Reese Camden is hoping that her summer marketing internship at her dream job Friends of Flavor, a popular cooking channel in Seattle, will eventually turn into job in the fall. Her main competition though is Benny Beneventi, who is a charming and very cute culinary intern. When they're thrown together for a video shoot, it goes viral and everyone on the internet is shipping them so naturally their bosses decide to make this a regular segment where they compete onscreen over making dishes. Reese doesn't want to be distracted by a guy but as they spend more time together on and off the camera, it's hard for Reese (and the readers!) to ignore the obvious chemistry between them. The highlight of the story was definitely the adorable progression of their relationship and Benny is just a sweetheart. But the book actually had an unexpected but very honest theme running throughout the entire book when it comes to double standards at the workplace, on the internet, and in high school. Reese's experiences and her commentary will be relatable to a lot of young women and that was another aspect of the book that I thought was done extremely well. But something was missing for me overall and I don't think I can even pinpoint what could've been done differently. I just know that while I liked the book and thought it was cute and smart, I didn't feel totally invested or connected to the characters.

#bookreview Love from Scratch by Kaitlyn Hill

🤔where did ya come from?🤷🏼‍♀️
- I love baking competition books ☺️🤷🏼‍♀️ and received this as an eARC from the publisher (Delacorte Press) via NetGalley. It was published earlier this year, I’m just behind on all my ARCs 🫢

😍the good stuff😍
- Benny is sweet and charming. He’s upfront about his attraction and desire to date Reese, which is refreshing. No games here.
- Baking channel interns leads to Amateur Hour aka interns on screen leads to some amount of fame for interns.

🫢my complaints🤫
- Reese feels like an uptight b**** for most of the book. It’s hard to understand why Benny likes her so much 🤷🏼‍♀️🫢
- The push for feminism and “me too” stories here seemed too forced. It didn’t flow as naturally as it thought it did. Reese is constantly in her head and complaining about this stuff she deals with as a woman. It seemed too over the top for me. I wanted a cute little romance with a healthy side of feminism, but this was a little romance with a huge steak sized portion of the world isn’t fair to Reese.
- Benny was too perfect. He stopped feeling realistic at some point because he basically never did anything wrong.
- Reese just wasn’t very likable.
- The Friends were a big part of the story despite barely being in the story. I would’ve enjoyed a little more of them and a little less whining.
- Benny supposedly being so in the shadow of his brothers and yet he’s just as gorgeous as them. Not believable.

☺️the tropes☺️
- Baking competition. (Sort of. Reese is mostly just in her head about it being a big competition when it’s not really 🤷🏼‍♀️)

⚠️the warnings⚠️
- Misogyny. Lots of misogyny, but it’s all pointed out and whined about copiously. 🤷🏼‍♀️

rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

My Thoughts:

This is the perfect summer, fall break, spring break, or even long weekend read if you want something with food, social media, competition and romance. It's not all sugar and marshmallow fluff, though. The dramatic issues are realistic and timely for the YA reader, but the cute factor still wins.

If you liked the way different characters interacted in the movie The Intern with Robert DeNiro, this is similar with two interns competing for one fall intern slot at a station very similar to the Food Network. What made this stronger was that each of the characters bring their own talents and gifts. They are not both cooks so they are not having to compete for the same thing. Instead, what works is their chemistry and the way they are able to collaborate and be more valuable as a duo. Fun!

From the Publishers:
This summer, Reese Camden is trading sweet tea and Southern hospitality for cold brew and crisp coastal air. She's landed her dream marketing internship at Friends of Flavor, a wildly popular cooking channel in Seattle. The only problem? Benny Beneventi, the relentlessly charming, backwards-baseball-cap-wearing culinary intern—and her main competition for the fall job.

Reese's plan to keep work a No Feelings Zone crumbles like a day-old muffin when she and Benny are thrown together for a video shoot that goes viral, making them the internet's newest ship. Audiences are hungry for more, and their bosses at Friends of Flavor are happy to deliver. Soon Reese and Benny are in an all-out food war, churning homemade ice cream, twisting soft pretzels, breaking eggs in an omelet showdown—while hundreds of thousands of viewers watch.

