father and his new family in London. Day is not happy to have to be living with the man who walked out on her and her mom, she can barely even be in the same room with him without seething. She detests her stepmother and can't stand her new stepsister.... she'd give anything to go back to Rio. Yet when she runs into the girl of her dreams (literally) who is in the middle of escaping Buckingham Palace, her stay has just gotten more interesting. Can Day sort out her feelings and make a place for herself in London? This story deals with a lot, Day is dealing with grief as well as learning to forgive her father and accept her new stepfamily, she's also falling for a girl and trying to adjust to living in a whole new place. The story itself felt a bit lackluster to me and juvenile, and while I would recommend it for maybe a younger YA reader, it just felt a bit meh to me. I understood Day's anger and why she was acting out, and I did appreciate that there was plus size rep and that there was a sapphic romance, however the story itself felt a bit long and boring.

Release Date: June 4,2024

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and Scholastic | PUSH for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

This book was amazing and I devoured this book in just a few sittings! I loved the character development and how the story progressed.

Recommended: ehh
For annoying main characters but really strong and lively side characters, for a lovely imagining of a royal family who embraces LGBTQIA+ people and matters, for a strong focus on identity and family but maybe not with the best main role model

Thoughts:
Look, honestly, there's a decision the main character makes at the end that is so bad and she acknowledges that it is bad and she does it anyway that it really soured everything else in here for me. I was already a bit annoyed by her, but tried to attribute it to her age and circumstances. Then I remembered she's seventeen, not fourteen, and it was much harder to believe she was so immature. Once she made this decision towards the end though, I officially could not root for her and it's left a sour taste in my mouth. So I figured I'd just get this out of the way at the start, because there might be a slightly bitter tone to this review, and this is why. 😅

On the other hand though, the fact that I cared so much to have such a strong response is maybe a sign that the characters are well written and got me invested. All characters have a full arc, even those we don't see a ton of. Even if it's a somewhat short arc, they all progress from a stereotyped or pre-judged character into someone with a full range of emotions and thoughts and history. That's pretty impressive to do for several people at once in a story, while also telling the core story.

Strangely, I think the stories of the side characters were sometimes stronger than those of the main characters. Dayana, as noted, annoys the hell out of me the whole time. She's impulsive and selfish and cruel and willfully stupid. Her arc seems to end lower than she starts, where she gets worse over time instead of better. And her love interest Diana feels barely fleshed out and functions at best as a foil to Dayana. I wasn't super invested in their story together. Diana felt barely present, whereas Dayana was someone I wanted to get away from and couldn't.

The re-imagining of a royal family that's all about supporting each other and particularly with LGBTQIA+ rights and love was really nice to read about. There are strong themes of culture, identity, belonging, and how those all tie to family throughout the whole book. Language in particular is often a focus as they swap between communicating in Portuguese and in English (though it's typically written in English either way, and/or explained if a Portuguese section is included).

Overall while the main character of this book really annoyed me, I do think the overall story has something to offer as far as connections with family and identity go. I don't think Dayana is a good role model though, so for classroom use I would probably recommend conversations with students about the book to facilitate them taking away the best messages and leaving the bad habits alone.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scholastic PUSH for a free advanced copy. This is my honest review!

LONDON ON MY MIND is a sapphic YA novel about dayana, a brazilian teen who moves to london to live with her estranged father and his new family after her mom passes away. i enjoyed it for the most part and would definitely recommend to fans of sapphic YA, but i found dayana's character to be a bit one-dimensional, and her love interest diana (yes, really) wasn't very fleshed out, much like their relationship. however, i did really enjoy the reimagining of a royal family that's more accepting and open-minded, and i loved dayana's relationship with her stepmother and stepsister. this was one of the first contemporary translated novels i've read and i have to say the translator did a fantastic job!!

read if you like:
- royal romances
- one direction
- brazilian food

thanks to netgalley and PUSH for the advanced copy. LONDON ON MY MIND comes out june 4th!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!!

I love a cute sapphic read and I don’t get to read many translated books so this was a treat! I also loved the plus sized rep here. The 2 main girls are very cute together and I loved their chemistry. Dayana is grieving so we also see a lot of that through the story. We sympathize with her and wish her the best with her love interest in Diana.

