Review: Keep My Heart In San Francisco, Amelia Diane Coombs

After falling for Between You, Me and the Honeybees a couple months ago, I knew I needed to read more by Amelia Diane Coombs. Keep on reading to find out my thoughts about the author’s debut, Keep My Heart in San Francisco!

Keep My Heart in San Francisco by Amelia Diane Coombs
Published by Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers on July 14, 2020
Genres: contemporary, romance, young adult
Format: Hardcover
Buy on Amazon, Book Depository, Wordery, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, Blackwell's
Goodreads

Caroline “Chuck” Wilson has big plans for spring break—hit up estate sales to score vintage fashion finds and tour a fashion school she dreams of attending. But her dad wrecks those plans when he asks her to spend vacation working the counter at Bigmouth’s Bowl, her family’s failing bowling alley. Making things astronomically worse, Chuck finds out her dad is way behind on back rent—meaning they might be losing Bigmouth’s, the only thing keeping Chuck’s family in San Francisco. And the one person other than Chuck who wants to do anything about it? Beckett Porter, her annoyingly attractive ex-best friend. So when Beckett propositions Chuck with a plan to make serious cash infiltrating the Bay Area action bowling scene, she accepts. But she can’t shake the nagging feeling that she’s acting irrational—too much like her mentally ill mother for comfort. Plus, despite her best efforts to keep things strictly business, Beckett’s charm is winning her back over... in ways that go beyond friendship. If Chuck loses, Bigmouth’s Bowl and their San Francisco legacy are gone forever. But if she wins, she might just get everything she ever wanted.

☂️ TRIGGER WARNINGS:

mentions of suicide and of the loss of a parent, bipolar disorder, depression.

There are no spoilers in this review.

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I ENJOYED…

☂️

• Keep My Heart in San Francisco is about Chuck, dreaming of Fashion School and a spring break filled with vintage fashion sales. Instead, she finds herself forced to work the counter at her father’s Bowling Alley…and discovers that they’re about to lose it. Forming an unlikely alliance with Beckett, her ex-best-friend, Chuck’s throwing herself into a risky plan to try and save the family’s legacy…
• The highlight of this story was, for me, the relationship between Chuck and Beckett. Best friends when they were younger, they grew apart a year or so before the story starts because of an incident. I loved seeing them slowly reconnect, understand what happened to them in the past to grow past it. Seeing their relationship bloom again to friendship, to the little feelings of a friends to lovers romance growing… it was so wonderful and I rooted for them so much. All of their interactions were fantastic!
• Something I loved about this story was how vivid the setting and the main activity of it, bowling, were. I’ve never been to San Francisco, but always dreamed of exploring this lovely city and now… well, I do even more. I could really feel Chuck’s attachment to this place and all of its beautiful and weird corners. As for bowling… well, I’ve never been a big bowler at all, but it was such a fun, unique idea to focus a lot of the story on that.
• There’s such a big place for family in this story. Chuck is trying to save her family’s bowling alley while still grappling with the loss of her mother and her complex feelings towards her. I really liked seeing her relationship with her father and especially her aunt, I wish we got a little more of those!

• Keep My Heart in San Francisco also deals with mental health, bipolar disorder and depression, to be more precise. I appreciated how delicately the topic was handled, in all of its messiness. It’s not all black and white and I found it really good to see Chuck grappling with those disorders running in her family and in her own blood, too.

I HAD A HARD TIME WITH…

☂️

• I think some aspects of the story had potential, but they weren’t explored as much as I would have liked them to. For instance, I loved the online friendship Chuck had, but we barely got to know Mila. She could have been such a nice addition to the story.

OVERALL

☂️

Slowly, but surely, Amelia Diane Coombs is making her way in my favorites’ list. While I still loved her sophomore novel a little more, Keep My Heart in San Francisco was a solid debut and I can’t wait to read more from her.

FINAL RATING : 4 stars!

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📚 Books similar to Keep My Heart in San Francisco that I’d recommend:

• For more by this author, try Between You, Me and the Honeybees.
• For more stories with best friends to lovers romance, check out our recommendations.
• Also check out our book list of ya books about mental health.

Did you read Keep My Heart in San Francisco or do you want to? Do you have any recommendations of great stories dealing with mental health? Let me know in comments!

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