What do you think?
Rate this book
The Darla Decker Diaries #1
Darla Decker Hates to Wait
Evolved Publishing presents the first book in the Darla Decker Diaries series by Jessica McHugh, with Darla Decker Hates to Wait. This edgy young adult novel follows a girl's tentative journey toward adulthood.
Patience is not Darla Decker’s strong suit. Surviving sixth grade is tough enough with an annoying older brother, a best friend acting distant, and schoolwork. After adding instructive kissing games and the torturous wait for a real date with her biggest crush, Darla is perpetually torn between behaving like an adult and throwing temper tantrums.
Games of flashlight tag, and the crazy cat lady roaming Shiloh Farms in a “demon bus,” serve as distractions during her parents’ quarrels and her anxiety about show choir auditions. Yet the more Darla waits for her adulthood to begin, the more she learns that summoning patience won’t be the hardest part of being eleven.
A frank and funny look at the path to adulthood, Darla Decker Hates to Wait begins a journey of love, loss, and the nitty-gritty of growing up through Darla Decker’s eyes.
Patience is not Darla Decker’s strong suit. Surviving sixth grade is tough enough with an annoying older brother, a best friend acting distant, and schoolwork. After adding instructive kissing games and the torturous wait for a real date with her biggest crush, Darla is perpetually torn between behaving like an adult and throwing temper tantrums.
Games of flashlight tag, and the crazy cat lady roaming Shiloh Farms in a “demon bus,” serve as distractions during her parents’ quarrels and her anxiety about show choir auditions. Yet the more Darla waits for her adulthood to begin, the more she learns that summoning patience won’t be the hardest part of being eleven.
A frank and funny look at the path to adulthood, Darla Decker Hates to Wait begins a journey of love, loss, and the nitty-gritty of growing up through Darla Decker’s eyes.
- GenresComing Of AgeYoung Adult
203 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 28, 2014
2 people are currently reading
40 people want to read
About the author
Jessica McHugh
96 books209 followersJessica McHugh is a 3x Bram Stoker Award-nominated poet, a multi-genre novelist, & an internationally-produced playwright who spends her days surrounded by artistic inspiration at a Maryland tattoo shop. She’s had thirty-one books published in sixteen years, including her Elgin Award-nominated blackout poetry collection, “The Quiet Ways I Destroy You,” her sci-fi bizarro romp, “The Green Kangaroos,” and her cross-generational horror series, “The Gardening Guidebooks Trilogy.” Explore the growing worlds of Jessica McHugh at McHughniverse.com.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 20, 2014
I may be a grown-ass lady, but I do love me some unashamedly real confessional-style YA. McHugh's experience writing raw, visceral adult fiction translates perfectly into making Darla Decker a shield-banging modern challenger to Adrian Mole and Georgia Nicolson. There's no flinching from and no apologies for the worst of being a (pre)teen girl: being a sexual object to mature boys, frigid and distant parents, discovering masturbation, losing your best friend, hating and loving your siblings. Darla confronts every obstacle with an endearing-yet-realistic attitude of "I got this right up until I don't" that makes you want to cuddle the shit out of her. And this is only the first book!
Well done, McHugh! Much like Darla, I can't wait; "Takes the Cake" can't come soon enough.
Well done, McHugh! Much like Darla, I can't wait; "Takes the Cake" can't come soon enough.
September 14, 2014
This outstanding novel has more of a mid-grade than YA feel (the protagonist is in 6th grade) but I sense that the series will grow into YA territory. YA or not, the excellent writing and wonderful voice will compel readers of every age and taste to keep turning the pages. Nearly everyone recalls their middle-school career with horror and while this has some horrific moments, it's both contemporary and timeless, funny, sweet, charming and all those adjectives guys are reluctant to use. (Yes, this is the same Jessica McHugh who wrote PINS.) The sequel comes out in October, 2014 so you won't have to wait long.
June 2, 2014
I'll admit, this was my first foray into the YA genre, I'll also say that it won't be my last, even if it's only to follow the adventures of Darla Decker. Reading about Darla, I was at once nostalgic of my tween years and relieved not to have to go through them again. McHugh perfectly captures the universal plight of middle schoolers, boys and girls, and those awkward experiences and trials of transitioning from childhood to adolescence.
