Melt With You by Jennifer Dugan Review: Is It Worth Reading?

Verdict: A sweet, pun-filled YA ice cream truck road trip with a great premise and a Booklist star, let down by a miscommunication plot that a lot of readers simply couldn’t stand.

Best for: Readers who want a light summer second-chance romance between two teen girls, and who can sit with a narrator who keeps refusing to have the one conversation that would fix everything.

Heat level: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5: YA, with sexual content handled briefly and mildly)

Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.2/5: a 3.47 Goodreads average across 7,400 ratings, dragged by one complaint above all others)

Tropes: Second chance, friends-to-lovers, road trip, forced proximity, miscommunication, food truck, summer romance, opposites attract, meddling moms, bisexual representation.

Melt With You by Jennifer Dugan is a standalone YA second-chance romance from Putnam, first published in May 2022 with the paperback following in May 2023, in which planner Fallon and free spirit Chloe, best friends until one night ruined everything, have to drive their moms’ gourmet ice cream truck to food truck festivals across the country while avoiding the subject of what happened between them.

It has a 3.47 average across roughly 7,400 Goodreads ratings and more than 1,100 written reviews, a starred review from Booklist, and positive notices from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. That’s a wider gap between the trade and the readers than I usually see. Both sides of it are worth understanding before you start.

What Is Melt With You About?

Melt With You is a contemporary sapphic romance written for teens, and the publisher pitches it at ages 12 and up. That matters for how you read it. The stakes are the size of one summer: a first love, a friendship that broke, college looming, and two mothers whose small business might or might not survive. It’s a rom-com in tone, full of food puns and roadside detours, and the romance is the whole engine.

Fallon is eighteen, about to start college, and the kind of person who plans everything and then panics when the plan goes sideways. What she lacks is the nerve to say what she actually feels. Chloe is nineteen, a year into college in California, and she has her own version of what went wrong between them. The book is told in Fallon’s first person only, and she talks straight to the reader throughout. That one choice shapes the whole reading experience, for better and for worse.

What Makes This Sapphic YA Rom-Com Work

The premise: A gourmet ice cream truck on a cross-country festival circuit is the most praised thing about the book. Even readers who disliked it say it made them want ice cream and a road trip.
The ice cream itself: The flavor names and the pun-heavy truck culture get singled out again and again. BuzzFeed’s blurb calls the book full of puns, and readers agree.
The road trip stops: Roadside oddities like a dinosaur park and a strange campground give the middle some texture and keep the friends-to-lovers tension in a small, shared space.
Messy bi and queer leads: Several reviewers praise that both girls are allowed to get things wrong. One blogger frames it as letting queer teens be messy, and means it as a compliment.
The moms: Fallon’s relationship with her mother draws real warmth from readers, and the two moms’ shared business gives the book a family layer most YA romances skip.

Book Synopsis

Fallon has a plan for everything, and Chloe was always the part that didn’t need one. They grew up side by side, the daughters of two best friends who run Love at First Bite, a gourmet ice cream truck with a menu full of terrible puns. Then, right before Chloe left for college in California, the two of them slept together. Afterward the friendship fell apart, and Fallon has been avoiding Chloe ever since.

Now Chloe is home for the summer and Fallon is counting down to her own fresh start. The plan is simple: avoid her. That plan lasts until the moms announce they have to head to Dallas to pitch investors who could save the business. Someone has to drive the truck to a string of food truck festivals across the country, and the moms have decided that someone is Fallon and Chloe, together, in a vehicle with no room to hide.

So they go. There are scoops to serve, a schedule to keep, a tent to share and a lot of highway between stops. There are also two very different memories of that one night, and each girl is sure the other one is the reason it fell apart. Fallon keeps telling you, the reader, exactly what she should say to Chloe. She keeps not saying it. The question the rest of the book asks is whether a week on the road can get them to tell each other the truth before the summer, and the last chance, runs out.

My Review

The premise is lovely, and I want to start there because it’s the reason this book gets picked up. Two girls, one ice cream truck, a festival circuit and a history neither of them will talk about. Dugan knows how to make that setup feel like summer. The truck, the flavors, the roadside stops and the small shared spaces all do what they’re supposed to do, and the forced proximity is built right into the vehicle.

