Dear Universe – Florence Gonsalves

Chamomile Myles wants a lot of things from the universe. Crackers, the perfect prom dress, and an ask-cute from her boyfriend are just a few things on her list. However, it turns out that the universe wants something bigger in exchange for perhaps just one of the items on the long, trailing and ever-growing list that she has.

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This book was strangely relatable in some ways. Cham was a person who was very new to a school, and she also had a family member who had a medical condition. She was also constantly juggling both her public, social life and her private affairs at home, where she and her father were starting to break their fragile relationship due to his Parkinson’s Syndrome, and her mother, who Was very distant with her worries.

Cham was looking forward to filling her senior year time capsules with all kinds of memories and pictures; ticket stubs, polaroid pictures,  and corsages just a few inside her box. But as she starts to drift off and wonder about the perfect life, both of alternate universes begin to crumble and people start to notice.

Even though I didn’t quite understand all of Cham’s choices and motives, I understood the need for her to file and store away and compartmentalize her life. For 4 long years, she hid her home life away, making excuses and confrontations to keep her friends from wondering what she was trying to hide. But when Brendan comes in, Chamomile starts to debate whether or not she should share things with others.

I really enjoyed the plot as a whole, but I was kind of frustrated with Chamomile. Though she is the character that we are supposed to root for, she’s kind of snarky and rude to some of the background characters. She obsesses over their personalities and she’s also sort of passive aggressive to her best friend’s other friend, who in reality is a really nice person that is trying really hard to be Cham’s friend. 

This book is interesting in a whole bunch of ways. The reader is completely pulled into Cham’s world and her anger issues (maybe that’s putting it a bit too mildly). She seems to have a lot of anger for what is happening and the things that seem important but maybe just aren’t, and she should get a grip. In some ways, this was a really hard, tough read, because Cham is falling apart on the inside and no one can really see it, except for Brendan, who knew exactly what she was feeling. That’s also why I loved him as a character.

This book was most definitely a page-turner; however, I would’ve loved to see Cham get more resolution, in terms of dealing with her anger and her father’s terminal illness. Although there is some resolution, I wish that there would have been more development. Especially with the events that happen throughout the book. Everything would have tied up more nicely if the book had a deeper ending. Now, don’t take this the wrong way, no no no… the ending wasn’t actually that bad. There was some wrap up to the story and the last quarter had more going for it; Cham had better character development and the relationships between the characters were finally becoming deeper. Along with that, there are some places where she connects with Brendan, but there was the potential to really go deeper, and I would’ve loved to understand Brendan as a character and a person more.

Throughout the book, Cham hops on different philosophical discoveries that she realizes about the universe and life, and it was a nice book that highlighted all of the struggles in high school.