Book Spotlight: Don’t You Dare

I was sent Don’t You Dare by Gayla Turner last year and wanted to spotlight the book. I found the book really interesting, but ended up skimming the second half. The novel is based on Gayla finding old family photos of her grandmother Ruby in a wedding dress next to a man she doesn’t recognize with the photo caption ‘Our Wedding”. Upon closer inspection, Gayla realized that the man in the suit and hat was actually a woman. This led Gayla to research and investigate to find out all she could about her grandmother’s past.

The novel goes back and forth from a fictionalized storyline of Ruby and how she met Ella to Gayla doing research over 90 years later. I say fictionalized only because there’s no way for Gayla to really know all the details of what transpired all those years ago and dialogue, etc. I really did find the book really interesting for about the first half, but then I started to lose interest in Ruby’s story. I thought it was amazing and also sad that she couldn’t live the life she wanted and be her authentic self because it wouldn’t have been socially accepted for her to be in love with a woman in 1918. But as the story between Ruby and Ella went on, I started to lose interest. I was more interested in Gayla doing research and revisiting the places she knew of Ruby’s past from her photos, letters, stories she remembered her grandmother telling her as a kid. I think if the story focused more on that – Gayla trying to uncover the truth of her grandma’s past and true love – and less about the possible love story I would’ve enjoyed it more.