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keen23's review against another edition
4.0
Really good. The best part was how consent was written into the story. Didn't seem forced at all. It was really refreshing to see consent as part of a novel, especially one for teens.
hannahnana73's review against another edition
5.0
Rating - 4.5 stars
srsly one of the most swooniest books I've read - chemistry levels soaringgg
and a book about cooking? count me in
only downer for me was the profanity and the fact that the romance far exceeded a swoony kiss:/
srsly one of the most swooniest books I've read - chemistry levels soaringgg
and a book about cooking? count me in
only downer for me was the profanity and the fact that the romance far exceeded a swoony kiss:/
kaleyamo's review against another edition
3.0
I spend way too much time watching Chopped and reading YA fiction. They're two of my favorite things. So when I read the description for The Art of French Kissing, I really hoped I was in for something wonderful.
And I was. This book married two things I love that I never knew I needed combined until I read it.
Sometimes I found the female main character, Carter, frustrating. But she was frustrating in such a realistic, insecure teenager way. She reminded me a lot of me at that age, and adult me is often frustrated by teenage-me's actions, so it was completely relatable.
I only wish some of the characters had been developed more. We get such a small glimpse into a few important characters that it just left me wanting more.
Note: I received an ARC of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.
And I was. This book married two things I love that I never knew I needed combined until I read it.
Sometimes I found the female main character, Carter, frustrating. But she was frustrating in such a realistic, insecure teenager way. She reminded me a lot of me at that age, and adult me is often frustrated by teenage-me's actions, so it was completely relatable.
I only wish some of the characters had been developed more. We get such a small glimpse into a few important characters that it just left me wanting more.
Note: I received an ARC of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.
brianne_k's review against another edition
1.0
Many Thanks to Net-Galley and the publisher for an advanced e-copy. This did not affect my rating.
*1.5/5*
I am so sad that I really really did not like this book. I thought that, even though contemporaries aren't my thing, that I would at least love the cooking aspect of this. It is part Chopped, part Masterchef or Top Chef.. and I looveee cooking shows (obsessed with baking shows..) but I did not enjoy this book in the slightest.
Carter Lane is in high school, she loves to cook and is accepted in to a prestigious scholarship competition. Carter comes from a not well off family, so going to a school like this, with even only a partial scholarship, wouldn't be feasible. So she goes to Savannah and cooks up a friendship, a rivalry, and a love story.
There are chopped style competitions, where they have to work as a team, as a duo, and individually.
I just hated Carter. I found her to be insufferable. I hated being in her head, I hated her attitude, I don't think I have one redeeming quality that I could say I liked about her. She is mean, and honestly... she should have been kicked out of the competition for the shit that she pulled. It was truly despicable. She also treats Reid like shit, whereas he kept trying to call a truce. I liked Reid well enough.. I would have to say that Riya was definitely my favourite character..
Also, please tone down the pop culture references. I am a proud nerd.. I got all the references that were thrown in here, but it felt like they were literally thrown in to show how cool the characters, and therefore the author is. A few are fine, but it was so often that it started to pull me out of the story that was otherwise compulsively readable.
I will applaud the author this - the food descriptions were scrumptious. I was salivating at some of the dishes. I also loved the competition. The book didn't veer to far off that objective, unlike some other YA contemporaries that have a competition and don't focus on it.
I added the .5 star because there is some awesome rep in this book, along with affirmative consent regarding a sex scene.
*1.5/5*
I am so sad that I really really did not like this book. I thought that, even though contemporaries aren't my thing, that I would at least love the cooking aspect of this. It is part Chopped, part Masterchef or Top Chef.. and I looveee cooking shows (obsessed with baking shows..) but I did not enjoy this book in the slightest.
Carter Lane is in high school, she loves to cook and is accepted in to a prestigious scholarship competition. Carter comes from a not well off family, so going to a school like this, with even only a partial scholarship, wouldn't be feasible. So she goes to Savannah and cooks up a friendship, a rivalry, and a love story.
There are chopped style competitions, where they have to work as a team, as a duo, and individually.
I just hated Carter. I found her to be insufferable. I hated being in her head, I hated her attitude, I don't think I have one redeeming quality that I could say I liked about her. She is mean, and honestly... she should have been kicked out of the competition for the shit that she pulled. It was truly despicable. She also treats Reid like shit, whereas he kept trying to call a truce.
