BOOK REVIEW: Salty, Bitter, Sweet by Mayra Cuevas @mayraecuevas @tlcbooktours @blinkyabooks #saltybittersweet #bookreview

A coming-of-age novel about an American teenager who is living in France with her father and attending a high-caliber cooking program. With dreams of becoming a Michelin-star chef, a troubled relationship with her father and his new family, and a love-interest, Isabella has her plate full. A charming story with a lot of heart and some amazing food descriptions. Don’t read Salty, Bitter, Sweet hungry!

About the Book

A slow-burn romance in a cutthroat kitchen! There’s more to becoming a top chef for 17-year-old Isabella Fields than just not getting chopped … especially when the chances of things heating up with an intriguing boy and becoming a food star in the kitchen are both on the chopping block.  

Aspiring chef Isa’s family life has fallen apart after the death of her Cuban abuela and the divorce of her parents. She moves in with her dad and her new stepmom, Margo, in Lyon, France, where Isa feels like an outsider in her father’s new life. Isa balances her time between avoiding the awkward, “why-did-you-cheat-on-Mom” conversation with figuring out how a perpetually single woman can at least be a perpetually single chef.

The upside of Isa’s world being turned upside-down?

Her father’s house is located only 30 minutes away from the restaurant of world-famous Chef Pascal Grattard, who runs a prestigiously competitive international kitchen apprenticeship. The prize job at Chef Grattard’s renowned restaurant also represents a transformative opportunity for Isa who is desperate to get her life back in order—and desperate to prove she has what it takes to work in an haute kitchen. But Isa’s stress and repressed grief begin to unravel when the attractive, enigmatic Diego shows up unannounced with his albino dog.

How can Isa expect to hold it together when she’s at the bottom of her class at the apprenticeship, her new stepmom is pregnant, she misses her abuela dearly, and things with the mysterious Diego reach a boiling point?

Reflection

In the last year I’ve come to realize that I didn’t have nearly as many books about diverse characters and by diverse authors as I should have. I was delighted to have the chance to read and review Salty, Bitter, Sweet not only because it features a diverse female lead on the cusp of adulthood, but also the author Mayra Cuevas is a person of color, and it made me happy to learn more about her voice and the story she decided to tell us through Isabella.

Right from the beginning I felt drawn to leading character Isabella Fields like a protective older sister. Isabella had the misfortune of witnessing her father kissing a woman who wasn’t her mother back in Chicago. Following the incident were months of fighting, a divorce, and eventually her father remarrying and the couple becoming pregnant with a baby who will be seventeen years Isabella’s junior.

The frustration, betrayal, and hurt Isabella feels mixes with the obvious love she has for her father. This is a confusing situation and one Isabella doesn’t fully understand. She’s young, she saw what she saw, but of course she never really got to see the well-rounded story. Now, she’s living with her father and step-mother in France while attending her apprentice program with the famous chef Pascal Grattard. But it doesn’t help that she can’t seem to connect with her step-mother, Margo. Isabella expresses love and connection through food, and it is her driving passion in life. But Margo won’t eat a bite of what Isabella cooks, and Isabella’s father hoovers down anything she makes proclaiming it’s divine inspiration. Not exactly the type of critics an aspiring chef wants.

So when Isabella meets Diego, the step-son to her step-mother Margo, things quickly derail even further. Isa is trying to hold it together in her apprentice program despite less than stellar performance relative to the others, when she finds herself in a hate-to-love relationship with the brazen and attractive Diego.

Salty, Bitter, Sweet is a lovely coming-of-age novel with a diverse cast of characters and a flawed but redeemable leading character who I couldn’t help but feel connected to. I loved learning more about Isa and her connection to food and cooking and heritage. I also loved the prevalence of women in this male-dominated industry. Isabella isn’t perfect—not even close—but she is a young woman coming into adulthood who ultimately grows so much through the book.

A quick pace and a great story make this a fun young adult novel that many will love. Thank you to TLC Book Tours and Blink YA for my copy. Opinions are my own.

Purchase Links

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