The second real strength is the family side. Fallon’s bond with her mom is warm and believable, and the moms’ business worries give the trip a reason to exist beyond getting the girls in a truck together. When the book slows down and lets Fallon be a kid who loves her mother and is scared of leaving home, it works on me.

Where it struggles is the miscommunication, and this isn’t my personal pet peeve. It’s the single most repeated criticism in the reviews by a wide margin. In the thirty most visible Goodreads reviews, about twelve name it directly, and the wording is blunt: readers say one honest conversation would end the conflict, and several admit they skimmed or sped up the audio to get through it. Around that sit the secondary complaints. Fallon herself is called frustrating or insufferable by a handful of readers. The narration that speaks directly to the reader annoys about seven of those thirty reviewers, though a few love it. The middle drags, and even Kirkus, which liked the book, says it runs a bit longer than it needs to. A late reveal about the moms also strikes several readers as hard to swallow.

One expectation to reset: the cover, the title and the blurb sell a breezy summer rom-com, and the trade reviews read it that way too. The readers who struggled didn’t find it breezy. They found it stuck. If you love an angsty “just talk to each other” slow build, you’ll have a better time than the average. If that trope makes you want to throw the book, this is the trope, front to back.

My honest note: A five-star premise carried by a two-star communication problem, and how you feel about the second decides everything. If miscommunication plots wear you down, skip it. If you can ride along with Fallon’s stubbornness, there’s a sweet summer book here with ice cream on every page.

Element	In Melt With You
Central relationship	Fallon & Chloe: former best friends split by one night together, second chance
Core tropes	Second chance, friends-to-lovers, road trip, forced proximity, miscommunication, meddling moms
Setting	Love at First Bite, a gourmet ice cream truck on a cross-country run of US food truck festivals
Heat level	2/5: YA, sexual content kept brief and mild
Series	Standalone. The two leads end together
Content notes	Sexual content, alcohol use, a car accident, abandonment, parental divorce, toxic friendship, emotional abuse, vandalism

How Spicy Is Melt With You?

I’d call it a 2/5. This is a YA novel from a children’s imprint, aimed at ages 12 and up, and I couldn’t pull a romance.io steam rating for it, which is normal for a teen title. What I can tell you comes from the readers. The I Heart SapphFic database files it as medium heat with sex scenes that may use mildly graphic description, and one Goodreads reviewer lists sexual content as a moderate content note. The night the two girls slept together is the backstory the whole plot hangs on, and a couple of readers felt the book spends more time on virginity and sex than they expected from YA.

So it’s warmer than the closed-door YA you might be used to, but nobody describes anything explicit, and no reviewer I found flags anything beyond that. If you want something gentler, She Gets the Girl sits at kisses only, and Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl keeps the door closed.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you want a summer road trip with food on every page, you enjoy second-chance romance between former best friends, you like a chatty first-person narrator who talks to you directly, and you can be patient with characters who avoid the hard conversation.

You may want to skip it if: miscommunication plots make you furious, you need a likable narrator to stay invested, you find books that address the reader gimmicky, or you want spice that’s either fully closed door or fully adult.

In short: a charming setup that lives or dies on your tolerance for two people refusing to talk.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (October 2026)

This is a traditionally published YA book from 2022, so there’s no live viral moment around it now, and my searches didn’t turn one up in its history either. What it has is steady library and backlist reading: 7,400 Goodreads ratings, more than 1,100 written reviews, and a 4.3 average from 93 ratings on Apple Books. The trade reception was strong. Booklist gave it a star and predicted it would be one of the year’s beach reads, Kirkus called it a delightful summer romance with a heartwarming ending, and Publishers Weekly called it unhurried. I couldn’t get a clean read on StoryGraph or Reddit for this one, so I’ve leaned on Goodreads, the blogs and the trade reviews. The audiobook, narrated by Jeremy Carlisle Parker, runs about 8 hours 47 minutes, and three reviewers in my sample single out the narration for praise.

