Love and Other Perishable Items (aka Good Oil) is a short, sweet, and interesting book. I picked it up because I thought it looked cute, but I ended up enjoying more than I thought I would, which is always a nice surprise. 
 The writing is very poignant and heartfelt. There were times when my heart was aching, when there was the beginnings of tears in my eyes. I don't always like dual narration, but in this case, I didn't mind. Amelia is a bit of an awkward character, but then, at fourteen, who isn't? I enjoyed listening to her voice and connected with her thoughts and opinions on a personal level. Chris' POV is told in the form of a diary, a purple diary, to be exact. While I bounced around quite a bit about how I felt about him, I liked him in the end. He was funny, reckless, and definitively angsting pretty hard over past events in his life, i.e. his break-up with his girlfriend. 
 What gets me is that I feel like while Amelia and Chris had real affection for each other, I'm not sure if they really knew each other. The things Amelia thought about him were not the person he actually was, at least most of the time. Would she still feel the same way about him if she spent more personal time with him? I don't know. 
 I wondered how this book was going to end a lot while I was reading it. I wasn't sure how the author would resolve or wrap it up. I mean, to be honest, the whole book was Amelia going about day to day life, wanting Chris but knowing she can't have him, and Chris complaining about his life and searching for the Perfect Woman. I guess I wasn't really surprised by the end; a part of me wanted things to be different, but at the same time I know how things were and why they had to be that way. I kind of like how it's left open somewhat, and you can kind of imagine what happens in the next few years or so to the characters. 
 My only complaint is the transitions between scenes. One minute Amelia is at the bus stop, the next she's at school, the next it's work. Sometimes I had to go back and re-read paragraphs because I wasn't entirely sure what was going on. Overall, though, this book was well worth reading and I will be happy to recommend it in the future to people looking for a good, somewhat bittersweet romance story. 
 4 stars.