I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Salt and Sugar by Rebecca Carvalho Published by Inkyard Press on 11/1/22
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 353
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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Trust neither thin-bottomed frying pans nor Molinas.
Lari Ramires has always known this to be true. In Olinda, Brazil, her family’s bakery, Salt, has been at war with the Molinas’ bakery across the street, Sugar, for generations. But Lari’s world turns upside down when her beloved grandmother passes away. On top of that, a big supermarket chain has moved to town, forcing many of the small businesses to close.
Determined to protect her home, Lari does the unthinkable—she works together with Pedro Molina to save both of their bakeries. Lari realizes she might not know Pedro as well as she thought—and she maybe even likes what she learns—but the question remains: Can a Ramires and a Molina truly trust one another?
Short and Sweet Review
Lari and Pedro’s families have bakeries across the street from each other, Lari’s family owns Salt and Pedro’s family owns Sugar. Their families have been feuding for a long time and even Lari and Pedro are “enemies.” There’s a big supermarket that has moved into town and is forcing small businesses to close and Salt and Sugar are in jeopardy and Lari thinks the best way to save the bakeries is to team up with Pedro.
If I were going to describe this book I would say its a hot mess. We only have Lari’s POV but I found her to be such an annoying and insufferable character and not only her but the supporting characters as well. This is a Romeo and Juliet retelling and I didn’t really feel the chemistry between Lari and Pedro and the way things build up and the pacing wasn’t great. The characters are always yelling at each other the drama was over the top it was like reading the script to a very bad soap opera. Honestly Lari’s mother and Pedro’s family would have screaming matches in the street and it was too much like almost every other chapter they had something to yell at each other about.
Lari basically calls Pedro her enemy and ends up having to join his cooking club. Lari is so like defensive, she doesn’t know how to cook or bake and if anyone even suspects that she doesn’t know what she’s doing in the kitchen she’ll go off on them and I just couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t admit that she needed to learn how to cook. Anyway I’m guessing the more time that Pedro and Lari spend time together the more they start to develop feelings for each other and even call a truce. Like I said earlier the pacing in this book is off way off. It isn’t until 90% through the book that they realize that they like each other and when they come up with a solution to try to save their bakeries and everything is resolved so quickly it seemed unrealistic especially with how much bad blood was between the families.
I just didn’t enjoy this book and really had to push myself to finish it. I didn’t like the characters, the plot sounded good but the pacing just ruined it for me. Probably not a book that I would recommend.
