Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

I decided to read this before the movie adaptation comes to streaming at some point this year and I'm glad I did. This book is sweet and gives you well-rounded characters with emotions that do not feel too high strung for the characters as many romance novels do. While I didn't love the beginning of the book, I felt like the reader got too much information in an info-dumping style rather than learning Lila's story throughout the beginning, I loved the ending and felt quite emotional at the resolution of the plotlines.

My favorite aspects of this book was the author's use of clothing and food items to show Lila's emotional progression, acceptance, and eventual love of England. Her refusal to wear the Winter clothes in the beginning to her loving the cardigans etc by the end was a great way to showcase her settling into this new life and growing up in a way that felt natural. Also on Lila, I loved the way we got her relationship with her abuela, the line "Abuela Grew Me" made me tear up because it was such a great representation of Lila's evolution and relationship with her and her family's past. Her relationship with Stefanie was quite complicated to me, but I liked the final resolution because it was

a good way to show that you cannot always take your childhood friends into adulthoods and that it is okay to grow apart so you can grow up.

On Orion, I would have loved more detail on him, like beyond Maxwell's we know nothing about him. He was a great love interest, but I would have loved to see some detail on him, especially since his friend group has a diverse age range so i'd love to know how their friend group grew. He was very sweet and earnest and he did not have communication problems so that makes him a great love interest to me!

Lastly,

the Prom Flora, Orion, and Jules plan for Lila was so sweet and then Jules's song made it better, and then the KISS made it the most enjoyable scene of the book.

It was an emotional moment for the characters and a beautiful culmination of Lila's journey.

Content Warnings

sophiesometimesreads's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This was a very cute book and I particularly liked the ending, I did get a little emotional over it after all. It also made me really want cake and fresh bread.

The character growth was really good and I liked Lila’s personal journey to find herself but also in finding Orion. The side characters were really good too. In saying this, I did find it took me a while to really connect with them all, except for Orion who I adored from the start.

The storyline was relatively simple and predictable but it was still enjoyable. I did keep forgetting about a couple of the little sub plots through the story but did enjoy how most of them sort of came back around and tied into the main storyline by the end.

Some of the prose was unnecessarily complicated. The way some of the sentences were structured confused me a bit and interrupted the flow of the story, though I did read a chunk of this on my breaks on night shift so maybe it this was influenced by the inability of my brain to do much at 3 am.

Overall, a cute read that was enjoyable but nothing super groundbreaking. I’m looking forward to the movie though (and can 100% see Kit Connor as Orion).

Content Warnings

kayladaila's review

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I have two qualms with this book. The first is that the author made some obtuse remarks about Lila’s friend going to “Africa” rather than naming a country or a city and then treating Africa like a backwards continent.

The second issue is that as a Cuban in the UK, Lila begins making pastries with lard in them and how proud she is of Cubans loving pork products. There are SO MANY vegetarians in England and every single establishment in the smallest towns is vegetarian friendly, so I would have liked to see that be addressed.

Content Warnings

blackveilbeccy's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The pace of this was very slow and I felt rather disconnected from both the main character and the love interest. I did like the new friendship group and a lot of the side characters. I found the “emotional recipes” an annoying quirk in the writing. The cooking theme was enjoyable. This was just okay.

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