*This review will not contain spoilers*
Seventeen-year-old Carter Lane has wanted to be a chef since she was old enough to ignore her mom’s warnings to stay away from the hot stove. And now she has the chance of a lifetime: a prestigious scholarship competition in Savannah, where students compete all summer in Chopped style challenges for a full-ride to one of the best culinary schools in the country. The only impossible challenge ingredient in her basket: Reid Yamada. After Reid, her cute but unbearably cocky opponent, goes out of his way to screw her over on day one, Carter vows revenge, and soon they’re involved in a full-fledged culinary war. Just as the tension between them reaches its boiling point, Carter and Reid are forced to work together if they want to win, and Carter begins to wonder if Reid’s constant presence in her brain is about more than rivalry. And if maybe her desire to smack his mouth doesn’t necessarily cancel out her desire to kiss it.
Thank you Edelweiss for the e-ARC!
I love watching cooking shows, but I find a lot of food gross. It’s a happy medium for me, being able to look at pretty food and not have to smell it or be pressured to eat it. So. I was thrilled when I heard about a book about cooking! I’ve actually never read or really seen one about cooking before, so I was looking forward to reading it.
For some background, I started it last night, finished it last night, and now my review is going up a day later. Yeah, it was really, really good. It read fast for me, but not in a fast way that left me dizzy and missing parts. It was also on the shorter side, around 278 pages I think? This is the first shorter book in awhile that I felt that the story was finished when the pages ran out. I was so pleased with that. It was so cute and fluffy and fast and I loved it a lot.
I think the thing I loved most about it is the anxiety rep. It’s not a book about anxiety, so I didn’t go in expecting there would be any. But there was and it just was. It’s not some big thing; it’s so normalized. It’s just something the character’s struggle with and that’s alright. And it is alright. It’s normal.
I also loved how the two different character’s (that we saw) struggled with it, but their experience with was so very different. AND THAT IS SO ACCURATE. Everybody deals with things differently and everybody’s brain is wired differently. I saw myself in both Carter and Reid in that way. I deal with things a little bit like both of them and I loved that.
It was also so messy, because that’s is just how it is sometimes. Anxiety doesn’t just go away and sometimes it messes with people’s head. And that’s fine. It’s just learning that that’s what happens and going from there. There is never an end to it, but it does get better and sometimes it gets worse again, but that’s alright. That’s normal.
Consent is also another thing I loved about this book. There is so much talking about is this alright or is this not alright. It’s not just about sex, but about other things too and I thought that was really cool too. I don’t want to go into too much detail to avoid spoilers, but it’s definitely something that jumped out at me.
And after reading the book, the cover is now a million times cuter and I can’t say why, cause spoilers. but let me tell you that it is dang ADORABLE.
I loved this book. It was cute and fluffy, but so real and so what I needed. It was just really, really good.
The Art of French Kissing comes out on June 5, 2018!
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