Spoiler
Even once they have paired up, and she beats him to the final 2, she can't find it in herself to be happy for her own accomplishment without demeaning it by asking Reid if he sabotaged his own chances and letting her win. She can't fathom why he is upset.. he should be happy for her! like how selfish. As Reid said, people can feel more than one emotion at a time.Spoiler
I am extremely happy that she came in 1st place, beating Carter who came in 2nd.Also, please tone down the pop culture references. I am a proud nerd.. I got all the references that were thrown in here, but it felt like they were literally thrown in to show how cool the characters, and therefore the author is. A few are fine, but it was so often that it started to pull me out of the story that was otherwise compulsively readable.
I will applaud the author this - the food descriptions were scrumptious. I was salivating at some of the dishes. I also loved the competition. The book didn't veer to far off that objective, unlike some other YA contemporaries that have a competition and don't focus on it.
I added the .5 star because there is some awesome rep in this book, along with affirmative consent regarding a sex scene.
rlstrayer1's review against another edition
2.0
2 stars
**I received this eARC in exchange for my honest review**
A Chopped YA romance...yeah I can get behind this.
I love the Food Network. My favorite chef/show is Alton Brown's Good Eats. I even own several of his cookbooks, and all of his recipes I've tried have turned out fabulous (unlike another chef I know *coughGiadacough*). So hey...a YA about serious chef-ery? I'm on board.
Unfortunately....
I couldn't get on board with the main character
This book had a strong premise and a great start. However, there was a lot left unexplained for Carter's (our MC) actions, and I found her to be a very unlikable character. She was mad/furious/raging all the time, and for the most random and seemingly unneeded reasons. One thing I really didn't like is that she constantly took her anger out on the people around her without any negative repercussions and basically acted like a brat. She would lash out at her friends, but she especially lashed out at the love interest. She was always very stressed out and anxious (as I'm sure being in a serious Chopped-type competition would do to a person), but the stress and anxiety never were resolved, even after the competition was done. Between all the stress, anxiety, and rage, Carter's character was not very personable or relatable to the reader. I had a hard time caring about Carter, and actually found myself kind of rooting against her near the end of the book.
I kind of wanted to go all Alex Guarnaschelli on her ass.
If Carter's actions had been explained, or maybe if she wasn't so Rambo all the time, I feel like this would have been a much more cohesive story. Instead, I felt confused and like I was missing something because I couldn't understand why this MC had so much rage inside her.
On the other hand, Reid was absolutely adorable and can I order one of him with a side of bacon please?
-------------
A-freaking-dorable cover!
Yay a cooking romance =) *breaks out all the snack foods*
**I received this eARC in exchange for my honest review**
A Chopped YA romance...yeah I can get behind this.
I love the Food Network. My favorite chef/show is Alton Brown's Good Eats. I even own several of his cookbooks, and all of his recipes I've tried have turned out fabulous (unlike another chef I know *coughGiadacough*). So hey...a YA about serious chef-ery? I'm on board.
Unfortunately....
I couldn't get on board with the main character
This book had a strong premise and a great start. However, there was a lot left unexplained for Carter's (our MC) actions, and I found her to be a very unlikable character. She was mad/furious/raging all the time, and for the most random and seemingly unneeded reasons. One thing I really didn't like is that she constantly took her anger out on the people around her without any negative repercussions and basically acted like a brat. She would lash out at her friends, but she especially lashed out at the love interest.
Spoiler
Reid must really like this girl cause she dealt him a lot of crap and he took it like a champ. I know of zero teenage or adult guys who would put up with some of the stuff she put him through.I kind of wanted to go all Alex Guarnaschelli on her ass.
If Carter's actions had been explained, or maybe if she wasn't so Rambo all the time, I feel like this would have been a much more cohesive story. Instead, I felt confused and like I was missing something because I couldn't understand why this MC had so much rage inside her.
On the other hand, Reid was absolutely adorable and can I order one of him with a side of bacon please?
-------------
A-freaking-dorable cover!
Yay a cooking romance =) *breaks out all the snack foods*
christiana's review against another edition
3.0
This book was kind of just two jerks falling in love? And I didn’t hate it. I did want a lot more cooking (a lot of the actual cooking parts get summarized in a sentence in he chapter) and I don’t think the title really gets at what this book was really about, but for a quick summer romance thing with some food thrown in, it wasn’t bad!
thatlizhunter's review against another edition
3.0
Can you make a book about cooking that doesn't really have any French cooking? But still has French in the title? Apparently you can. Weird.
Carter Lane loves cooking. She wants to go to college just for cooking. But in order to earn a place in the cooking school of her choice, she has to win a cooking competition. Carter travels to Savanah, Georgia to compete against 20 or so other talented high-school cooks. But only one can win.