Author: Katilyn Hill
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication date: April 5, 2022

Rating: 3/5
Warnings: sexism, workplace discrimination, cyberbullying
Steam: Closed Door
Tropes: rivals/enemies to lovers, workplace romance, foodie romance

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Children’s for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Okay, this was super sweet, wholesome and full of all things foodie…a delightful debut from Kaitlyn Hill. I loved that this book discussed workplace sexism and harassment. The cooking show, rivals to lovers, setting was super fascinating as someone who loves all things cooking shows.

This is also a case of, I requested this fully based on cover and not reading that this was a YA romance…I am not a YA girl. There was not too much romance and a lot of focus on heavy topics, which I was not expecting. I also really disliked the miscommunication trope and how it was used in this book.

-Kind of reminded me of The Holiday Swap
-Characters are 18 and up
-Super cute and fun
-Has serious talks too

I LOVED this one. Benny is almost too good to be true, but he is what I would hope men are evolving to become. And the way workplace injustices, sexism, and harassment are handled in this book is outstanding. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to learn about, or show someone else about, some of the issues women have to face. But I would also recommend it to anyone who wants a fun food-based romance!

“I want you to know that I’m on your team. Doesn’t matter what happens with us, or with the job, whatever you need, I’m here. I’m your guy.”

Reese and Benny. Both are interns at a popular cooking channel, but there’s only one spot for the fall semester culinary internship. After a viral video that has gained them attention and audiences, they have a series on the channel called Amateur Hour. Now they’re competing for a permanent job.

This story focuses on a lot of heavy topics like cyberbullying, double standards and sexism. There was a little bit of miscommunication towards the end and I’m still confused on why Reese wanted the fall semester culinary intern position when she doesn’t have any experience with cooking? Overall, it was an entertaining story and I enjoyed the food puns.

🎂READ IF YOU LIKE🎂:
- rivals to lovers
- workplace romance
- food puns
- Seattle setting
- witty banter
- internship competition
- snarky southern girl meets smooth city boy
- sweet tea
- backward baseball cap & one-sided smiles
- culinary reality series web show
- the cutest nicknames (reese’s cup & reese’s pieces!)

cw: sexism, gender stereotypes, double standards, discrimination, cyberbullying, slut shaming, body shaming, misogyny, miscommunication

Thank you to @netgalley and @delacortepress for the advanced copy! Love from Scratch is now available!

My Rating: 3/5 stars

My Review:

I received a digital ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review and a place on this blog tour – thanks, TBR and Beyond Tours!

I was pretty excited going into this book as I have recently discovered a love for books with cooking/baking competitions in them, and this one did not let me down. Though I was hoping for more of a rivals-to-lovers story, I was still happy with Reese and Benny’s cuteness and fluff overload, and I am sure that many will feel the same way. However, this story is a lot deeper than just cute couple competitively cooks, and that was the part that surprised me the most.

Love from Scratch deals with the gendered double standards of the corporate world and of internet fame. Though it does so from the perspective of a middle-class straight white girl, I appreciated that it was self-aware, reminding Reese that there are women of colour at Friends of Flavor who deal with the gendered and racial discrimination in their workplace and on the internet as a whole. I think it would have been nice to see Reese herself have these conversations with these women, instead of through the perspective of the white woman on the show, it was nice to have that included. I have read many books with “strong feminist” main characters like Reese where intersectionality is completely omitted.

Another thing that Love from Scratch does well is in its love interest, *redacted* “Benny” Beneventi. For one, he is a literal cinnamon roll who deserves all the love. BUT more importantly, Hill creates a LI who doesn’t step on Reese’s toes. He takes it upon himself to read about misogyny, listens to what she has to say (which is really the bare minimum) and respects that confrontation is not always the way to handle these situations. I think his character really balanced Reese’s out, allowing her to grow on her own and outside of their relationship, which again is a trend I have noticed in these kinds of stories.

