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3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
*sigh* i have a lot of thoughts and not many of them are good :'/
update: dropping down my rating to 2, cause the mere thought of this book makes me boil.
update: dropping down my rating to 2, cause the mere thought of this book makes me boil.
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really wanted to love this book, but it was difficult for me to get into. It started off very slow and I felt a little lost for the first couple chapters. Sometimes there were way too many details given (how things looked, how things smelled, etc.) and sometimes there weren’t nearly enough details (who all the characters were).
What I found the most difficult to get past in this book was how truly unlikable the love interest was. I found Diego arrogant, self-absorbed and incredibly inconsiderate. Throughout the book, I could tell we were given some things that were supposed to make him appear “deep” or not like any of the things I just described, but those attempts fell flat. I never cared for him and I wasn’t rooting him and Isa to get together. Once they did get together there was no chemistry between them.
I really loved all the cooking parts of the book though and I wish more attention had been paid on that and less on Diego. Some of the cooking scenes made me feel like I was watching a cooking competition show on Food Network. And I love Food Network! The scene where she was describing Chef Clara’s restaurant gave me some serious FOMO. I wish I could experience that.
Throughout the whole book I was rooting for Isa and I loved her right away. Sometimes she could be whiny and melodramatic, but what teenager isn’t? I wish we got to see more of her dealing with her dysfunctional family because that story seemed to be an afterthought almost.
A lot of parts of this book worked, but a lot of them didn’t and those parts that didn’t really brought the whole story down.
What I found the most difficult to get past in this book was how truly unlikable the love interest was. I found Diego arrogant, self-absorbed and incredibly inconsiderate. Throughout the book, I could tell we were given some things that were supposed to make him appear “deep” or not like any of the things I just described, but those attempts fell flat. I never cared for him and I wasn’t rooting him and Isa to get together. Once they did get together there was no chemistry between them.
I really loved all the cooking parts of the book though and I wish more attention had been paid on that and less on Diego. Some of the cooking scenes made me feel like I was watching a cooking competition show on Food Network. And I love Food Network! The scene where she was describing Chef Clara’s restaurant gave me some serious FOMO. I wish I could experience that.
Throughout the whole book I was rooting for Isa and I loved her right away. Sometimes she could be whiny and melodramatic, but what teenager isn’t? I wish we got to see more of her dealing with her dysfunctional family because that story seemed to be an afterthought almost.
A lot of parts of this book worked, but a lot of them didn’t and those parts that didn’t really brought the whole story down.
Thank you to Blink and TLC Book Tours for providing me with a copy of Salty, Bitter, Sweet in exchange for an honest review!
CW: Grief, Addiction (Heroin), Colorism
I’m going to come out & say it: this book isn’t something that will be enjoyed by everyone. It definitely comes with issues. However, by the end, my heart was warm and it rounded up to somewhere between a 3.5 to a 4-star read.
Isabelle Fields: When I started this read, I thought it was going to turn into another A Love Hate Thing situation for me. Isabelle, but goes by Isa, is so incredibly rude to Diego & there’s absolutely no reason for it. As time goes by, Isa realizes that she was wrong and offers a delicious peace-offering & things are completely fine after that. Salty, Bitter, Sweet didn’t focus too heavily on the relationship factor; it, for the most part, sat on the back-burner.
This isn’t the only time that Isa kinda really sucks; later, she betrays one of her friends & it becomes this entire ordeal. I understand readers not liking Isa, but for me — she really does grow as a person. & that’s what your teen years are about, right?
Food & Personal Relatability: I love books that focus on food. As a person who absolutely adores cooking and presenting food to my loved ones, I find books such as this inspiring. In fact, after reading this, I decided I’m going to try my hand at ratatouille & macarons.
For those who do not know, I once worked in a kitchen. Granted, it wasn’t a huge high-end restaurant such as in Salty, Bitter, Sweet. Instead, it was a nice local restaurant/bar. I truly loved it there, but the stress was overwhelming and I hated who I had become. I was constantly angry & at some point, I figured out that the high-paced & demanding kitchen life wasn’t for me.
In Salty, Bitter, Sweet, Isa goes through this journey learning the same thing. For me, this made it extremely relatable which is why I think I enjoyed this book so much.
Love & Family: Isa has some major family drama. There’s love, there’s loss & in the end, there’s some coming together. Although there’s heartbreak weaved throughout these pages, readers can guarantee walking away with their heart pieced back together.
Food made from the heart will nourish the soul. I can’t think of anything better to do with my life.
