Love & Olives

Gr 7 Up–Welch, the author of Love & Gelato and Love & Luck, introduces readers to Greek American Liv, short for Olive, who is off to Santorini before her senior year of high school to see her father who wants her to help him find Atlantis. When Liv’s dad left when she was eight, he left behind 26 items. Each chapter is introduced with a different item and what it meant to him. This creative touch allows readers to understand her father, despite his absence and obsession with the lost city of Atlantis. Liv is not only concerned for her dad but also for her boyfriend, Dax, and a young man, Theo, who she meets at her dad’s bookstore. Liv has many adventures with her dad and grapples with feelings for Theo as well as Dax before she learns that the truth behind her dad’s preoccupation with searching for Atlantis is much deeper than it appears. Boyfriend Dax is described as white; Theo’s ethnicity is unspecified, though he is described as having skin darker than Liv’s.