All in all, this book was a fun read. Some things could have been improved on (more well-rounded side characters would have been a nice touch, among other things), but for a debut novel, I am very impressed. I will certainly keep an eye out for what she writes next.

Love from Scratch released April 5th, 2022

Como vocês já sabem, essa resenha é em parceria com a Random House Internacional, de quem recebemos esse eARC (Advance reading copy: algo como “uma cópia de leitura avançada, ou seja, o livro ainda pode sofrer alterações antes de ser publicado). Também lembrando que essa resenha terá um formato diferente: por ser um ARC, não haverão quotes, já como os livros podem sofrer mudanças em seu texto antes de serem comercializados. Gostaríamos de agradecer profundamente a Editora pela oportunidade de parceria.

“Love from Scratch” nos conta a história de Reese (igual a atriz, não o doce, como ela gosta muito de frisar), que está fazendo o estágio dos sonhos dela: desde que foi apresentada ao programa “Friends of Flavour”, tudo que ela mais queria era trabalhar ali, fosse como fosse e então ela conseguiu uma vaga na equipe de marketing, onde ela trabalha cuidando das redes sociais de todo o canal.

Tudo que ela mais espera é conseguir a vaga fixa que virá em alguns meses e ela pensa que está com isso garantido, até conhecer Benny: um estagiário também, mas da cozinha, o qual eles convencem a fazer um episodio especial com ela, os dois participando de um quadro novo de amadores, porque eles estavam sem ter o que gravar naquele dia.

O que ela esperava que fosse algo único, acaba sendo maior: eles dois simplesmente explodem nas redes sociais com várias pessoas querendo mais vídeos e outras várias pessoas comentando sobre a química que existe entre eles, de como eles deviam ser um casal real. E então o canal decide transformar aquele vídeo que era para ser apenas uma grande brincadeira de um dia em algo rotineiro e eles passam a gravar sempre, vários episódios.

Obviamente, com o sucesso, tudo que a empresa mais quer é lucrar e vê uma oportunidade de usar aqueles vídeos onde os dois estão juntos fazendo receitas em uma competição entre eles pela vaga com a qual Reese sempre sonhou – e agora sabe que Benny também quer muito. E, quando tudo que Reese mais queria era distância do garoto no início, agora eles estão cada vez mais próximos e ela está cada vez gostando mais da companhia dele, assim como ele da dela. O que fazer na escolha entre o amor e entre o trabalho? E, afinal, tem que existir uma escolha realmente e eles não podem ter os dois? Isso vocês só vão saber lendo o livro.

Eu confesso que demorei um pouco pra engrenar nessa leitura, estava passando por uma ressaca literária terrível e não conseguia me concentrar, tive que recomeçar ele umas 3 vezes antes de enfim conseguir sentar e ler realmente e quando fiz isso, fiquei feliz por ter feito, porque “Love from Scratch” é um livro bem gostosinho de se ler.

Nós vemos tudo do ponto de vista de Reese, então a gente sabe bem o que se passa na cabeça dela o tempo todo, o que pode ser incomodo em alguns pontos – ela é uma pessoa com certos problemas de confiança, muito bem justificáveis, diga-se de passagem, então ela passa bastante tempo nessa mentalidade de não saber o que fazer, de não saber como confiar em Benny.

O que atrapalha um pouco também é não saber exatamente o que Benny está pensando, digo, ele é um homem. Nós já sabemos que muitos homens têm dificuldade em entender os próprios privilégios e ao passo que ele parece muito que quer aprender e que quer ser uma pessoa melhor e um bom aliado para Reese, ele também peca em muitos momentos justamente porque ele não tem consciência do quão ruins as coisas são.

E esse é justamente um ponto que eu conto a favor do livro: eles não minimizam o fato de que o ambiente de competições culinárias é muito machista em si, ainda mais quando é algo que rola e tem grande parte da internet, tenho certeza que quem já acompanhou pelas redes alguma temporada de Masterchef, por exemplo, já se deparou com homens tendo ações meio deploráveis e quando mulheres faziam a mesma coisa, eram esculachadas e eu achei bem interessante como a autora mostrou bem no livro isso. (Na verdade não acho nem que seja só o ambiente de competição culinária, mas nós mulheres sabemos que em tudo, absolutamente tudo, a mulher é sempre mais questionada do que os homens. Enfim.)

Outra coisa que eu achei muito bem abordada no livro é justamente o que eu disse lá em cima: o motivo de Reese ser desconfiada por coisas que ela passou no colégio, é bem desenvolvido e bem resolvido também. Não é só uma coisinha jogada ali no meio e depois empurrada para o lado como se não tivesse um pingo de importância.

E o final do livro simplesmente me ganhou de vez. Eu adorei a forma como as coisas foram resolvidas, mas isso não posso falar porque seria spoiler! Só o que posso dizer é que se você gosta de uma boa leitura de romance levinho, você não pode deixar “Love from Scratch” passar!

Thanks for the free book, Penguin Random House International.

Love from Scratch has a cute YA story. It was an easy fluff read and falls under the new adult category more than teen / YA. There isn't much in the way of romance, so if you're interested in a "clean" story then this would be for you.

This book had a lot of misogyny where there is a double standard to gender, especially in a workplace environment; and a lot of people can relate to this point because of how egotistical people of higher power could be. But this was a good read. Benny was so cute; he was precious and adorable.

I truly enjoyed reading love from scratch. It was so fun seeing these young interns take on the culinary world and seeing that they come from different backgrounds. I enjoyed the chemistry between Reese and Benny even though Reese tried to deny it for a while. It was great to see Benny encourage Reese to pursue her dreams and also empathize with the struggles she faces as a woman in an environment run by men. Overall throughout the story I am rooting for them as well as laughing with them.

This was so beyond cute! I loved the friendship and romantic relationship that Benny and Reese develop. I love that Benny fell first. This touched upon important conversations about sexism in the workplace, internet bullies and being confident in yourself. I loved the female relationships in this one!

A YA enemies to lovers trope I couldn't get enough of. Very sweet and perfect for this age group. My students will enjoy!

This was a cute + quick YA read. However, not my absolute favorite. I liked this book but I didn’t love it. I don’t particularly like the miscommunication trope either, that’s not my favorite thing to read. But I do know that some people love that!

This is a great book about rivalry and love. I really love the reality tv aspect and how baking really does bring everyone together.

More of a 3.5 ⭐️ read for me.

The 2 main characters were cute. Both fresh out of high school starting an internship at a well know food network. One more focused on design while the other cooking.

Reese who who hear her point of view the entire time just wasn’t my favorite character. She continuously talked about how everything was against her and the constant pressure of the female role in todays society. This is something I understand and can relate to, it just wasn’t something I wanted as a big focus throughout the book. I just felt like she complained the entire time versus enjoying her time being off in the real world for the first time.

I did enjoy how it ended and how she got the perspective from another female co star on the show. I think that’s something that should of happened much sooner in the story.

Overall, not a bad read. But also not one of my favorites.

I originally got this book as an ARC through NetGallery. Thanks!

This was one of the cutest YA romances I’ve read. The premise is unique and the way topics like cyber bullying and harassment were covered was tactfully done.
Personally, I would usually wish there’d be more “meat” to the couple’s relationship, but as a more YA book I think it was perfect.

I am obsessed with food-themed rom-coms, but this one just missed the mark for me. I really dislike the miscommunication trope, and the way it was used in this story just made me angry.

E-ARC provided in exchange of an honest review:
3*
Pros: Sweet and wholesome. Set in the world of culinary entertainment channels, which as a massive fan, was definitely a plus to read about. Cute dates and gold-hearted main characters.
.
Cons: Dialogue style not natural for young adults. Slow pacing. Forced feminism in male characters.