Title:   Love à la Mode
Author:   Stephanie Kate Strohm
Genre:   YA, fiction
Rating:   4.5 out of 5

Rosie Radeke is from East Liberty, Ohio, a small town where winning local baking contests is a big deal. But now Rosie got into Chef Laurent’s prestigious cooking school in Paris, and she just knows she’s finally going to start living all her celebrity-cooking-show-inspired dreams. But a nightmare chef/instructor soon makes Rosie wonder if she has any talent at all.

Henry Yi was raised in his dad’s Chicago restaurant. Cooking is in his blood, and it’s all he wants to do. His mother, however, insists he do more—and gets him extra work from his instructors to prove it. Henry likes Rosie, but between his extra homework, his fear of being an uninspired cook, and Rosie’s growing friendship with famous model/chef Bodie, does he even stand a chance?

This was a sweet tale, in more than one way. First, don’t read this if you’re hungry. The pastry descriptions alone will have you drooling. And this is a clean book, which I appreciated, told from both Henry and Rosie’s point-of-views. Well-written, with quirky and entertaining characters (the secondary characters are a riot), this is a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Stephanie Kate Strohm writes children’s and YA books. Love à la Mode is her newest novel.

(Galley provided by Disney-Hyperion in exchange for an honest review.)

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