School Library Journal Starred Review

Gr 8 Up-When it comes to creating strong, independent, and funny teenaged female characters, Bauer is in a class by herself and the 16-year-old waitress in this book is no exception. Hope Yancey and her Aunt Addie, a much-sought-after diner cook, have toured the country, one diner at a time. With each move, the teen leaves her mark, "HOPE WAS HERE," in ballpoint pen somewhere on the premises. Now in Mulhoney, WI, she has no idea that the residents of this small town will make their mark on her. G. T. Stoop, the Quaker owner of the Welcome Stairways, has leukemia, and while the disease can keep him from running the diner he loves, it can't keep him from running for mayor against a corrupt incumbent. Taking part in his campaign allows Hope to get to know Braverman, a fellow worker at the Welcome Stairways and G. T.'s greatest supporter. The mix of dealing with illness, small-town politics, and budding romance for both Hope and Addie is one that will entertain and inspire readers. Bauer tells a fast-paced, multilayered story with humor but does not gloss over the struggle of someone who is unable to trust, someone who has been left before, and who avoids getting close to anyone for fear of being left again. Teens who have come to expect witty, realistic characters and atypical (but very funny) story lines from Bauer's previous books will not be disappointed and new readers will be sure to come back for seconds.-Tracey Firestone, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

ALA Booklist

Ever since her mother left, Hope has, with her comfort-food-cooking aunt Addie, been serving up the best in diner food from Pensacola to New York City. Moving has been tough, so it comes as a surprise to 16-year-old Hope that rural Wisconsin, where she and her aunt have now settled, offers more excitement, friendship, and even romance (for both Hope and Addie) than the big city. In this story, Bauer has recycled some charming devices from her popular Rules of the Road (1998): Jenna's road rules have become the Best-of-Mom tips for waitressing; the disappearing parent is Hope's irresponsible mom; and the villains are politicians, not corporate America. Like Bauer's other heroines, Hope is a typical teenage girl who works hard, excels at her part-time job, and plans for her future. The adults around her, though mostly one-dimensional, together create a microcosm of society--the best and the worst of a teenager's support system. It's Bauer's humor that supplies, in Addie's cooking vernacular, the yeast that makes the story rise above the rest, reinforcing the substantive issues of honesty, humanity, and the importance of political activism. Serve this up to teens--with a dash of hope.

Horn Book

Sixteen-year-old Hope takes pride in her job: she's a short-order waitress who has come from Brooklyn with her aunt Addie to run a diner in Wisconsin, its proprietor sidelined by leukemia. Addie and Hope, long peripatetic, find a new life in Wisconsin as well as a cause: the diner's owner takes on the corrupt mayor in an upcoming election. And Hope's tentative romance with the cook is sweet indeed. The story's humor is warm and real.

Kirkus Reviews

Another entry in Bauer's growing collection of books about likable and appealing female teenagers with a strong vocational calling. Ivy Breedlove in Backwater (1999) is a historian, Jenna Boller in Rules of the Road (1998) is a talented salesperson, and Hope Yancey's gift is for waitressing. As the novel begins, Hope, 16, and her aunt Addie are about to move from Brooklyn to Mulhoney, Wisconsin, where Addie will manage and cook for a diner called the Welcome Stairways. Hope, whose mother abandoned her as an infant and who has never known her father, is pretty well-adjusted, all things considered. She throws herself into her new life in the small town, working on the grassroots mayoral campaign of the diner's owner, quickly acquiring a boyfriend and friends, and proving herself to be a stellar waitress (she's been working in restaurants most of her life, after all, and one of the few things her mother has given her is a list of waitressing tips). Despite having moved so often and having had such inadequate biological parents, Hope isn't afraid to connect to people. The relationship between Hope and G.T., the man who owns the diner and who eventually marries her aunt is especially touching and sweetly portrayed. He's everything Hope ever wished for in a father. It could be said that the occupation of waitressing is over-idealized; it's portrayed as the noblest of professions. But the lessons she's learned from the job are essential to Hope's character and a part of why the plot develops as it does. More important, and as always from Bauer, this novel is full of humor, starring a strong and idealistic protagonist, packed with funny lines, and peopled with interesting and quirky characters. (Fiction. 11-16)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Of this tale of a 16-year-old waitress who searches for a sense of belonging, <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">PW said that the prose, "often rich in metaphor, brings Hope's surroundings and her emotions to life. Readers are likely to gobble this up like so much comfort food." Ages 10-14. (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">May)