An easy, and engaging read. Never flowery, never verbose, the prose is tight and deliberate, and keeps the reader in the moment, always wanting more.
An easy, and engaging read. Never flowery, never verbose, the prose is tight and deliberate, and keeps the reader in the moment, always wanting more.
September 5, 2017
Darla Decker Hates to Wait is one of the best YA books I have read in a while. Navigating Junior High is not always easy but Darla makes it humorous. Jessica McHugh creates a believable atmosphere and characters. Darla experiences relatable problems for all ages. Darla’s diary entries are expressive of what she is thinking and downright hilarious to read! While it is appropriate for YA it is also a good read for adults, perfectly paced and great entertainment.
August 30, 2017
I've already had the pleasure of experiencing Jessica McHugh's superb talent with 'The Green Kangaroos,' and though 'Darla Decker Hates To Wait' is a far cry from 'Kangaroos' in terms of subject matter, it's right on track in terms of McHugh's pacing, humor, prose, and plot. Darla is an exceedingly endearing and well-developed character, and the pickles she gets herself into (with friends, boys, neighbors, parents, etc.) had me both nostalgic for, and a bit nauseated at, my own memories of sixth grade, and all its impetuousness. I'll definitely be picking up the next book in the Darla series, right after I read 'The Train Derails in Boston, another book from the McHughniverse that looks positively (and in this case, diabolically) delightful.
May 31, 2014
I am not a young adult, but I am an avid reader; especially when the author is Jessica McHugh. McHugh writes some of the funniest, creepiest, scariest and corrosive fiction I've read in a good long time. So, how does that author write a young adult novel?
She does it superbly.
DARLA DECKER HATES TO WAIT may be one of the best YA books I've read, and speaking as an adult with children, I've read a lot of them. (The opening chapter had me laughing out loud.) This may be a few years away for my oldest girl to read, but Darla is a fresh new hero for young girls. She's not perfect, she's funny and she decidedly has zero patience. It is a very funny, realistic look at the fumbles towards adulthood, relationships, ticking off your folks, consequences and yes, waiting.
Mchugh is not an author dabbling in the YA genre. She's an author who is good enough to write whatever she wants to write and she does it better than most. As this book is the beginning of a series, I would not be surprised one bit if these are the books that put her rightfully on the map next to Judy Blume and perhaps J.K. Rowling (as well as Roald Dahl, Stephen King and Joe R Lansdale.)
If you're looking for smart, edgy, funny and a lot of heart for your tween...(and you know what, even yourself, oh jaded adult,) the world of Darla Decker is waiting for you.
She does it superbly.
DARLA DECKER HATES TO WAIT may be one of the best YA books I've read, and speaking as an adult with children, I've read a lot of them. (The opening chapter had me laughing out loud.) This may be a few years away for my oldest girl to read, but Darla is a fresh new hero for young girls. She's not perfect, she's funny and she decidedly has zero patience. It is a very funny, realistic look at the fumbles towards adulthood, relationships, ticking off your folks, consequences and yes, waiting.
Mchugh is not an author dabbling in the YA genre. She's an author who is good enough to write whatever she wants to write and she does it better than most. As this book is the beginning of a series, I would not be surprised one bit if these are the books that put her rightfully on the map next to Judy Blume and perhaps J.K. Rowling (as well as Roald Dahl, Stephen King and Joe R Lansdale.)
If you're looking for smart, edgy, funny and a lot of heart for your tween...(and you know what, even yourself, oh jaded adult,) the world of Darla Decker is waiting for you.
March 26, 2017
First, let me say, as a mom to girls, this book is literally my nightmare.
Second, it's labeled YA but the girl is 11 which is mid grade, but the topics certainly are not.
It's hard to divorce the mom from the reader here, but the book was really well written. The family life was spot on. The thoughts and dreams and worries of an 11 year old girl were perfectly done. But..but...there was way more sexually in it than I'm comfortable with. Mostly because I'm still planning on putting my girls in a Rapunzel like tower.
I also really related to relationship between Darla and her brother, so that was fun. I also really liked the choir stuff. Really well written story!
Second, it's labeled YA but the girl is 11 which is mid grade, but the topics certainly are not.