Not only is Carter competing against a ton of other talented cooks, but she makes a personal enemy in snarky, full of himself Reid Yamada.
This was an ok read, but not the best I've ever read. A light, easy read.
Carter was funny, but she grew a tad tiring. She is constantly angry, literally blows up at the smallest things. And maybe pushing to be angry sometimes when it just doesn't seem like a good idea?
Reid, however, is much cuter. He's Japanese-American and super Slytherin. I know we're supposed to think he's a jerk, but I just couldn't see him just as a jerk. Now, he made mistakes. But he wasn't a walking loose cannon. Carter was a lose cannon about to blow up at the slightest, tiniest insult.
Reid was also very open emotionally. I appreciated a sensitive, Slytherin character. He was also bisexual, and I loved his talk about how to even tell people and define what people thought of him.
The Cooking Competition was fun, but felt sidelined sometimes for the tension between Reid and Carter. I am not a cook by any stretch of the imagination. So I can't really judge the talk about cooking, and food making, and everything in the kitchen. But it was fun to read about the teams skills and working through the competition.
And the conflict between Reid and Carter was downright hilarious. The pranks they pulled on each other were creative, though slightly juvenile at times.
Finally, a bit of chat about the sexual content. This is YA, and I actually felt the sex stuff was well done. These are high-school seniors and the way it was written wasn't graphic or unrealistic. It was actually more about consent and trust. So bravo about that!
I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.
Carter Lane loves cooking. She wants to go to college just for cooking. But in order to earn a place in the cooking school of her choice, she has to win a cooking competition. Carter travels to Savanah, Georgia to compete against 20 or so other talented high-school cooks. But only one can win.
Not only is Carter competing against a ton of other talented cooks, but she makes a personal enemy in snarky, full of himself Reid Yamada.
This was an ok read, but not the best I've ever read. A light, easy read.
Carter was funny, but she grew a tad tiring. She is constantly angry, literally blows up at the smallest things. And maybe pushing to be angry sometimes when it just doesn't seem like a good idea?
Reid, however, is much cuter. He's Japanese-American and super Slytherin. I know we're supposed to think he's a jerk, but I just couldn't see him just as a jerk. Now, he made mistakes. But he wasn't a walking loose cannon. Carter was a lose cannon about to blow up at the slightest, tiniest insult.
Reid was also very open emotionally. I appreciated a sensitive, Slytherin character. He was also bisexual, and I loved his talk about how to even tell people and define what people thought of him.
The Cooking Competition was fun, but felt sidelined sometimes for the tension between Reid and Carter. I am not a cook by any stretch of the imagination. So I can't really judge the talk about cooking, and food making, and everything in the kitchen. But it was fun to read about the teams skills and working through the competition.
And the conflict between Reid and Carter was downright hilarious. The pranks they pulled on each other were creative, though slightly juvenile at times.
Finally, a bit of chat about the sexual content. This is YA, and I actually felt the sex stuff was well done. These are high-school seniors and the way it was written wasn't graphic or unrealistic. It was actually more about consent and trust. So bravo about that!
I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.
girlinthepages's review against another edition
3.0
*A huge thank you to NetGalley and Sky Pony Press for providing an ARC free of charge in exchange for an honest review!*
I am a HUGE fan of any sort of competition cooking show out there- Chopped, Master Chef, Holiday Baking Championship, you name it, I watch it. So my interest was definitely peaked when I came across The Art of French Kissing, which combines two of my favorite things: YA novels and cooking competitions. I'd never read a book that actually focused on a cooking competition (though I'm always on the lookout for food-centered novels) so I was extremely excited to see how this popular topic would play out in a YA contemporary romance setting.
There was a lot about The Art of French Kissing that I really enjoyed. The culinary school setting, the unique challenges the students are tasked with (some familiar like mystery box ingredients, some more creative such as only having damaged cookware to use), and the utterly mouthwatering descriptions of food. I could have read about what each of the characters was making in detail for pages upon pages, and I loved the challenges where they had to collaborate on teams and choose a menu that played to everyone's strengths. I also appreciated the reality of what the scholarship money at the end meant- how it would really make pursuing a culinary education possible for some of them that they could never realistically pursue otherwise. It added a depth to a book covered in sweet, innocent, pastel macarons.
