Delicate by Steph Campbell

About the book

Delicate is a spin off book in the Grounding Quinn (New Adult) series by Steph Campbell. It was published by Simon & Schuster on 9^th May and the book is 208 pages long.

Plot Synopsis

According to everyone else, Sydney Pierce has everything. She has a fantastic gymnastics career, great grades and the loving boyfriend, Trevor. Underneath all of that though, Sydney’s life is a mess. She desperately wants to keep her secrets hidden from the world but taking part in a documentary about young athletes on the road to the Olympics puts a spanner in the works. Then, new boy Grant begins to pay Sydney a lot of attention that could get her into trouble but as their connection grows stronger, Trevor’s jealousy does also. Sydney has a chance of true happiness with Grant but that means letting him in and the world know that everything else isn’t quite as perfect as they think it is.

What I thought

I wasn’t a complete fan of the other Steph Campbell novel I have read, Grounding Quinn, but seeing as I had this one sitting around anyway, I was willing to give her another go.

In Delicate, we get the story of Sydney (who is best friends with Quinn of Grounding Quinn). She works hard to be the gymnast she is and it is pretty much her whole life. Still though, she manages to have time for a boyfriend and to get great grades. While her friends think she has the perfect life, Sydney think otherwise. She’s exhausted all of the time, feels the strain at school and has no idea how do deal with Trevor, her boyfriend at times. All of Sydney’s problems are hidden from the outside world though… until she takes part in a documentary showcasing young athletes.

Early on in this book (although not a long one) I could tell that I was going to like it more than Grounding Quinn. I liked Sydney a hell of a lot more than I did Quinn and the things that bugged me in the other book were not in this one at all. Sydney is a very strong and determined character who does her best all of the time. She works so hard to have her gymnastic career but then she also has to deal with going to school, homework and her friends/ boyfriend at the same time. That’s a lot for anyone to take on and to deal with well. Sydney is the sweetest of girls too because she always wants to make other people happy, probably why a lot of her life a secret behind closed doors.

When Sydney is paired up with the new guy Grant for a class project, Trevor is far from happy. He doesn’t want Sydney being friends with Grant or spending any time with him. Up until this point, Trevor seemed like a pretty okay guy but slowly, his aggressive and possessive sides begin to seep out. Sydney doesn’t have much of a choice about working with Grant but she also really likes him as a friend. He seems to get her and doesn’t judge at all when things begin to go wrong. Grant was a lovely character and he quite obviously cared a lot about Sydney and what was going on in her life.

Although quite a short book, Steph Campbell packs a lot into this one. Delicate tackles some pretty serious issues such as domestic abuse and I liked the way that it was done. Instead of being overdone, I got the point without it ever being too much. Delicate also has a sweet romance going on throughout which was a nice contrast to the more serious issues. In Grounding Quinn, I found the pacing to be extremely strange and all over the place but luckily, that wasn’t the case with this one. The whole plot flowed really nicely and it also managed to have some good character development in those short pages too.

After reading another Steph Campbell book, I would happily give a different series of hers a try.