It's hard to divorce the mom from the reader here, but the book was really well written. The family life was spot on. The thoughts and dreams and worries of an 11 year old girl were perfectly done. But..but...there was way more sexually in it than I'm comfortable with. Mostly because I'm still planning on putting my girls in a Rapunzel like tower.
I also really related to relationship between Darla and her brother, so that was fun. I also really liked the choir stuff. Really well written story!
June 5, 2014
Jessica McHugh drops us right smack into the heart of Darla Decker and then pushes us into the pool, leaving us to sort it all out later. Darla is a young girl trying to figure out the pitfalls of junior high society. She is faced with so many decisions of pre-teen life that it's dizzying. Darla is lovable, insecure, and brave. She faces everything with a defiance and humour and then tells us about it in her diary. Jessica McHugh has given us a delightful peek into pre-adolescent and hormone-rising girlhood!
May 17, 2014
Jessica McHugh has captured the confusing journey many girls face while navigating through middle school. From awkward first kisses, annoyingly rotten brothers and tricky best friend break ups, McHugh depicts the drama vividly. A fun, summertime read that inevitably will take you down memory lane! Can't wait to read the second installment following Darla's adventures at camp!
September 18, 2015
I'm admittedly biased because I grew up in the same town as the author and am reminded fully of my own middle school days, but I really enjoyed this. Love that there are real problems between the main character and her brother, between her parents, and with the kids at school. Realism treated realistically, and with lots of humor.
November 24, 2016
Painfully reminiscent of year 6/ 7. Another reviewer, Dave, put it best: "I was at once nostalgic of my tween years and relieved not to have to go through them again."
February 4, 2018
Muy desagradable
September 17, 2017
I'd like to say right off that I think one of the hardest things for writers to write good children characters. It's the kind of thing that everyone assumes is the easy, but the fact is, it's really hard to put ourselves back into that mindset and to remember that outlook and how we prioritized our lives way back in the day.
Often, writers make the mistake of putting children into their stories that, for all practical purposes, are really just miniaturized adults. They speak just as intelligently, are just as rational, they act the same way, do the same things, they're just shorter. Often, you will end up with what I refer to as the "Juno syndrome" where, while it can be amusing, you have a kid who always manages to come up with the perfect, most succinct zingers every time and always has some kind of witty cultural reference and never seems to stumble over themselves. It's an idealized version of what we see in reality and again, while it can be entertaining, it can also get tiresome.
The other direction authors often mistakenly go in is to make the children overly-simplistic, the kids have no substantive contributions to the story, they barely seem able to form a complete sentence other than to beg for the adults to save them. They are there to create problems for the big people.
As a writer, I think you can tell when an author loves their characters, is invested in them as if they were hovering over them, peeking over their creator's shoulder while they write. In my opinion, McHugh has reached a sort of freaky, upper level connection with the characters in her story to the point where I can imagine her office packed with any number of fictionalized kids and adults, screaming at her for attention. She breathes life into this story in a way that is rare to find and always a treat to read, regardless of whatever your genre preferences might be.
In Darla, McHugh has created a character that is dynamic and interesting and while I don't pretend in any way to really know the mindset of a young, pre-teen girl, I read the prose and I feel like I am hearing the voice of a child. Not the perfected cartoonized version of a child, not as simple fodder for the story, but as a genuine, three dimensional, real child. It brought me back to a lot of the young adult books I would read in grade school, living along with the day-to-day exploits of the protagonist as she deals with the dramas of her life and underneath everything, the ultimate and slow transition into adulthood.
The switch from grade school into middle school or junior high (whichever it was for you) is an understandably awkward time for everyone. It's the tipping point where your childhood really starts to end and you take your first steps onto the road towards adulthood. Friends, long present start to fade into the background and for the first time, you find yourself lost in a really big pond with a bunch of other fish that you can't help but see as predatory. McHugh brings to life the difficult social hierarchies of childhood, trying to be genuinely good for your parents while at the same time trying to fit in and make friends however you can. She nails the inherent conflict of sibling rivalry, growing up with the person you see as one of your greatest adversaries that you can't help but love anyway. You will laugh at the fumbling, awkward attempts at intimacy and I love watching the imagination of the younger mind at work, seeing mundane objects of the universe of the book being molded into exotic, spooky props to fill the coffers of local legends and ghost stories.
