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.

Eliza Park’s senior year will be perfect: She’s going to be salutatorian, give a tear-jerking graduation speech in front of her parents, and enjoy her last year with her equally ambitious best friends. But when a scheduling mishap enrolls her in Culinary Arts, Eliza is suddenly the most clueless person in the class. Her typical title of star student belongs to the aggravatingly arrogant Wesley Ruengsomboon, a charming Thai American boy whose talent in the kitchen leaves Eliza both awed and annoyed.

With her rank on the line, Eliza’s only hope is to snatch the midterm cooking contest win from Wesley, however improbable that may be. Add in the flavor of her grandmother’s Korean recipes, the heat of being class partners with Wesley, and the sweetness of unexpected feelings—and Eliza must now rebuild everything she knew about success, love, and what it means to be herself, from scratch.

Short and Sweet Review

Eliza, is going into her senior year and she’s used to taking all AP classes, but this year the schedule didn’t work out and now she’s in Culinary Arts. Eliza isn’t a great cook so she thinks she’s doomed, also she wants to be salutatorian and Culinary Arts isn’t a weighted class so she just feels doomed before the school year really starts. On the first day of class Eliza learns that there’s a cook off and whoever wins the cook off will get a boost in their GPA which is what she really needs, she also needs to learn to work with her partner Wesley in class who seems to be an amazing cook. Not only does she work on her cooking in class but at home learning her grandmother’s recipes in order to get closer to her mom while she grieves and win the cook off. Over the course of the semester we see Eliza figure out who she really is.

This book started off so strong for me and I won’t say it ended terribly but towards the end Eliza put a bad taste in my mouth. The main plot here is Eliza in the culinary arts class working to become a better chef before the cook off, we also see the sub plots of her friends seemingly pulling away from her, and her spending more time with her mom learning her grandmother’s recipes. In the culinary arts class we see Eliza struggles with cooking like she’s a beginner and she ends up getting paired with Wesley. Throughout the course of the book we see them cooking together after school to try to improve Eliza’s skills and also try new recipes that Welsey has wanted to try. Wesley isn’t in AP classes but he has a passion for cooking and for Eliza that’s weird because she has her future planned out. We see that Eliza and her friends have a sort of elitist attitude because they’re in the higher level classes. We see that the more Eliza and Wesley spend time together she starts to change her views. Eliza and her two friends Kareena and Meredith are close but Eliza can feel them hiding something from her but she doesn’t inquire until it’s too late and the fractures have started. I can tell why Eliza’s friends were keeping their secret, Eliza is pretty judgy and doesn’t come across as too understanding, also I didn’t understand how Eliza could be so blind because even I knew what was happening. The next plot point was Eliza learning her grandmother’s recipes under the guise of trying to be closer to her but also wanting to use them for the cook off. Eliza’s grandmother recently passed and her mom is still grieving so she’s been a bit absent, she’s there but she’s not. I liked seeing Eliza and her mom spend time cooking together and Eliza learning the story behind certain dishes. All of these plot points were fine, but I think when they all erupted and had climax happen at the same time it was overwhelming, and the way Eliza handled things made me like her a little less. The way she was talking to people was crazy and honestly pretty shocking because if I talked to my Korean mother like that it would be over. The ending felt lackluster and everything was resolved too easily.

Overall, this was a good book I won’t deny it but Eliza’s character was one I connected with at first but towards the end of the book I realized she wasn’t someone I would want to be friends with. I would recommend this book, it was fun to watch Eliza and Wesley cook and I did like Eliza’s character just not her attitude.