*I was sent an ARC of Eliza, from Scratch in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to HarperCollins and Sophia Lee for my copy of the book*
Synopsis:
A charming, poignant YA rom-com about an academics-obsessed teen who learns big truths about love, family, and herself when a scheduling snafu lands her in a culinary arts class, perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Rachel Lynn Solomon
Ingredients:
· 1 try-hard salutatorian
· 1 annoying and (annoyingly) cute boy
· A handful of Korean recipes (measure with your heart)
· The spice of competition, to taste
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.
Review:
I had a great time reading Eliza, from Scratch. I love books that have food as a central theme, especially contemporary romances. It was a mistake to read the majority of this book late at night though, it made me so hungry. There were so many dishes I’d never heard of before but I’m definitely going to try them. Everything sounded incredible. Putting the recipes at the end of the book would have been a nice touch, I love it when books about food do that.
I don’t have many negatives so I’ll get those out of the way first.
Eliza is very unlikeable to begin with. She can’t believe it when Wesley only gets a C- on a test and instantly assumes something must be going on at home because why would anyone put such little effort into school? Clearly their life must be a mess because school is so easy, right? Never mind the fact that some people just don’t understand everything as well as others. To make this even worse, she takes the test out of his bag to get a better look at it.
She also has no backbone to speak of. There’s a classic ‘third act break up’ and this happens all because Eliza doesn’t speak out against her snobby friends. She doesn’t believe that the other students in the non AP classes are idiots, Wesley helps her see that, but when her friends are talking about it, she agrees. Although not explicitly but she does laugh along and anyone hearing this is going to believe she’s making fun of them. Thankfully part of her character development includes her not referring to those who aren’t in AP classes as ‘the other kids’ anymore, but she really did need to learn to speak out. She’s too agreeable because she doesn’t want to lose her friends. That part really sucked.
Don’t get me wrong, she isn’t perfect by the end of the book, but the arcs she goes through with her friends and family, and also academically and romantically, make this into a lovely coming of age story. Teenagers make stupid and selfish mistakes and that’s portrayed pretty well in Eliza, from Scratch.
Eliza’s struggles with her cultural identity was really interesting. She was born in America and has lived there her entire life so she feels a disconnect with her Korean heritage. She builds a new understanding of that side of herself through cooking with her mom, who is a first generation immigrant. Sadly, when she begins these sessions with her mom, it’s for purely selfish reasons, to do better in her culinary arts class, but Eliza soon learns that they are helping her mom deal with her grief.
These were some of my favourite sections of the entire book. Even though the relationship between Eliza and her mom was strained, there was something beautiful about watching them start to understand who they are today, despite the grief hanging over them. Eliza’s grief was more for who her mother was before, so watching this slowly get easier was wonderful.
I’m finding it a little difficult to explain why I enjoyed Eliza, From Scratch so much. There’s just something about books with a focus on food that feels so comforting.
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