Didn't love the way this book was set up, and it was hard to keep up with. I know formatting isn't necessarily something that can be controlled in an electronic format, but it really affected the way I went about reading this book.

I'm looking forward to trying again when the book comes out as I liked the authors writing style, but at the moment I think this is something I wouldn't pick up to read on my own time without incentive.

The set up has strong potential. Dayana moves from Brazil to London after the death of her mother. She is moving to stay with her father who left ten years earlier to find a better life. He just never managed to bring his family there and instead marries and is trying to be a good step-father to a daughter that is almost the same age as Dayana. There is a lot to unpack right there, enough to fill a lot of Reddit pages.

Dayana is rightfully angry and acts out. She also sets out to explore London meeting Diana while she is escaping from Buckingham Palace. They become friends in just a few outings. And Diana helps the other get a part time job at the store her mother manages.

This YA book feels a bit juvenile (One Direction obsession) and reads like fan fiction. (Not that there isn’t good fanfiction out there.) Dayana is impulsive and it is always someone else's fault. She is actually angry when Diane accuses her of not keeping a big secret, when in fact she didn’t keep the big secret and Diane is outed publicly. More time is spent to resolve the sister conflict than the romantic one so that felt off. And the declaration of feelings seems to arrive out of the blue.

The book is translated from Portuguese and is appropriate for middle school and up. It isn’t bad, but there are many YA novels with good LGBTQIA+ representation that I’ve enjoyed more.

This was cute, it just reads very young. Which is fine as a YA book, just be aware. I was interested to read a sapphic, YA romance translated from Portuguese, and I do thing the cultural and linguistic elements are really interesting.

London on My Mind follows Brazilian Dayana moving to live with her dad, stepmom, and stepsister in London after the death of her mother. She is struggling with grief and guilt, and is very angry with her dad for abandoning them when she was young so she lashes out. She unexpectedly meets a cute girl escaping from Buckingham palace and they have immediate chemistry...

I really liked the positive plus-size representation with the main character, and how this deals with chronic illness through a side character. The romance is a little surface level to me, but it's fun and offers good representation of bisexuality and pansexuality. I think the fact that the girls names are Dayana and Diana is a little absurd but I think it's supposed to be cute. Dayana is extremely whiny and impulsive, and isn't great at considering other people. I know she's young and traumatized, but it's a lot at times. Some readers might struggle with that.

Overall, I liked but didn't love this. It was a cool experience though and I'm not mad I read it. I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

Clara Alves' debut novel is an absolute gem! Things get interesting when she literally bumps into Diana, a funny and captivating redhead who seems to be escaping from Buckingham Palace. As Dayana and Diana grow closer, Dayana starts to wonder if the royal rumors about Prince Arthur are true and if Diana's involved. This book is like Red, White & Royal Blue meets A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, mixing royal intrigue with a sweet, unlikely romance. It's heartfelt, fun, and keeps you guessing right to the end! I adored reading this book, it was so cute.

This was such a cute, fun read! I loved the personalities of the two main characters and felt like they balanced each other out perfectly!

A heart-wrenching and beautiful story of grief, second chances, and new love.

After her mom dies, Dayana moves from Brazil to London to live with the father who abandoned her 10 years prior. While getting used to the city, Dayana encounters a girl escaping the palace who may just run away with her heart.

This is a translated novel. There are times when it's easy to tell this would make more sense in Portuguese, but the translator did a really good job. As someone who recently lost a parent and also grapples with abandonment, I really related to Dayana's emotions throughout the story. The Sapphic romance is sweet, with the love interest dealing with her own situation.

This feels like something previously published on Wattpad, further complicated by my being out of the target age range. That doesn't have to be a problem, but sometimes books for teenagers feel like they are written for teenagers and teenagers only, and this is one of them. Dayana is so impulsive and defensive that it pushed me away from connecting with her, which is a real problem when most of the plot is her working through her grief. The whole royal intrigue plot is non-impactful and non-important and could have easily been replaced by something else to the same effect, so that's half of the summary just left on the ground. The whole thing unfortunately feels really shallow and flat.

