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savvyrosereads's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Out now! [Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a gifted copy in exchange for an honest review!]
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
The new season of Bake Expectations features Paris, who must juggle his own severe (and borderline crippling) anxieties while also navigating his burgeoning feelings for fellow contestant Tariq, an openly gay devout Muslim.
I adored Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, and I adore Alexis Hall. So, suffice to say that I was so excited to read this book, and I definitely enjoyed it.
The mental health representation here is spot on, and I appreciated that it was a romance that nonetheless took care to navigate important and sensitive themes. The storyline was equal parts fun and serious, and the romance was sweet (though not steamy! I am fine with a spice-less rom-com but so be aware that’s what you’re getting it you pick this up.)
My only reason for docking a half star was that I didn’t connect to these characters *quite* as much as I did to those in RPTTC, because I felt like we spend most of our time in Paris’s head rather than connecting with others. But, that is truly a quibble of the most insignificant magnitude. If you want a cozy, diverse, hilarious romance with a side of delicious baked goods, look no further.
Recommended to anyone, but especially if you like: LGBTQ rom-coms; baking shows; mental health representation
CW: Mental illness/panic attacks; Islamophobia; some homophobia; mentions of abandonment/child neglect.
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
The new season of Bake Expectations features Paris, who must juggle his own severe (and borderline crippling) anxieties while also navigating his burgeoning feelings for fellow contestant Tariq, an openly gay devout Muslim.
I adored Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, and I adore Alexis Hall. So, suffice to say that I was so excited to read this book, and I definitely enjoyed it.
The mental health representation here is spot on, and I appreciated that it was a romance that nonetheless took care to navigate important and sensitive themes. The storyline was equal parts fun and serious, and the romance was sweet (though not steamy! I am fine with a spice-less rom-com but so be aware that’s what you’re getting it you pick this up.)
My only reason for docking a half star was that I didn’t connect to these characters *quite* as much as I did to those in RPTTC, because I felt like we spend most of our time in Paris’s head rather than connecting with others. But, that is truly a quibble of the most insignificant magnitude. If you want a cozy, diverse, hilarious romance with a side of delicious baked goods, look no further.
Recommended to anyone, but especially if you like: LGBTQ rom-coms; baking shows; mental health representation
CW: Mental illness/panic attacks; Islamophobia; some homophobia; mentions of abandonment/child neglect.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Abandonment, and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Islamophobia
Minor: Homophobia
maaikereadsbooks_'s review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Many thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK and Alexis Hall for the advanced copy of Paris Daillencourt Is About to Crumble via NetGalley, in return for my honest and unbiased review. Quick note: I don’t recap plots in my reviews, as it’s easy enough to read the book’s synopsis and blurbs, I purely focus on my feelings & opinions of how the books makes me feel.
Paris Daillencourt was a delight to read, although as someone diagnosed with the same mental illness that the protagonist eventually is diagnosed with, it was at times not an easy read!
This story was a great illustration of how it’s so easy to judge those we see around us and in the media, and never have any idea of what’s actually going on. Money, good looks, being good enough to be on a baking show, it doesn’t mean you’re emotionally ok…at all. And then, when you do let your emotions show, people are likely to think the worst of you in one way or another.
So, this book definitely really spoke to me on the mental health level. It was also really funny and light-hearted in-between the ‘deep’ bits, which I felt was well balanced.
Tariq’s viewpoint on the relationship was an interesting one and not something I’ve read before. It did cause the story to have a natural limitation which Hall handled really well and naturally.
I really liked that Hall included warnings, labelled as ‘content guidance, at the front of the book for contents which some readers may find upsetting and potentially triggering for their own mental health.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I found the mental health portions difficult to read, due to suffering the same problems myself, but felt they were handled well, and I enjoyed the overall story. Another well written book by Alexis Hall!
Spice: 2/5
Trigger warnings: as per the author’s content guidance submitted in the book: Main character with an undiagnosed anxiety disorder (that does get diagnosed), on-page panic attack, hospital stay due to panic attack, treatment plan for anxiety disorder discussed, emotional unavailable parents, very graphic swearing, cyberbullying, religious and racial microaggressions, Islamophobia (challenged)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Bullying, and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Islamophobia and Emotional abuse
aromarrie's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
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
5.0
"Change is part of growing up. You don't want to stay a kid forever. That's Peter Pan, and he is not the hero of the story. . . The hero of Peter Pan is Wendy. Peter is trapped in a weird fantasy world constructed of his own fears. Wendy goes there, learns what she has to from it, then comes back and gets on with her life."
Paris thought about this. It made a terrible kind of sense. "Oh."
"Come on, you wouldn't want to live in Neverland."
"You say that. But when I left, I grew up into . . . me."
"And I like you."
this story was...so absurdly funny, as promised in all of alexis hall's works. and it has a lot of heart. i also can painfully relate to paris and perhaps felt overwhelmed at how seen i felt, so...that was a welcome surprise. there is a romance, but as seen in other reviews, someone cleverly noted it as a bildungsroman because it is.
this entire book is about paris' journey with his debilitating anxiety that grows increasingly worse & worse over time, all set in the backdrop of a british baking show that is all action & cameras but all paris can do is cry. there's a lot of really good moments to speak of, though, and i personally really enjoyed what the author did in paris' relationship with tariq; i liked how we saw tariq stand in his own spotlight as he's given a lot of space to explore his own complicated feelings and just be able to shine as a main character. the rest of the cast for this season were such an absolute delight, and i love how even as disconnected paris might have felt with the rest of them, they weren't simply shoved into the background for the sake of the plot. some returning characters add their own wit and sly british humor, which i found really funny being an american.
the star of this entire series being the baked treats that we get to see our contestants create was certainly one of the highlights of this book, and so it made me sad how paris kind of derailed and beat himself up over creating something that should be fun & comforting but instead just gets him further stuck inside his head. i'm glad he eventually gets the help he needs, just as equally glad to the author for not holding back on how seriously isolating living with a mental illness can be, especially when you're undiagnosed. a real deciding factor in a reader's enjoyment for this story, i feel, is in how one might react to everything that paris says & does because it has as much to do with his character as it also does the mental roadblocks that is his brain. his fears are riddled with the most tiniest of details that it sometimes felt like too much, but it's like he had no control in it and every thing he beat himself up for or was worried about just grew larger & larger to the point where he was screaming inside. his parents being off the radar didn't help, and other characters might've factored into the equation, but the way the author explored how low you can fall when stuck inside your head and how you can try to fight your way out of it was one of the most incredible things i've ever seen in any of his works.
it meant a lot to me.
paris' mental health journey meant a lot to me, and everyone else just added a lot of color to what is really a bright story, to me. the writing was amazing, and while the majority of penis jokes were very questionable (these characters have really crude humor but i wasn't turned off by it), it didn't disengage me from the story at all, it was just yet another strange but real part of these weird cast of characters and i loved them more for it. i loved all the little details i got to grasp about paris , who isn't defined by his anxiety and is actually really good with baking (even if he couldn't see it in himself, i hope he can have fun with it again one day) and cooking, and he's a classics major, too, would you look at that?
really curious what more mayhem will ensue in the next book and what new main characters i'll get to meet who'll charm me a bunch, i hope. i'll be 23 once it publishes, which is just....great :')
Paris thought about this. It made a terrible kind of sense. "Oh."
"Come on, you wouldn't want to live in Neverland."
"You say that. But when I left, I grew up into . . . me."
"And I like you."
this story was...so absurdly funny, as promised in all of alexis hall's works. and it has a lot of heart. i also can painfully relate to paris and perhaps felt overwhelmed at how seen i felt, so...that was a welcome surprise. there is a romance, but as seen in other reviews, someone cleverly noted it as a bildungsroman because it is.
this entire book is about paris' journey with his debilitating anxiety that grows increasingly worse & worse over time, all set in the backdrop of a british baking show that is all action & cameras but all paris can do is cry. there's a lot of really good moments to speak of, though, and i personally really enjoyed what the author did in paris' relationship with tariq; i liked how we saw tariq stand in his own spotlight as he's given a lot of space to explore his own complicated feelings and just be able to shine as a main character. the rest of the cast for this season were such an absolute delight, and i love how even as disconnected paris might have felt with the rest of them, they weren't simply shoved into the background for the sake of the plot. some returning characters add their own wit and sly british humor, which i found really funny being an american.
the star of this entire series being the baked treats that we get to see our contestants create was certainly one of the highlights of this book, and so it made me sad how paris kind of derailed and beat himself up over creating something that should be fun & comforting but instead just gets him further stuck inside his head. i'm glad he eventually gets the help he needs, just as equally glad to the author for not holding back on how seriously isolating living with a mental illness can be, especially when you're undiagnosed. a real deciding factor in a reader's enjoyment for this story, i feel, is in how one might react to everything that paris says & does because it has as much to do with his character as it also does the mental roadblocks that is his brain. his fears are riddled with the most tiniest of details that it sometimes felt like too much, but it's like he had no control in it and every thing he beat himself up for or was worried about just grew larger & larger to the point where he was screaming inside. his parents being off the radar didn't help, and other characters might've factored into the equation, but the way the author explored how low you can fall when stuck inside your head and how you can try to fight your way out of it was one of the most incredible things i've ever seen in any of his works.
it meant a lot to me.
paris' mental health journey meant a lot to me, and everyone else just added a lot of color to what is really a bright story, to me. the writing was amazing, and while the majority of penis jokes were very questionable (these characters have really crude humor but i wasn't turned off by it), it didn't disengage me from the story at all, it was just yet another strange but real part of these weird cast of characters and i loved them more for it. i loved all the little details i got to grasp about paris , who isn't defined by his anxiety and is actually really good with baking (even if he couldn't see it in himself, i hope he can have fun with it again one day) and cooking, and he's a classics major, too, would you look at that?
really curious what more mayhem will ensue in the next book and what new main characters i'll get to meet who'll charm me a bunch, i hope. i'll be 23 once it publishes, which is just....great :')
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Islamophobia, and Racism
meganpbennett's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I really really loved Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, and was a little disappointed by Paris Daillencourt. But that seems to be the theme with Alexis Hall sequels. Parts of it were really really good, parts of it were really really funny, parts of it were really really touching, and parts of it were really really disappointing. So it averages out to three stars.
Alexis Hall doesn't write traditional romance, and PD, like RP and BfM, are very much relationship fiction, as opposed to romance novels. Knowing that going in makes the book better, as you don't spend half the book trying to figure out how, exactly, it's a romance novel.
Like RP, I found some of the sections very hard to read, because the person in charge of the filming is, frankly, an abusive bully to her charges. Which is not a good thing at all, but is an especially bad thing when the main character has an undiagnosed anxiety disorder. I also found the last section, the one with the tweets way way too over the top and very much unnecessarily harsh. I was also disappointed in the ending.
Thank you to NetGalley and Forever for the eARC!
Alexis Hall doesn't write traditional romance, and PD, like RP and BfM, are very much relationship fiction, as opposed to romance novels. Knowing that going in makes the book better, as you don't spend half the book trying to figure out how, exactly, it's a romance novel.
Like RP, I found some of the sections very hard to read, because the person in charge of the filming is, frankly, an abusive bully to her charges. Which is not a good thing at all, but is an especially bad thing when the main character has an undiagnosed anxiety disorder. I also found the last section, the one with the tweets way way too over the top and very much unnecessarily harsh. I was also disappointed in the ending.
Thank you to NetGalley and Forever for the eARC!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Islamophobia, Abandonment, Ableism, Cursing, Racism, Bullying, and Panic attacks/disorders
betweentheshelves's review against another edition
emotional
funny
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
4.0
Let me just start by saying if you're looking for a cute rom-com, this book is not it. It's billed as a lighthearted romance, but it is definitely not that. And that is not a bad thing! I love Alexis Hall's writing, and I love that he often goes outside the box when writing romance. Because of that, I almost think this book feels more realistic. It felt more like real-life to me.
The strongest aspect of this book is the way that Hall portrays Paris's anxiety. Paris has a pretty severe anxiety disorder, and it is exhausting being in his head for a good majority of the book. He is constantly second guessing himself, doesn't believe he's good enough, and torpedoes a lot of his relationships. Even though I don't struggle with severe anxiety like Paris does, Paris's voice felt authentic and realistic. And I think it will turn a lot of people away from this book.
Another aspect that makes this standout from other romance is Tariq's view on sex before marriage. It's another thing that you don't see a lot in romance, but I appreciated the focus on the fact that you can have romantic relationships without sex. More of this kind of romance, please!
Of course, the baking aspects were all lovely and wonderful, especially if you're a fan of Bake Off. I do hope Hall continues this series, because I think it's a really fun idea for a romance series and both books in it so far have been reallyl strong!
The strongest aspect of this book is the way that Hall portrays Paris's anxiety. Paris has a pretty severe anxiety disorder, and it is exhausting being in his head for a good majority of the book. He is constantly second guessing himself, doesn't believe he's good enough, and torpedoes a lot of his relationships. Even though I don't struggle with severe anxiety like Paris does, Paris's voice felt authentic and realistic. And I think it will turn a lot of people away from this book.
Another aspect that makes this standout from other romance is Tariq's view on sex before marriage. It's another thing that you don't see a lot in romance, but I appreciated the focus on the fact that you can have romantic relationships without sex. More of this kind of romance, please!
Of course, the baking aspects were all lovely and wonderful, especially if you're a fan of Bake Off. I do hope Hall continues this series, because I think it's a really fun idea for a romance series and both books in it so far have been reallyl strong!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Abandonment, and Mental illness
Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, and Islamophobia
Minor: Religious bigotry and Alcohol
kaleys23's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
fast-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
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Racism, Homophobia, and Islamophobia
cakt1991's review against another edition
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Antisemitism, and Islamophobia
duckyreads's review against another edition
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
In Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble Alexis Hall takes us back to the Baked Expectations universe for the second round of showtime. Once again Alexis Hall creates a baking show universe that is very easy to fall into with a bright collection of supportive characters.
There is an abundant portrayal of Paris's severe anxiety that is present through his internal monologue and self-destructive decisions, especially in his initial interactions with Tariq. Paris continues to make these decisions throughout the story, and although it becomes repetitive, I think it's an accurate reflection of living with severe anxiety.
Hall's banter is still present in this story and is woven throughout several characters (namely Tariq's housemates). Hall also includes several important topics namely loneliness, religion, and identity. I really admired how Tariq set firm boundaries and reminded Paris that he can also set boundaries to ensure that he's comfortable. Tariq is a sweetheart that exudes confidence, and I wished that his POV was more available in some chapters. Watching Paris and Tariq grow emotionally toward the end of the story felt very sweet and rewarding and I want the best for both of them!
Thank you to Netgalley and Forever Publishing for a copy of an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
There is an abundant portrayal of Paris's severe anxiety that is present through his internal monologue and self-destructive decisions, especially in his initial interactions with Tariq. Paris continues to make these decisions throughout the story, and although it becomes repetitive, I think it's an accurate reflection of living with severe anxiety.
Hall's banter is still present in this story and is woven throughout several characters (namely Tariq's housemates). Hall also includes several important topics namely loneliness, religion, and identity. I really admired how Tariq set firm boundaries and reminded Paris that he can also set boundaries to ensure that he's comfortable. Tariq is a sweetheart that exudes confidence, and I wished that his POV was more available in some chapters. Watching Paris and Tariq grow emotionally toward the end of the story felt very sweet and rewarding and I want the best for both of them!
Thank you to Netgalley and Forever Publishing for a copy of an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Emotional abuse, Islamophobia, Sexual harassment, Religious bigotry, and Racism
literarycavy's review against another edition
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Abandonment
Minor: Islamophobia
caseythereader's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
fast-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
4.0
Thanks to Forever for the free advance copy of this book.
- Honestly, I'd read Alexis Hall's grocery list at this point. I adore his writing: the banter is top notch and the characters feel like real, flawed, lovely people.
- PARIS DAILLENCOURT IS ABOUT TO CRUMBLE was a bit tougher to read than other Hall books, though. Reading from Paris' point of view through his intense anxiety was often hard and frustrating, though possibly because I could see my past self in him.
- One of the best things about this particular series is that I'm never sure if the towns and the pastries Hall names are real or if they're satire, lol. Either way, they sound delicious.
- Honestly, I'd read Alexis Hall's grocery list at this point. I adore his writing: the banter is top notch and the characters feel like real, flawed, lovely people.
- PARIS DAILLENCOURT IS ABOUT TO CRUMBLE was a bit tougher to read than other Hall books, though. Reading from Paris' point of view through his intense anxiety was often hard and frustrating, though possibly because I could see my past self in him.
- One of the best things about this particular series is that I'm never sure if the towns and the pastries Hall names are real or if they're satire, lol. Either way, they sound delicious.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Mental illness, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Islamophobia, Homophobia, and Racism