Prefer audio? Listen to Melt With You on Libro.fm, the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The premise first, and by a distance. “Cute” is the recurring word, and almost every review that likes the book mentions craving ice cream. Then the summer road trip feel, the puns and the flavor names. The bickering between Fallon and Chloe has real fans, with one reader calling it deliciously dramatic. Bisexual representation gets praised by name in trade blurbs and blogs. And here’s the notable minority view: a handful of readers say the miscommunication is the point, that it’s how teenagers actually behave, and they found it realistic rather than annoying. One even re-listened to the audiobook and liked it more the second time.

What readers argue about and complain about: Miscommunication, above everything. The mechanism is simple and readers keep naming it. Fallon tells you what she should say, then doesn’t say it, chapter after chapter, so the central conflict barely moves through the middle. The narration is the second theme. Fallon’s direct asides to the reader (“I know what you’re thinking”) read as fresh and funny to some and grating to many, and at least one reader quit at 12% over it. Third: Fallon herself, who several readers find frustrating or immature, and fewer say Chloe is hard to like too. Beyond that, recurring notes on chemistry that some readers just didn’t feel, a reconciliation that feels rushed or abrupt, and a late reveal about the moms that a few call nonsense. Opinions split on that last one. At least one reader thought the moms’ role was the most layered part of the book. What strikes me is that none of the trade reviews treat the miscommunication as a problem, while the readers can’t stop talking about it.

The standalone question worth asking first: it’s a standalone, it resolves, and Fallon and Chloe end up together. Some readers wanted a longer final act, but there’s no sequel to wait on. If you’re deciding where to go next in Dugan’s catalogue, her earlier YA romance Some Girls Do is far more widely read, with a 3.69 average across about 31,750 Goodreads ratings, and a couple of reviewers here say they preferred it. That’s the stronger starting point if you’re new to her.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Melt With You a young adult book?

Yes. It was published by Putnam's young readers imprint for ages 12 and up, and the leads are 18 and 19. It reads as a YA summer rom-com rather than adult romance.

How spicy is Melt With You?

A 2/5. It's YA, but readers flag sexual content as moderate and describe it as mild rather than explicit. The night the leads slept together is the backstory that drives the plot.

Does Melt With You have a happy ending?

Yes. It's a standalone and Fallon and Chloe end up together, which Kirkus calls heartwarming. Some readers felt the reconciliation came too quickly after so much avoidance.

Is Melt With You a miscommunication romance?

Very much so. It's the single most repeated complaint in the reader reviews, and the conflict rests on two girls who won't talk about one night. If that trope frustrates you, this book will too.

Is there a Melt With You audiobook?

Yes. It's narrated by Jeremy Carlisle Parker and runs about 8 hours 47 minutes. Listeners in the reviews praise the narration.

If You Loved Melt With You, Read These Next

The closest match on the site is Dugan’s own Some Girls Do, which runs a similar opposites-attract YA romance with a bisexual lead and rates a little higher with readers. If what you want is the summer-before-everything feeling, The Falling in Love Montage is a witty Irish YA rom-com set over one summer after school ends, with a standout narrator and more grief underneath. And if you’d like the YA romance with the communication problem fixed, She Gets the Girl is sweeter, funnier and better rated, at a lower heat.

For more like this, browse our lesbian YA books guide, the friends-to-lovers reading list, or the full Book Reviews collection.

The Bottom Line

Melt With You wants to be the perfect summer YA read, and it gets a lot of the way there. The ice cream truck premise is a delight, the road trip gives it real texture, and the family warmth is better than it needs to be. It’s also built on a miscommunication that stalls the middle, narrated by a heroine many readers found hard to root for, and resolved faster than the buildup earns. If you can live with the trope, it’s a sweet, sunny book with a happy ending. If you can’t, start with Some Girls Do instead. Check Melt With You on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, Melt With You ranks as a charming but frustrating YA sapphic summer romance. Its premise and setting are great, and it’s held back by a miscommunication plot that runs too long. It’s best read for the ice cream and the road trip rather than the romance.