Why should you read Darla Decker Hates To Wait? The real question is, why shouldn't you? It's a great, perfectly paced book that reminds you of what it was like to read books because they were fun, because they were entertainment. According to the author, this is her first attempt at this genre but I think you would be hard pressed to know that unless you were told. I will look forward to future books in this series as well as checking out some of the rest of McHugh's body of work.
Happy reading!
Often, writers make the mistake of putting children into their stories that, for all practical purposes, are really just miniaturized adults. They speak just as intelligently, are just as rational, they act the same way, do the same things, they're just shorter. Often, you will end up with what I refer to as the "Juno syndrome" where, while it can be amusing, you have a kid who always manages to come up with the perfect, most succinct zingers every time and always has some kind of witty cultural reference and never seems to stumble over themselves. It's an idealized version of what we see in reality and again, while it can be entertaining, it can also get tiresome.
The other direction authors often mistakenly go in is to make the children overly-simplistic, the kids have no substantive contributions to the story, they barely seem able to form a complete sentence other than to beg for the adults to save them. They are there to create problems for the big people.
As a writer, I think you can tell when an author loves their characters, is invested in them as if they were hovering over them, peeking over their creator's shoulder while they write. In my opinion, McHugh has reached a sort of freaky, upper level connection with the characters in her story to the point where I can imagine her office packed with any number of fictionalized kids and adults, screaming at her for attention. She breathes life into this story in a way that is rare to find and always a treat to read, regardless of whatever your genre preferences might be.
In Darla, McHugh has created a character that is dynamic and interesting and while I don't pretend in any way to really know the mindset of a young, pre-teen girl, I read the prose and I feel like I am hearing the voice of a child. Not the perfected cartoonized version of a child, not as simple fodder for the story, but as a genuine, three dimensional, real child. It brought me back to a lot of the young adult books I would read in grade school, living along with the day-to-day exploits of the protagonist as she deals with the dramas of her life and underneath everything, the ultimate and slow transition into adulthood.
The switch from grade school into middle school or junior high (whichever it was for you) is an understandably awkward time for everyone. It's the tipping point where your childhood really starts to end and you take your first steps onto the road towards adulthood. Friends, long present start to fade into the background and for the first time, you find yourself lost in a really big pond with a bunch of other fish that you can't help but see as predatory. McHugh brings to life the difficult social hierarchies of childhood, trying to be genuinely good for your parents while at the same time trying to fit in and make friends however you can. She nails the inherent conflict of sibling rivalry, growing up with the person you see as one of your greatest adversaries that you can't help but love anyway. You will laugh at the fumbling, awkward attempts at intimacy and I love watching the imagination of the younger mind at work, seeing mundane objects of the universe of the book being molded into exotic, spooky props to fill the coffers of local legends and ghost stories.
Why should you read Darla Decker Hates To Wait? The real question is, why shouldn't you? It's a great, perfectly paced book that reminds you of what it was like to read books because they were fun, because they were entertainment. According to the author, this is her first attempt at this genre but I think you would be hard pressed to know that unless you were told. I will look forward to future books in this series as well as checking out some of the rest of McHugh's body of work.
Happy reading!
November 8, 2014
I've been saving this one for awhile knowing that as with all of Jessica McHugh's books I wouldn't be able to put it down. Darla reminds me so much of my daughter at that age especially the part about smoking math it sounded exactly like something she would say. I was never allowed to act like a normal preteen my mother expected adult behavior from me at a very young age so it was great to have an inside look at the kind of behavior I only ever got to see from the side lines. Thanks Jessica for taking me back in time & giving me a chance to relive my childhood if only for a few hours. I'm very much looking forward to the rest of the series :)
June 5, 2017
While its genre is YA, even adults will enjoy this book and will be taken down memory lane to their own early adolescence. Ms. McHugh captures the reality of the humor, pain, love, and learning that comes at this age. Even more so, the story is told honestly and doesn't paint a picture of middle school that is flowery and unrealistic. I loved this book and can't wait to see what the coming years have in store for Darla Decker!
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews