A review by rach
Salty, Bitter, Sweet by Mayra Cuevas

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

A coming-of-age story about a girl dealing with a lot - grief, anger, loss of control, holding on to the few things she can control, trying to figure out what she wants in life. Oh and add to that the normal teenage stresses, like graduating high school and making friends, attraction to a person you feel like you shouldn’t want, and balancing work with fun. Isabelle’s journey isn’t always easy or linear, but she’s working on it, and by the end of this book, she’s learned a lot about herself and what kind of life she wants to have.

I don’t blame Isa for being angry. She’s angry at her dad for cheating on her mom, for blowing up their lives, for changing everything, for never apologizing or explaining, for disappointing her. She’s also angry at her Abuela for dying, for putting herself at risk to help others, for leaving her when she needed her most. On top of that anger is a thick layer of grief over all that Isa’s lost in the past year - Lala, her family, what she thought her life would be.

Personally, I think everyone is too hard on Isa. She is overcome with grief and traumatized, and everyone just expects her to be fine. Diego was so annoying when he first arrived, pushing at all her boundaries and not listening to her. I wanted to scream at both Diego and her dad after the Cherries Jubilee incident. Yes, Isa had a lot of lessons to learn and things to figure out about what truly makes her happy, but she was going to get there without someone calling her a cancer on everyone around her because she made a mistake. That was needlessly cruel and made me really angry. 

(And honestly I didn’t think what happened with Lucia was bad enough to warrant the reaction everyone had to it. Was it really a betrayal when Lucia should have been listening in the first place? And was she really that good of a friend when she’d spent the night before drunkenly throwing herself all over Diego and saying mean things to everyone else? The way she, Pippa, Diego, and Chef T reacted seemed way over the top to me, and Isa felt way too much guilt over it for too long.)

The good part finally came when Isa started having her own revelations, both about what it’s actually like to work in a tough kitchen, and how a place like that fits (or doesn’t) into what she might want her life to look like. Yes, Diego was there to encourage her to rethink her life ambitions and to inspire some spontaneity, but I think she would have gotten there eventually on her own.

I’m glad he apologized for being so mean to her after the Lucia incident, at least. Once they started opening up to one another and being honest, I loved how sweet and thoughtful Diego was. Setting up the trip to Barcelona with Isa was especially kind, and it encouraged her to stop focusing on the technical aspects of cooking and instead focus on what she loved about it: the memories of her grandma, being able to create delicious things for the people she loved, exploring new flavors and learning new things. It also gave her a peek at a successful female chef who creates delicious food in a non-stressful environment.

It did seem a little like everything fell naturally into place the second her little sister was born - Isa immediately felt connected to her, and her dad sort-of apologized (though she really deserves a longer conversation than whatever that was), and suddenly Margo wants to eat her food. (Which, btw, I also assumed Margo hated her. She didn’t even TRY to eat the food she made? Yet Chinese takeout was fine? I have a hard time believing it.) But it’s nice to see Isa happy and comfortable in the end, surrounded by friends and family, working on making a life that brings her fulfillment and joy.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a copy of this book for review purposes.