CW: Grief, Addiction (Heroin), Colorism
I’m going to come out & say it: this book isn’t something that will be enjoyed by everyone. It definitely comes with issues. However, by the end, my heart was warm and it rounded up to somewhere between a 3.5 to a 4-star read.
Isabelle Fields: When I started this read, I thought it was going to turn into another A Love Hate Thing situation for me. Isabelle, but goes by Isa, is so incredibly rude to Diego & there’s absolutely no reason for it. As time goes by, Isa realizes that she was wrong and offers a delicious peace-offering & things are completely fine after that. Salty, Bitter, Sweet didn’t focus too heavily on the relationship factor; it, for the most part, sat on the back-burner.
This isn’t the only time that Isa kinda really sucks; later, she betrays one of her friends & it becomes this entire ordeal. I understand readers not liking Isa, but for me — she really does grow as a person. & that’s what your teen years are about, right?
Food & Personal Relatability: I love books that focus on food. As a person who absolutely adores cooking and presenting food to my loved ones, I find books such as this inspiring. In fact, after reading this, I decided I’m going to try my hand at ratatouille & macarons.
For those who do not know, I once worked in a kitchen. Granted, it wasn’t a huge high-end restaurant such as in Salty, Bitter, Sweet. Instead, it was a nice local restaurant/bar. I truly loved it there, but the stress was overwhelming and I hated who I had become. I was constantly angry & at some point, I figured out that the high-paced & demanding kitchen life wasn’t for me.
In Salty, Bitter, Sweet, Isa goes through this journey learning the same thing. For me, this made it extremely relatable which is why I think I enjoyed this book so much.
Love & Family: Isa has some major family drama. There’s love, there’s loss & in the end, there’s some coming together. Although there’s heartbreak weaved throughout these pages, readers can guarantee walking away with their heart pieced back together.
CW: colorism, death of a relative from hepatitis, grief, ableism (especially in regards to addiction).
DNF @ 40%
Even though I promised myself last year that I will be more liberal with DNFing books I am not liking, here I am still feeling bad about doing it but at least, I'm getting better at it, right? SALTY BITTER SWEET sounds amazing on paper, a book about a French-Cuban American girl who is trilingual, passionate about cooking and wants to make a career out of it, who also faces complicated a fresh parental divorce, complicated family dynamics and grief over her grandma's passing, when said grandma was the center of her world. On paper. But the execution of it all left a lot to be desired, at least in the 40% that I read before I gave so bare in my mind that this is a review strictly of what I read and not of the entire book as I don't know what happens later on.
SALTY BITTER SWEET does have some positives to it. Although the story didn't really manage to grip me in the beginning, I chalked that out to it not being written for me as I'm not a teenager and have been recently growing out of YA contemporary, so I didn't really fault it for that, I could still see everything that it did well. First is all the cooking parts had me salivating, so much focus on the kitchen and our main character being laser focus on her passion and getting into an apprenticeship that would open up many many doors for her, while I could also see that her focus didn't solely stem from passion but it also also a way for Isa to escape her dysfunctional family dynamics, with a father who seems to have done a 180 on everything that made her the man she grew up around her whole life, a stepmom who barely acknowledges her existence and seems to dislike everything she does, and a boy, Diego, who is making it all worse. To top it all off, this whole family is very dismissive of her endeavors that they don't take seriously and downright undermine at times.
I saw a few reviews say that the romance is ~taboo~ because a stepbrother/sister romance but I'll have to disagree. Diego is the son of Isa's stepmom's ex-husband. So he's not even related to her, let alone to Isa? And they didn't grow up together nor know of each other's existence until the book started. So you'll have to excuse me if I think that's a bit of a stretch. And I say this as someone who wasn't really fan of the romance in the bit that's I've read, not only because it was barely budding when I stopped reading but also because they're mutually assholes to each other. Isa dislikes him right off the bat for no real reason but then he starts hindering her kitchen progress and not really taking her hurt seriously. All of this is fine as I might have continued reading but then a couple things made me stop:
- There was this passage where the main character encounters people struggling with addiction (not saying how or where because spoilers), but although there are a few of them but the only one whose race is pointed out is the Black man in a way where the MC thought to herself "I can't believe that Bubba, the sweet Black man I've known for so long had an addiction problem too", and this rubbed me the wrong way for two reasons. 1/ Addiction doesn't have a "look" to it, there isn't one type of person that struggles with it, so the fact that she's shocked "a sweet man" struggles with it is...not it. 2/ Why was it necessary to have the Black man's race pointed out when no one else's was? it didn't bring anything to the story and enforces stereotypes. I shrugged this off on account of it being such a fleeting minor part of the story, but then a trope I despise showed up.
