Dessert First received a rave review from School Library Journal, which called it “A sweet, sorrowful, and simply divine debut novel that teens will be sinking their teeth into. This wonderful story … will be a hit with fans of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and Jesse Andrews’s Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.”

Dean Gloster was featured on Jackie Mitchard’s Summer Scribes podcast, where he talked about Dessert First, writing in the voice of a 16-year-old girl, some favorite YA books, and going back to school for an MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts, where he met wonderful classmates.  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/authorsontheair/2016/08/31/jacquelyn-mitchards-summer-scribes-presents-ya-author-dean-gloster

Dessert First received its first trade review, from Kirkus Reviews, which said “Kat is wise, dependable, and loving, a beautifully realized character” in a tale “deeply infused with a surfeit of desperate pain.” Despite the humor in it, Kirkus called the book something of a sob-a-thon, concluding “This deeply moving tragedy vastly outpaces typical tissue use.”