Happy #PrideMonth, also, I hope you're hungry! I've found a sub-sub genre that I am very much enjoying: queer romance set on cooking competition shows. After I reviewed Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, more than a few of you reminded me of Love and Other Disasters, which has been on my radar for quite some time after several rave reviews for it showed up in my feed! 

I knew I would love this book the moment I opened it, since it begins with Dahlia, one of the MCs, waxing poetic about onions. From there, we enter a Top Chef-style reality cooking competition featuring an array of characters, most notably, the other MC, London. This book is so soft and swoony, and I absolutely loved Dahlia and London not only together but in each of their beautiful human messiness.

This is the first book I have read with a nonbinary protagonist, and I am thankful for the window this book provided into London's existence and their day-to-day joys but also all of the small ways the gender binary and people's perceptions and assumptions about it either dragged them down or buoyed them up. I loved that each of the contestants on the show outside of Dahlia and London represented interactions with the general world. Most of all, I appreciated the care and thoughtfulness Anita Kelly put into this queer love story. I loved how fiercely Dahlia wanted to protect and hold London and also how much London wanted to do the same for Dahlia.

Of course I was intrigued by the depth of non-binary portrayal so immediately went to the author bio where I quickly discovered that Anita uses they/them pronouns, so that makes this an #OwnVoices read, too.

👍🏻Recommended! If you love cooking competitions and super swoony love stories told from unique and important perspectives, this is for you! If you enjoyed Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake or the Charm Offensive for their reality show settings, you will love this!