- Isa suffers from the "Not like other girls" syndrome. There were bits and pieces of it sprinkled in the beginning but nothing to make me think that the book would go all out with the cliché but then this quote happened and I just needed to cut my loses especially since I wasn't really invested in the story to begin with:
In 2020? really? it's great to be passionate about cooking, and it's also great to like makeup, but flash news, some people also like both??
Like I said I didn't read enough to see if the MC grows and changes her ways so I don't know if this is a pattern throughout the whole book. I saw a couple reviews say that the second half is much better which I sincerely hope is true because this book has some potential to be a teaching moment for the MC and have a really great character growth ARC, but I'm sadly not invested enough to push through the things I disliked to find out.
DNF @ 40%
Even though I promised myself last year that I will be more liberal with DNFing books I am not liking, here I am still feeling bad about doing it but at least, I'm getting better at it, right? SALTY BITTER SWEET sounds amazing on paper, a book about a French-Cuban American girl who is trilingual, passionate about cooking and wants to make a career out of it, who also faces complicated a fresh parental divorce, complicated family dynamics and grief over her grandma's passing, when said grandma was the center of her world. On paper. But the execution of it all left a lot to be desired, at least in the 40% that I read before I gave so bare in my mind that this is a review strictly of what I read and not of the entire book as I don't know what happens later on.
SALTY BITTER SWEET does have some positives to it. Although the story didn't really manage to grip me in the beginning, I chalked that out to it not being written for me as I'm not a teenager and have been recently growing out of YA contemporary, so I didn't really fault it for that, I could still see everything that it did well. First is all the cooking parts had me salivating, so much focus on the kitchen and our main character being laser focus on her passion and getting into an apprenticeship that would open up many many doors for her, while I could also see that her focus didn't solely stem from passion but it also also a way for Isa to escape her dysfunctional family dynamics, with a father who seems to have done a 180 on everything that made her the man she grew up around her whole life, a stepmom who barely acknowledges her existence and seems to dislike everything she does, and a boy, Diego, who is making it all worse. To top it all off, this whole family is very dismissive of her endeavors that they don't take seriously and downright undermine at times.
I saw a few reviews say that the romance is ~taboo~ because a stepbrother/sister romance but I'll have to disagree. Diego is the son of Isa's stepmom's ex-husband. So he's not even related to her, let alone to Isa? And they didn't grow up together nor know of each other's existence until the book started. So you'll have to excuse me if I think that's a bit of a stretch. And I say this as someone who wasn't really fan of the romance in the bit that's I've read, not only because it was barely budding when I stopped reading but also because they're mutually assholes to each other. Isa dislikes him right off the bat for no real reason but then he starts hindering her kitchen progress and not really taking her hurt seriously. All of this is fine as I might have continued reading but then a couple things made me stop:
- There was this passage where the main character encounters people struggling with addiction (not saying how or where because spoilers), but although there are a few of them but the only one whose race is pointed out is the Black man in a way where the MC thought to herself "I can't believe that Bubba, the sweet Black man I've known for so long had an addiction problem too", and this rubbed me the wrong way for two reasons. 1/ Addiction doesn't have a "look" to it, there isn't one type of person that struggles with it, so the fact that she's shocked "a sweet man" struggles with it is...not it. 2/ Why was it necessary to have the Black man's race pointed out when no one else's was? it didn't bring anything to the story and enforces stereotypes. I shrugged this off on account of it being such a fleeting minor part of the story, but then a trope I despise showed up.
- Isa suffers from the "Not like other girls" syndrome. There were bits and pieces of it sprinkled in the beginning but nothing to make me think that the book would go all out with the cliché but then this quote happened and I just needed to cut my loses especially since I wasn't really invested in the story to begin with:
Once I entered high school, the pretty girls were so predictable, daubing on lip gloss in the bathroom mirror or styling their hair with a curling iron until it has the "messy-after-sex" look. I never knew what they meant, And what's so special about using lipgloss and curling irons? Ask any of them to make the perfect lemon zest whipped cream and they would probably go to the stopre and get a tub of Cool Whip, an artificial imitation
In 2020? really? it's great to be passionate about cooking, and it's also great to like makeup, but flash news, some people also like both??
Like I said I didn't read enough to see if the MC grows and changes her ways so I don't know if this is a pattern throughout the whole book. I saw a couple reviews say that the second half is much better which I sincerely hope is true because this book has some potential to be a teaching moment for the MC and have a really great character growth ARC, but I'm sadly not invested enough to push through the things I disliked to find out.