Thank you to Push and NetGalley for a copy of this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. This comes out June 4th, 2024. I wanted so badly to like this. It read like a poorly written fan fiction. Dayana was really unlikeable and I was questioning if she was actually a middle schooler the whole time I read this. I appreciated the fat rep though I can’t say it was done that well, it was almost like an afterthought. The random flashbacks were jarring and didn’t make much sense for most of it. Overall, it felt really surface level and like none of the characters had any real depth. The whole thing was very repetitive. We were either at that one spot in the palace or in Dayana’s bed. Really not much happened and I can’t say there was any growth there either.

This was a cute story about a young woman navigating a move to London and her relationship with her father after the death of her mother. I loved the twists of the love interest that she connected with, although I sort of saw where that storyline was headed.

This was super cute and heartbreaking at the same time. I found myself crying through several parts.

Thank you NetGalley for the arc

London On My Mind is a YA Contemporary novel that tackles tough topics and includes a sweet sapphic romance.

Dayana’s mother recently passed away and now she’s moving from Brazil to London to live with the father who hasn’t been her dad for the past ten years. But she won’t be staying with just him but will also be living with his new perfect replacement family.

I enjoyed seeing the way the various family dynamics played out and developed. Grief is a prevailing theme throughout the story. And it seems just about everyone was dealing with difficult parental problems.

Despite some of the heavier elements, this book’s tone wasn’t too heavy. I enjoyed the romance that developed between Dayana and Diana and thought they made a cute couple.

Thank you to NetGalley and PUSH for a copy of this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a super cute queer romance. Although a bit unrealistic, I was drawn to the story and rooting for the characters until the very end!

What a lovely romantic misadventure! Written in a bit of a timeless style, with a queer cast and fairytale atmosphere, I couldn't help but love this book!

It's about finding yourself, and the people you love, but also finding that everyone is really just human. (And so are you.) The perfect kind of bildungsroman 💖 and I think everyone will love Daya!

And if you're hungry for a bit of Brazil - mixed with UK royals - well, here's that story!

A moving coming of age story. Very similar vibes to "What a Girl Wants meets Red, White, and Royal Blue," which I loved. Dayana had to leave her hometown of Rio de dinero after her mother dies and has to adapt to life in London, complete with a wicked stepmother. She meets a mysterious girl and falls madly in love, but not all is as seems with her. I loved the story and coming of age in a new town. The international aspect of moving from Rio to London, having to adjust to new surroundings and a new life is something a lot of people can relate to. The romance is fun and mysterious.

Now, I feel like I should give a warning that this book was probably not meant for a reader like me. I am a little too disillusioned with the world to be all in for a book that revolves semi heavily around some royal admiration as well as a love for England that I do not possess. (I also never had a One Direction phase.) However, I did pick this up as somebody who’s pseudo-brother is from Brazil and as it was an exploration of grief after the main character’s mother died, something I am all too familiar with.

On the positive note, I really loved Dayana’s struggle with her grief and how it really impacted all of her interactions. That is so incredibly true to life, and honestly why it got the extra half a star. She feels very real in that sense, and I’m just sad it doesn’t get the time I think it deserves.

Now, I will say that this book definitely falls on the younger side of YA. Although the characters are meant to be 16, they definitely act younger than that, and I think it kids around that age would be frustrated with the choices made by these characters. The romance is very, very rushed, and although the consequences seem pretty life altering, they’re all kinda brushed aside in order to get the happy ending we want.

The most vexing thing about this is that Dayana is designed to be a character with a lot of trauma, and when she expresses that, literally every adult brushes her off and tells her to get over it. Which could be a very well done critique, but unfortunately the narrative oftentimes sides with them, or they are let off the hook almost immediately. I love the way Dayana expresses how she is struggling, I just wish that the narrative actually let her.

Overall, if you want a fun read I don’t think this makes the cut, and if you want a character analysis or trauma it doesn’t either. But hey, I did still enjoy myself and truly liked Dayana as a character, which isn’t something that just reading the summary I really expected.