I was really hoping to love this one bc I love food-based romances, I love queer romances, and I love BIPOC romances. All of my favorites in one book? Wow! And yet…..

Thing I enjoyed:
-both protagonists were people of color, Gabi is Puerto Rican and Theo is Chinese and Japanese
-Great cover and title
-the premise is fun and interesting
-the resolution of the shops at the end

Things I did not enjoy
-this is YA, but it felt much younger than the typical YA because everyone was so one dimensional and kinda immature. Now there is a discussion to be had about how a lot of YA is written for an adult audience and not necessarily reflective of the actual YA experience, but in this book it felt like I was rolling my eyes a lot at their immaturity and dialogue
-all the side characters have no depth. Meli ONLY cares about homecoming and is weirdly intense about it, Gabi’s parents ONLY ever speak to him to say homophobic comments even though they don’t know he’s gay, at first Theo ONLY hates Gabi and is nothing but difficult to him, etc.
-I got whiplash from the deep hate to the kinda like to the love phase between Gabi and Theo. More so from Theo, since Gabi was more open to it the entire time. It feels like insta-love from Theo even though they’ve grown up together. We don’t see Theo have any reckoning feelings of realizing maybe he hasn’t hated Gabi this whole time, maybe it’s actually misplaced feelings of love, yadda yadda, because Theo has no emotional intelligence. One day he realizes Gabi isn’t so bad and then now they’re dating. Here’s a prime example (from Theo’s POV) about halfway through the book when they’re in the “maybe we’re actually not” phase:

“It’s a nice day out,” Gabi says finally.
“You’re making small talk about the weather?”
“I-well, to be honest, I don’t really know what you’d like to talk about, since you’re usually just yelling at me.”
I laughed, but his face still looks dead serious. It’s not like he’s wrong, obviously, because a few weeks ago I would’ve offered to scrub the locker room toilets down if it meant not spending an hour with Gabriel Moreno, but I don’t know…I thought we were past that.
…..skipping some internal monologue here…..
“We can talk about anything,” I say. “I kind of just want a distraction.”
He stares back at me kind of blankly for a moment before saying, “Did you know axolotl‘s can regrow limbs?”
…..skipping some discussion about what axolotls are….
“Why are you telling me this?” I ask.
He shrugs. “You said you wanted to distraction.”
“I did say that but I didn’t think you’d dive into the weirdest fact you know.”
He sighs. “That’s not the weirdest fact I know, but I digress.”
I laugh, and he looks at me like I just grew a new limb, but come on! What a loser! I told him I wanted a distraction for my life problems, so he went into random facts about axo-manders like that’s what I meant.


Ok this is a very long quote but my POINT here is that Theo called Gabi to come over and talk because he was having a bad day with his parents. Gabi drops everything and comes over, and does his best to distract Theo, who up until this point has almost been nothing but mean to Gabi. Only for Theo to mock Gabi’s attempts and then for Theo call him a loser (in his head, but still). What do you want, Theo???? We’re halfway through the book and you’re actively (mentally) calling Gabi a loser when he is doing his best to help?? Ugh.

So anyways, tl;dr - I did not enjoy this book.

As my friend Sarah kindly said after I ranted to her about how upsetting this book was, “I am glad there are diverse books out there for other perspectives but this one was not for me.”

“Not for me” was an understatement with this one. I wanted to DNF after about an hour of listening to the audiobook and I really should’ve.

So far this year I have read 46 books and this is the worst one, which is disappointing because I really WANTED to like a BIPOC, food based cozy mystery. What could be better?? It turns out, the answer is literally anything else.

I wish I had not purchased this. The only saving grace were the cultural elements and the extremely cute cover. I would say it’s a 2.5 stars but I rounded down because I was upset so frequently reading this.

This book had so much potential: I love a food-based romance, characters solidly aware of their cultural identity, and discussions of class (esp gentrification/gentefication in this book). But this missed the mark on literally all of those.

There was a lot of discussion of Ramón’s wealth and spending habits, so that was quite clearly covered. What was not covered: his corresponding privileges. He seemed to have no awareness of his privilege or that other people had less than him.

The two protagonists barely talk about anything. Julieta would say “I’m not sure about this, we come from such different backgrounds idk if it will work” and then Ramón would said “All I care about is you.” And that was the end of the discussion. Problem solved then!!!! No solutions offered, merely one statement issued one time, no need to worry anymore!!

Also, the writing itself wasn’t great. I was quite surprised to hear this was not the author’s debut novel. Here’s one strangely alliterative and judgmental sentence to give you a taste: “Julieta focused her attention back on the sorority sisters and immodest Instagram influencers mingling with the muscular military men and blasé beach bros spilling out of bars and onto the busy sidewalk.” Several times in the first 100 pages I wondered about the amount of alliteration.

I have several more criticisms of this book but don’t want to spend any more time thinking about it.

Wow

holy FORK this is good. I can’t believe the amount of times I laughed out loud. The entire plot with the English teacher had me CACKLING. All of Quique’s friends are hilarious. So much chaotic bisexual energy. I also cried!! Really great mental health discussions. My god. This is god tier.

I was unprepared to read this book in a day but I could barely work thinking about it. Luckily I WFH so it wasn’t hard for me to break away frequently!!

Wow, this plot grabbed a hold of me and never let go. I was riveted.

Thank goodness I read this for a book club so I can discuss it with some friends.

This book was……ok. I quite enjoyed Serena Singh Flips the Script and was excited to read another book by Sonya Lolli, especially a Diwali-based romance which seemed dope. And yet this rather missed the mark for me, I almost didn’t finish it.

In the first half, we learn a bit about how the protagonist, Niki, doesn’t feel “Indian enough” or connected to her roots, but when we finally get to her meeting her family in her first trip to India, it’s entirely skipped and only told through a few stories that she tells her sister afterwards and then a general feeling of acceptance of her identity. Suddenly, problem solved! As someone who struggled with her racial identity/background as well, I am quite aware this is not how this works, it’s rather ongoing.

When Sam, the love interest, says he doesn’t think Niki should move to London solely for him (for several valid reasons, one of which is that he probably won’t be living there too much longer), her instant response to say “then I’m done,” run out of the house and never speak to him again? Why would that be the only possible option?

This and many other situations are examples of how things are handled/described rather superficially throughout the book. It got slightly better about 75% through and I didn’t have to make myself read it anymore.

As this is her second book published in 2021, it almost feels like the publisher requested a “diverse holiday romance” and the author rushed to complete this, and thus didn’t have time to fully flesh things out and make sure the writing wasn’t clunky.

I was expecting (and hoping for) more.