I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Those Pink Mountain Nights by Jen Ferguson
Published by Heartdrum on 9/12/23
Genres: Contemporary, LGBT, Young Adult
Pages: 352
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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Overachievement isn’t a bad word—for Berlin, it’s the goal. She’s securing excellent grades, planning her future, and working a part-time job at Pink Mountain Pizza, a legendary local business. Who says she needs a best friend by her side?

Dropping out of high school wasn’t smart—but it was necessary for Cameron. Since his cousin Kiki’s disappearance, it’s hard enough to find the funny side of life, especially when the whole town has forgotten Kiki. To them, she’s just another missing Native girl.

People at school label Jessie a tease, a rich girl—and honestly, she’s both. But Jessie knows she contains multitudes. Maybe her new job crafting pizzas will give her the high-energy outlet she desperately wants.

Short and Sweet Review

Those Pink Mountain Nights, follows a trio of teens who work at a local pizza shop. Berlin is an overachiever, Cameron has recently dropped out of high school, but things haven’t been the same for him since his cousin Kiki went missing, and Jessie is known as the rich girl and also a tease but working at the pizza shop is the escape she needs.

In this book we get the POVs of Berlin, Cam, and Jessie, there’s a lot of subplots and layers to this book that climax and get resolved in a bigger plot to save the pizza shop. I did enjoy the characters, they’re an interesting group of teens and I like how they come together and the workers at the pizza shop are a family. Cam and Berlin have a love hate relationship which we see a lot of, and Jessie is the new comer and she truly gets to be herself at work. We see the plot line of Cam’s missing cousin and trying to save the pizza shop from being sold. There’s a lot that goes on in this book and its well written, but there are a lot of hard topics that require a trigger warning which is included at the beginning of the book so that’s a plus.

Overall, this felt like a coming of age novel and I did enjoy all of the elements that were involved. Each of the characters add something different and I liked how all of the subplots eventually came together and everything was wrapped up nicely. There’s a lot to process when reading this book and you’ll still be thinking about it after finishing it. Maybe grab a slice of pizza while reading this book!