Love From Scratch by Kaitlyn Hill

*Spoiler free*

This summer, Reese Camden is trading sweet tea and Southern hospitality for cold brew and crisp coastal air. She’s landed her dream marketing internship at Friends of Flavor, a wildly popular cooking channel in Seattle. The only problem? Benny Beneventi, the relentlessly charming, backwards-baseball-cap-wearing culinary intern–and her main competition for the fall job. Reese’s plan to keep work a No Feelings Zone crumbles like a day-old muffin when she and Benny are thrown together for a video shoot that goes viral, making them the internet’s newest ship. Audiences are hungry for more, and their bosses at Friends of Flavor are happy to deliver. Soon Reese and Benny are in an all-out food war, churning homemade ice cream, twisting soft pretzels, breaking eggs in an omelet showdown–while hundreds of thousands of viewers watch. Reese can’t deny the chemistry between her and Benny. But the more their rivalry heats up, the harder it is to keep love on the back burner… 

I mean, a romcom about two interns at a company that posts food videos online fighting it out for the one job being offered in the fall. Heck yes I wanted to read that book. And the cover is adorable!

I loved this book a lot more than I thought I was going to. It was sweet and tangled and so, so good.

This is weird, but one of the things I liked best about this book was that I was unsure about it in the beginning. I wasn’t sure about Reese. I didn’t know if I was going to like her. She just seemed sort of there and I didn’t feel like I got her. But, I feel like that was almost the point. She keeps everything so locked down and behind walls because that’s what she’s built protect herself. She feels unsure about herself and her place. She is so much more than what she is on the surface, and there is so much in her under the surface. She’s got a lot of tangled emotions, ones that were allowed to be tangled and messy and where one thread didn’t untangle them all. She had to come to terms with her emotions, how she wanted to handle them, how they have affected her. So much about her hit me in my chest. There’s also the fact that she just rocks in general. She’s reserved, but determined. Just, there is so much more to her than there seems and I absolutely love that about her and I love that I was able to get to know her like that.

I felt the same way about Benny. I wasn’t sure I was going to like him. He seemed a bit too goofy, a bit too smooth for my taste. Oh, but how I ended up loving him so much. He is such a wonderful himbo who is so earnest and so ready to care. He feels so deeply, and he’s also someone where there is more to them than it seems. I love him so much.

I also loved the side characters, and I’d totally take spin-offs of Reese’s friends. 

I also loved the whole aspect of the food videos! I thought it was fascinating to see Benny and Reese duke it out and to see the inner workings of the company. And to see how Internet dame affects someone who is more introverted and not at all interested at being the center of attention (I JUST REALLY LOVE REESE AND HER WHOLE EMOTIONAL JOURNEY IT FELT SO SUBTLE BUT SO INVOLVED IN THE PLOT IT WAS SO GOOD). Some made me want to drop kick them (which was the point haha), while I adored others. This setting lended itself so well to the book, and I just found all the food and the passion behind everything so amazing.

Truly, this is just a wonderful book. The way that everything is connected is so wonderful and it feels like something that is so solid, and so well done. I fell completely in love with the characters and everything they did, and there was so much sweetness between them. I love this book so much.

Love From Scratch comes out April 5th, 2022! You can add it on Goodreads and pre-order a copy in the meantime!