For fans of Jenny Han, Jane Austen, and The Great British Baking Show, A Taste for Love, is a delicious rom com about first love, familial expectations, and making the perfect bao.To her friends, high school senior Liza Yang is nearly perfect. Smart, kind, and pretty, she dreams big and never shies away from a challenge. But to her mom, Liza is anything but. Compared to her older sister Jeannie, … Compared to her older sister Jeannie, Liza is stubborn, rebellious, and worst of all, determined to push back against all of Mrs. Yang’s traditional values, especially when it comes to dating.
The one thing mother and daughter do agree on is their love of baking. Mrs. Yang is the owner of Houston’s popular Yin & Yang Bakery. With college just around the corner, Liza agrees to help out at the bakery’s annual junior competition to prove to her mom that she’s more than her rebellious tendencies once and for all. But when Liza arrives on the first day of the bake-off, she realizes there’s a catch: all of the contestants are young Asian American men her mother has handpicked for Liza to date.
The bachelorette situation Liza has found herself in is made even worse when she happens to be grudgingly attracted to one of the contestants; the stoic, impenetrable, annoyingly hot James Wong. As she battles against her feelings for James, and for her mother’s approval, Liza begins to realize there’s no tried and true recipe for love.
more
Pride and Prejudice and The Great British Baking Show both influenced this book, so of course I enjoyed it! Well-written and fun to read. The romance was cute, and the story kept me interested. I enjoyed it!
This took me a little bit to get into but after I was hooked. I loved the banter between James and Liza and their chemistry.
True the “romance” didn’t really start until halfway through the book but I didn’t realize until I read some comments that this was a pride and prejudice retelling.
I love reading books where I can learn about different cultures.
A Taste for Love is a really cute YA coming of age romcom about Liza Yang, a recent high school graduate who loves to bake in her mom’s Yin & Yang Bakery. Her mom is determined to set her up with an Asian American boyfriend, so much so that she arranges for all of the contestants in her annual baking competition to be potential boyfriends for Liza.
There’s some enemies-type banter, a little bit of a mystery, and a fun elimination-style baking competition.
*YA can really vary in content and this is one I’d be comfortable with my 13-year-old reading even though the characters are older. I highly recommend it for teen readers.
I finished listening to Jennifer Yen’s sweet rom-com A TASTE FOR LOVE recently. You should NOT listen to this book before bed, because you will start the next morning with intense cravings for bao or bubble tea or Korean BBQ or one of the tons of delectable foods Jennifer put in this book.
If you are a fan of the Great British Bake Off, sweet romances, or broody boys with a soft spot, then this book might be for you!
First, this book was billed as a Pride and Prejudice retelling—it’s not. I needed to let go of that to enjoy it. Maybe “loosely inspired by” would be a better comparison. But the story is a lot of fun, with all kinds of family and friend relationships to get caught up in. And of course, there is lots and lots of FOOD! Who can resist a boy who can bake?!
This one was super cute! In a book that’s The Bachelor meets The Great British Baking Show, Liza’s mom uses their family’s baking competition as a way to find Liza a suitable boyfriend. Liza is sick of her mother’s meddling in her life, especially her love life, and constant prodding to go to college for a “real” job instead of culinary school. Will Liza finally get out from under her mother’s thumb?
I found this story very enjoyable–it was a nice, light read, but did feel extremely YA (I’m an adult reading this, obviously). I think some of the ~drama~ was taken to a point of implausibility, but it made me smile and the food descriptions were out of this world!
4 stars – 7/10
A Taste for Love by Jennifer Yen is seriously the most adorable YA romance book.
The characters, the plot, the cover—everything about this book is excellent. The characters are well rounded and very well developed. I can see the similarities between Pride and Prejudice. It is done in such an original way that makes this story that much better. The characters’ voices are another plus in the novel, making them that much more vibrant!
See more on: http://www.heyitscarlyrae.com