Oh. My. God. You guys!

This book, this book was so sweet and amazing I cannot wait to tell you all about it!

I have only read two books by Strohm, but now I want to read all her stories. I cannot believe I've never heard of her before and now I'm obsessed with her writing style.

Well Sthrom did it again. She made me fall in love with one more or her stories in a new and exciting way.

Love a La Mode is such a sweet and loving story that gets  5 blue stars rating in the Then There Were Books review book!

So Love a la Mode follows Rosie and Henry on their journey through the first semester of a cooking program for teenagers in one of the most exciting cities in the world, Paris. They have an amazing meet cute (which I will not tell you about because I want you to read this book!) and from the very beginning you were sort of rooting for them.

At the beginning I thought the story was going to be more like a competition, like you sort of earn your spot here and there is going to be one final winner that gets to have an original recipe cook by the chef on TV and they would be with them or something like that, but I was happy that it is not the case.

This is literally just a normal high school program that happens to have the extracurricular of cooking to become a chef someday soon. It reminded me a little of Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins, but just because it's set in Paris and they are all in high school. But the similarities end there!

Henry and Rosie take us through this exquisite journey where we learn about all sorts of foods and tools and ways to create amazing dishes, I mean I love cooking and making new things, but this story made me want to learn and be a better cook just because of how amazing their passion is shown in every page.

You can feel how much they love what they do and Strohm has a way to capture a teenagers feeling and passion so amazingly well you would think she is a teenager herself.

This is a story about passion, about working hard to become better everyday and about friendship.

I love everything about this story, the friendships that develop and that it wasn't everything all about Rosie and Henry's love story all the time. Yes, both main characters are constantly worried about if the other likes them as much as they liked them (did that make sense?), but we also learn about the other teenagers at the school, their backgrounds, their families, what they like and they don't like.

Love a la Mode is just an amazing contemporary read, with teenagers trying to find their place in the world while living one of the most cultural amazing stories of their lives.It is just a well rounded story.

The only flaw I see?

Bodie Tal!!

I love Bodie and he is just so sweet and charming and gosh I could not help but also root for him even though I knew Henry and Rosie were destined! Bodie is the kind of character that IS THE main character in most other stories, but he wasn't in this one and it pained me to see it, but at the same time it was the cleverest thing ever!

Also, if Henry would just talk to Rosie much of his drama would have been avoided, but they are teens so of course they don't talk about their feelings!

This story is just amazing and I really want you all to read it, it sweet and flavorful and just the perfect feel good romantic story for anyone to read.

Thank you NetGalley for the digital advanced copy. I was interested in this book for its romance and its culinary setting. The innocent romance between Henry and Rosie is perfect for young middle grades. Middle grade readers who are interested in cooking will enjoy the cooking competition especially since it is a current trend in our society. Secondary characters were underdeveloped but overall the book is a nice selection for those moving into romance novels.

As a baker and traveler myself, this hit so many of my happy points as a person. I love the care that Strohm put into describing the food (can we get more foodie YA novels please?). I wish her setting descriptions had been better overall, since the end message of the book hinges on the setting. Unfortunately I didn’t feel as though it was earned.

The characters, Rosie and Henry, were all right. Immature for YA, but round, and somewhat dynamic.

My main issues with Love à la Mode are the secondary characters and the plot. The secondary characters were cardboard cutouts of different ethnicities and/or teenage stereotypes. Henry’s roommate, in particular was a irritating—has the author ever met an ESL speaker from a Nordic country? They don’t say “ , yes?” after every sentence. And the poor guy’s sexuality was a total throw away. It would have been nicer to not just have lip service to representation.

My other main gripe is how contrived the drama is. The issues between Henry and his mother in particular felt completely manufactured—and relied on a cultural stereotype again.

I should probably discuss the cuteness of the love story more—as it was very adorable, but many other reviewers have swooned over it in as many words that I don’t need to necessarily repeat. It was very cute.

Basically, I came for the cute romance story and stayed for the food love :)

I received my ebook copy of Love à la Mode from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

I just love books set in Paris. With food. And an adorable romance to boot. So it will come as no shock that I found this book completely adorkable. Kids who love cooking getting a chance to learn from a master chef in Paris? C'mon! That's too cute to pass up. The characters were so relatable and they formed such amazing friendships and, well, I'm not usually this envious of fictional characters but these kids were living the life and having one heck of an adventure. I do wish some things had been sorted sooner rather than later, but the story was seriously cute regardless.

Love a la Mode is a sweet read. Henry and Rosie are such a great relationship and sweet teenage love. This story is so fun to read and I love how sweet their first love story is. I love the drama that feels so well written. I also recommend not reading this book while your hungry because all of the delicious food descriptions makes you salivate at each page. Definitely would recommend this story to readers.

For the food-loving world, for the Top Chef superfans, and the Foodnetwork enthusiasts who watched every episode of Chopped and have stalked the restaurants where the chefs work. This book does the culinary world justice. Just ignore the "you know it is going to happen" love story and enjoy Paris through the eyes of culinary students who have done their due diligence in studying the great chefs and the recipes, techniques, and preparations that elevate a potato to rockstar status from its humble roots in the dirt. When this book is available, I'm ordering 20 copies. #ARC.
From a writing perspective, the word choice wonderland of this book is the only thing better than getting googly-eyed over brioche or discovering the caramelized outside of a cannelle is hiding a vanilla custardy center. Yum. You'll eat it up faster than an amuse bouche prepared by Thomas Keller.

Anyone who loves food or romance will devour this cake of a book. I loved reading also from a male point of veiw which is rare in ya romance.

Thank net galley for the advance read of this book. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel about a teenage cooking school in Paris. Rosie, the female main character is a baker and Henry is a cool and together they find love in Paris. There were some usual YA book elements like a love trisngle, miscommunication, and the gay roommate. Overall I enjoyed this novel and appreciated that the romance was clean and the teen language was not salty. I would recommend this book.