A Taste For Love: Jennifer Yen

We meet again!

One thing that I really like is when I read a book that is about someone that is otherwise totally normal, but crazy talented in some way or another. I read fantasy a lot and I love the heroes that rise above all, but then there’s something about reading a book about a totally average human that is great at painting, or at a particular sport, or is a great scientist. It’s fun because those are things that I can’t relate to and it’s interesting to delve into that a little. This one was about baking, which I’m okay at, but definitely can’t pull off the things that are accomplished in this book. Here we go :)

Brief Synopsis:

Liza is tired of her mom’s expectations of her always falling short. With graduation just on the horizon, she’s eager to begin her real life. Her mom has always expected much more of her than she’s been able to give, especially when it comes to dating. Her mom has always had a very particular vision in mind of who her daughter should end up with, and Liza has almost excelled in not getting there. With a string of boyfriends that her mom is unaware of, Liza finds herself once again on the outs with a guy when she finds out that he’s been cheating.

This douche of a guy doesn’t take well to being dumped and tries to confront Liza, who is defended by a really handsome Asian guy that she has never met before. However, Asian is the top of the list of Liza’s mom’s needs for her to be with a guy.

It’s too bad that even though he stands up for Liza, he’s also a total jerk to her. When Liza runs into him again later with her friend Grace, she’s horrified to see her best friend falling for James’s much friendlier and ridiculously charming cousin, Ben. She knows that Grace deserves to be happy, but it’s going to come at the cost of her having to be around the unpleasant James more than she would like to be… I.E., at all.

Her focus is also on the fact that she’s passionate about baking and is really good at it, but her parents won’t approve of her attending culinary school. Her parents collectively run Yin and Yang, which is a bakery and restaurant, and while they’re perfectly happy with letting Liza help out and know that she’s very talented in the kitchen, they don’t want that future for her because they know how hard it can be.

Liza ends up talking her mom into letting her help out with the yearly baking competition that her mom runs, which ends with a scholarship to the winner. She doesn’t realize until it’s too late that her mom has also turned this into a dating opportunity, urging young Asian men to enter the competition and hopefully win Liza’s heart. While Liza’s definitely pissed, she agrees to play along to hopefully appease her parents enough that they might re-consider their refusal of culinary school.

A quick trip to New York to see her older sister has Liza meeting Nathan, who seems to be totally smitten with Jeannie. He comes with Jeannie to also watch the cooking show in action. To Liza’s surprise, Ben and James have signed up for the cooking competition to try and help Liza out with her mom’s plans. However, Liza is even more shocked when she finds out that it was James’s idea to enter the competition and just maybe… he’s not as bad as she first thought that he was?

James slowly starts to warm up to Liza and she starts to see that he’s not the awful person that she thought that he was. Or is he? The baking competition is much more of a disaster than in the past due to the young men that signed up being more interested in Liza then the baking. This stresses out Liza’s mom, who’s agreed to bring in a famous and talented fellow-baker, Mrs. Lee, who likes to show off at every chance. Liza finds out that Mrs. Lee was brought on because sponsors were growing uninterested.

Things blow up in everyone’s faces in one single afternoon. Though moments before Liza had shared a very steamy moment with James, in the blink of an eye, it seems to be over. James overreacts (in their eyes) to seeing Nathan at the competition and accuses him of coming to taunt him and Ben. When he and Ben leave in a huff, Nathan tells a story that paints James and Ben in a pretty bad light, but Grace isn’t so sure she believes him.

When Ben breaks up with Grace late that night over text, Liza’s had enough. She confronts Ben and James both, who say that Nathan’s story isn’t facts and that they caught Grace kissing Nathan.

Predictably, relationships crumble and are rebuilt, and the competition goes on. It doesn’t take long for them to realize that someone is sabotaging the entire thing and, as is what happens often in the name of war, they all band together to find out who is behind it all. And when they say all is fair in love and war, it’s even more interesting when the crook in both ventures is the same person, isn’t it?

My rating:

8/10. I loved this book. It was such a fun read and there’s nothing wrong with having fun without a ton of depth. But there was a lot of character growth, connections and a strong enough feel of all of the characters to genuinely care what happened to them.

A book I Read With a Similar Vibe:

I was feeling like Tweet Cute reminded me a lot of this one. Who else has read that one?

Check out my Goodreads (Traci Bishop) to see what I’m currently reading and to see a good chunk of the books I have already read. My Instagram can be found on the home page and I will share whenever a new post is up as well!

Until next time <3