However, as a reader a hurdle for me while reading the novel was the protagonist, Carter. I found her incredibly hard to empathize with, as her behavior was incredibly selfish and she was constantly on edge. While I know the story was trying to pull off a hate-to-love sabotage-like romance, I found her behavior at times inexcusable given the severity of it and the risk and danger it posed to others, both physically and to their future in the culinary program. She didn't seem to grow much emotionally by the end of the novel, and I was disappointed at her lack of grace when good fortune befell her, and don't think she reaped realistic consequences for her actions. However the love interest, Reid, was a much more nuanced character and he seemed to grow and become more likeable as the book went on.
Overall: The Art of French Kissing was a quick, fun read that definitely kick started my appetite any time I picked it up. I loved the premise and hope to see this author continue to write food-driven YA. While the main character hindered my overall enjoyment while reading, I still loved the competition premise and seeing some of my favorite cooking competition challenges come to life on the page.This review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages
I am a HUGE fan of any sort of competition cooking show out there- Chopped, Master Chef, Holiday Baking Championship, you name it, I watch it. So my interest was definitely peaked when I came across The Art of French Kissing, which combines two of my favorite things: YA novels and cooking competitions. I'd never read a book that actually focused on a cooking competition (though I'm always on the lookout for food-centered novels) so I was extremely excited to see how this popular topic would play out in a YA contemporary romance setting.
There was a lot about The Art of French Kissing that I really enjoyed. The culinary school setting, the unique challenges the students are tasked with (some familiar like mystery box ingredients, some more creative such as only having damaged cookware to use), and the utterly mouthwatering descriptions of food. I could have read about what each of the characters was making in detail for pages upon pages, and I loved the challenges where they had to collaborate on teams and choose a menu that played to everyone's strengths. I also appreciated the reality of what the scholarship money at the end meant- how it would really make pursuing a culinary education possible for some of them that they could never realistically pursue otherwise. It added a depth to a book covered in sweet, innocent, pastel macarons.
However, as a reader a hurdle for me while reading the novel was the protagonist, Carter. I found her incredibly hard to empathize with, as her behavior was incredibly selfish and she was constantly on edge. While I know the story was trying to pull off a hate-to-love sabotage-like romance, I found her behavior at times inexcusable given the severity of it and the risk and danger it posed to others, both physically and to their future in the culinary program. She didn't seem to grow much emotionally by the end of the novel, and I was disappointed at her lack of grace when good fortune befell her, and don't think she reaped realistic consequences for her actions. However the love interest, Reid, was a much more nuanced character and he seemed to grow and become more likeable as the book went on.
Overall: The Art of French Kissing was a quick, fun read that definitely kick started my appetite any time I picked it up. I loved the premise and hope to see this author continue to write food-driven YA. While the main character hindered my overall enjoyment while reading, I still loved the competition premise and seeing some of my favorite cooking competition challenges come to life on the page.This review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages
_camk_'s review against another edition
2.0
2.5 stars.
I'm in this book for Reid because even though at the beginning he did something he shouldn't, he owned up to it & was adorable the whole way through.
I'm not in this for Carter because she was selfish and mean and immature in ways she shouldn't have been.
I'm in this book for Reid because even though at the beginning he did something he shouldn't, he owned up to it & was adorable the whole way through.
I'm not in this for Carter because she was selfish and mean and immature in ways she shouldn't have been.
roobie's review against another edition
3.0
⭐3 stars⭐
That was a cute book that actually made cooking seem fun (see, mom, that was the way to go) and made me crave macarons BUT our main girl Carter was such an annoying character. She'd get mad over..well..pretty much anything and she just acted like a brat I just couldn't like.
I liked Riya and most of the other characters even though the book was a bit short to really get to know them. And of course my adorable baby Reid. A cute Japanese dude cooking for you? Yes please!
Overall I enjoyed it even though I'm not much of a cooking person and I wanted to smack Carter half the time. If you're looking for an quick, fluffy, fun read give this book a chance. And make sure you have snacks.
★Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC of this book★
"He's just this guy here who went out of his way to completely screw me on day one."
"How did he screw you?"
"In the kitchen," I say. Then immediately. "DON'T. DO NOT."
That was a cute book that actually made cooking seem fun (see, mom, that was the way to go) and made me crave macarons BUT our main girl Carter was such an annoying character. She'd get mad over..well..pretty much anything and she just acted like a brat I just couldn't like.
I liked Riya and most of the other characters even though the book was a bit short to really get to know them. And of course my adorable baby Reid. A cute Japanese dude cooking for you? Yes please!
Overall I enjoyed it even though I'm not much of a cooking person and I wanted to smack Carter half the time. If you're looking for an quick, fluffy, fun read give this book a chance. And make sure you have snacks.
★Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC of this book★